Just So You Know

[brian_campo]

Nimble fingers popped quarters into a payphone. The segmented cord creaked as Maddy propped the receiver against her cheek. She leaned as far into the stall as possible, plugging her open ear. The club was crowded and noisy; she could barely hear the dial tone or the voice on the other end, a distracted ‘hello?’

“Brian! It’s Maddy!” she shouted.

His eardrum vibrated under the sonic assault and he asked, “Yeah, where the fuck are you?”

“The Funhouse.” She touched a piece of chewed gum and recoiled, wiping her palm on her jeans.

Brian frowned. “Really? Why?” It didn’t seem like her kind of place; Maddy was into the kind of punk-rock dump where a girl could take off her top and nobody got arrested. “Is it dollar shots or something?”

“No, I’m meeting Melody. We just got off work. This is probably the only place on the planet where her vocal talents can be appreciated. Listen, I just saw Valerie. I thought you might wanna know. Didn't you say you tanked your phone message?” Maddy craned her neck and saw the blonde was still near the bar. The silence has stretched on too long, so she said, “Brian?”

He was pacing his cramped living room. There was a potato chip on the floor and he crushed it under his shoe by accident. Shit. “Did you talk to her?”

Maddy snorted. “No, she’d probably punch me.”

“What? Why?” Brian had that feeling he often got with Maddy, like there was an inside joke he was too dense to get.

“Nothing, never mind. Just come out, okay?” Maddy turned back into the pay phone, her fingers tracing the buttons. “You know you want to. So sack up.” Maybe it was concern for Brian making her push the issue, or maybe it was guilt: in her opinion, that relationship was a casualty of the domino effect. If she’d handled the conversation with Valerie better, then maybe the blonde wouldn’t have been so upset when she landed on Brian’s doorstep, and maybe Brian would’ve seen the situation more clearly.

“Yeah, okay.” He was already stalking the room in search of a clean shirt.

“Atta boy, little bro.” Maddy hung up. The quarter plunked into the depths and she squeezed into the crowd, hoping to find Melody before she got felt up by a body builder or propositioned by a sleazy investment banker.

Brian frowned and hung up. Little brother, another of those inside jokes he didn’t get. He tore through his apartment looking for keys, his wallet, a folded piece of paper, cursing under his breath when he tripped on an extension cord. He was out the door in three minutes.

[Thread]

Comments

[valerie_vause]

The sound of his voice brought Valerie back, and she broke away from his arm with a chaste kiss to the skin she’d just adorned with attention. Green eyes searched his gaze for a good few seconds, checking, making sure that what he said he truly meant. She’d been honest that day, confused considerably about a lot, but honest with him that he was the only man she wanted. The only one that made her feel like running off into the sunset with him even though she knew deep down that she couldn’t. The chance to be something together, the potential to be bound by vows and simple circles of metal. The car, the kids, the house. If she shut her eyes she could picture it, like a mirage on the horizon, promising what her destiny couldn’t possibly fulfill.

Yes, it conflicted with other desires, but they were fleeting and he was a constant. They were the equivalent of dining at a new restaurant with a questionable menu while he was the five star chef constantly offering her palate refreshing surprises. She could live without one of them, just not him. It terrified her to know she’d run off with Brian if he asked, but she was young and he made her feel alive. He made the impossible feel possible, and maybe it made her a little emotionally erratic and overwhelmed but wasn’t that the point? Didn’t love make you crazy? And wasn’t she, even just a little bit, just that? Emotions may never make much sense to the blonde but her instinct had never let her down.

Instinct compelled her to listen to his words as if he were on his death bed. She absorbed them with an almost sobering clarity and nodded in return. Valerie couldn’t promise forever's. She couldn’t promise that she wouldn’t panic. That her emotions might fluctuate and she’d flounder, but she could promise him honesty. “No secrets.” She repeated with determination. “I can do that. We can do that.” Because if he was willing to accept her, all of her, dark and light, serious and flaky, then he deserved nothing less. “I’m not always going to know what I need, but I will always be honest with you. No hiding, not from you.” And she meant it with every fiber of her being.

Valerie felt her heart swell as her insides threatened to turn to mush. The L word had caused immense panic, and it probably would again, but the fact that Brian made an effort to tone it down only made her feel more for him. Strange as it might sound the blonde only feared it because it was like a reflection, and she wasn’t ready to embrace it, because to embrace it would be to ultimately deny the fantasy of what they could be when she had to settle for what they weren’t. The fuzzy warm feelings shifted to a more moderate blaze with his next words, and the way he pulled her up onto her tiptoes left her feeling as light as a feather.

Whether it was inappropriate or not for a dance-floor, Valerie bounced on her toes and shifted her hands up to his shoulders to wrap her legs around his waist. Everyone else be damned, she wanted to be face to face with him, feel his breath mingle with hers as she looked into his eyes. “Is that so?” She asked over the music, lips just shy of grazing his as her hips shifted slightly against him so that she could cross her ankles. The tips of her fingers wove into the short hairs at the base of his neck and she scratched her nails lightly against the skin.

[brian_campo]

A grunt escaped him as she climbed on, a sound that had nothing to do with her weight. Brian really didn’t care who stared. His hands were all over her. “I’d say it’s a promise but it’s more like fair warning,” he said, having to shout over the noise of the crowd when the disc jockey remixed the song. It was too dark in the club to see the color of her eyes, but he was close enough to see the patterns of her irises.

“I want to kiss you really bad.” Brian shook his head. “So I’m going to.” He leaned in and captured her mouth, and his hands squeezed her tighter. The taste of her made his mouth water and he found himself leaning back so that her weight was pressing down on him. He hadn’t quite processed yet that this was happening; maybe it was the jack and coke mellowing him out, or the sneaking suspicion he was asleep and dreaming all this up, but he wanted that weight. It felt incredible. It made it real.

For the first time in forever, he felt right with the world. Someone jostled them and he took a step to the side, but he didn’t lose his grip on her. They were the one motionless part of a very crowded and fluid room, standing as still as a sentry.