Calliope shakes her head, hair fluttering around her like a dark angel. Alright, it’s impossible not to see the resemblance to Penelope. “I’m saving myself for Blinklebob 3.”
“Oh seriously?” Steve asks. “My uncle works in the industry, he invited me to an advanced screening of that next month.”
Calliope slams her beer down on the bar. “Are you serious?” she gathers Steve’s shirt in her fist.
“Yeah,” he says, voice shaky.
“You’re taking me!” Calliope announces.
“Uh, sure?” Steve looks confused.
“Blinklebob 2 was a cinematic masterpiece?—”
“Wait.” I hold a hand up. “You like the Blinkleblob movie?” I didn’t even realize they had already made a sequel.
“Blinklebob,” Calliope corrects. Then nods. Fervently. “It’s my guilty pleasure. I watch themironically.” I’m pretty sure those two sentences contradict each other, but I don’t protest because this is too funny. Calliope, tattoo artist who regularly goes to sex clubs, is interested—nay, desperate—to see sequel (#2!) to a live action adaptation of a video game armadillo.
“Ruby,” she snipes me. “You should come too!”
Blinklebob represents everything I despise in the world: foregoing new I.P. in favor of live action adaptations no oneasked for, video games, and the disgusting gratuity of today’s special effects. Not even the Be Yourself List can get me into a theater with that cursed CGI armadillo.
“I wish I could,” I effuse, “but I already scheduled a wax.”
Calliope narrows her eyes. “You don’t even know the date yet.”
Abort!“Hmm?” I go non-verbal, tune my ears to listen for anyone who could conceivably be calling my name?—
Like the devil herself summoned him, Eitan’s giraffe-like neck swoops into our conversation. “What did you say?”
“Ruby and I were just making plans to see an advanced screening of Blinklebob 3,” Calliope says, a little too matter-of-factly for my taste.
“No, we—” I interject, but Calliope’s on a warpath.
“You should come too!”
Steve’s jaw clenches at the change in guy-girl ratio of this nascent plan.
Eitan has that deer-in-headlights surprise look to him. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a Blinklebob fan, Ruby.” He’s teasing me. I don’t like the way he says my name. It’s like it’s dripping in honey and also emitting smoke. What’s the best way to ask someone to, disrespectfully, keep your name out of their mouth?
I observe my shoes very closely. “Well, there’s a lot you don’t know about me,” I mutter, purely out of self preservation. I hold back from shouting at this entire bar that Ihatethe idea of seeing that movie.
“Is that so?” Eitan faces Calliope but leans into my personal space as he says, “Well then, count me in.”
My eyes shoot up. “Buh?—”
Calliope jumps up and down. “This is so exciting! You can get four tickets right?” She asks Steve while sucking on herstraw rather…seductively. Steve nods quickly, eyes drifting with jealousy to that straw.
I sense, rather than see, Eitan’s body turn toward me and lean against the bar. He watches me, amused.
“Can I help you?” I squint at him.
“You’re just funny. That’s all.” His eyes are sparkling in the low light. Wait, does he think there’s something happening here? Maybe he’s one of those guys who gets off on being negged. Maybe he thinks my distaste for him is a form of foreplay.
“I’m gonna stop you right there, partner.” I pat his arm. “I know you might mistake something like this for flirting.” He raises an eyebrow. “But I can assure you, I have no interest in” —I gesture at him up and down— “this.”
Eitan leans in hatefully close and whispers directly in my ear, “Ruby, if I were flirting with you, you’d know.” He pulls back, meets my eye, and winks.
Oh, this man and his winking. Diabolical. My hands squeeze my empty glass so tight my knuckles go white.
