“I don’t get it.” The blonde blinks at Elias with big doe eyes.
He smirks at her. “Try it, babe.”
She does, slowly, exaggerating every movement, and Elias’s eyes darken, his grin turning deadly. Wow. She’s good.
I clear my throat. “Let it be known, everyone, that Josue was TEN-YEARS-OLD?—”
“—and all of his other ten-year-old buddies are gathered around the two of them, cracking the fuck up. And Mia’s face was as red as it is right now,” Elias finishes, sending Leo into another fit of giggles.
“Meems, Elias and I were the same exact way when we were ten,” Leo tells me in between laughs. “That’s just normal ten-year-old boy behavior.”
“Well, I thought it was incredibly inappropriate then, and I think it’s incredibly inappropriate now,” I mutter.
“Honestly, it’s mostly funny because Meems is so fucking good at her job. It’s epic to see her slip up once in a while,” Elias says, eyes sparkling down at me.
I think back to the summer Leo and Elias turned ten, a little over twenty years ago, when we lived next door to one another in Princeton, New Jersey. That was around the age our little cohesive unit of three started to diverge, becoming Leo-and-Elias, with me on the outside. And to be honest, that was largely because that was the age in which they were unable, or unwilling, to share their newfound sexual-slash-potty-related humor with seven-year-old me.
That was also the summer, I believe, that we all watched The Little Rascals for the first time. Afterwards, the two of them promptly hung up a “He-Man Womun Haters Club” sign on the treehouse in the woods behind our houses. I threw a fit. In typical Leo fashion, Leo ignored me. In typical Elias fashion, Elias wrote an addendum to the sign. “Meems is allowed on Saturdays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays”.
Annoyed now, I harness the energy of all He-Man Womun Haters around the world, eating their hatred for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and two snacks, and march my little butt over to Hot Guy on the Other Side of the Bar That I’ve Been Trying to Approach for Now Thirty-Five Minutes.
However, because this is the worst day of my life, he is even more beautiful up close. He smiles on my walk over, and in the back of my mind I wonder what the fuck this gorgeous hunk of angsty emo deliciousness in a t-shirt is doing in a bar in the middle of the Jersey Shore. Naturally, I trip over the corner of a mat on the way over.
“H-hi,” I stutter at him, a question rather than a statement, allergic to eye contact and staring at the bar in front of him as if the wood grain is a Rorschach that holds all the secrets of the universe. Like perhaps, the secret to talking to hot men without wanting to curl up into a ball and perish quietly and peacefully under the shadows of said bar. My face gets hot. I wish at this moment that my straight blonde hair also held expertly crafted waves, and that maybe my shirt was a little more low cut.
Our eyes finally meet, but he gives me nothing. Men with blue eyes don’t deserve to have long, thick, dark lashes framing them, and yet here we are. “Hey. What’s up?”
I was wondering if we could please have sex, is what I think.I grunt at him instead, flailing to come up with an appropriate response. I should’ve had a game plan before coming over here. But it doesn’t matter, because he’s already lost interest, already looking at the Beach Wave Blonde across the bar—the one with Elias.
Gritting my teeth, I finally come up with a really sexy question. “Can I get you a drink?” I mumble brilliantly.
He doesn’t answer.
Whatever, fucker.I start to turn away.I’ve only dedicated thirty-eight minutes of my summer to you.
“Hey,” he says, from behind me.
My heart jumps, hopeful. I turn back.
“Do you know that woman over there?”
She has one muscular Pilates arm wrapped around Elias’s waist, a finger looped in his belt loop. I look back over at Unfortunately Hot Emo Man and raise an eyebrow. “Really?”
He doesn’t blink. “Do you know her name?”
“No.” I cross my arms.
He cut his eyes back to me, looks me up and down, and I can see the moment he registers that I, too, am a blonde with reasonably large boobs. He smiles, my panties light on fire, and it’s suddenly totally fine that I was initially dismissed for Better Looking Blonde.
“Could I have your name instead?” he grins at me.
“Mia,” I hope I say.Second best blonde in the bar.
“Mia, will you take a shot with me?” the hot stranger asks me now.
Vaguely, I wonder when the last time I had sex was and if it matters more than my dignity.
“I don’t know if it would be a good idea for me to have shots right now,” I murmur.It’s been two years, my outraged vagina screams for mercy, but luckily the man gives me a second chance.
