Most people I met would consider me an ice queen. “Bitch”, if you will. Considering all my female friends in high school were bitches and better than all the men they dated combined, I didn’t really mind the comparison.
I was not an ice queen, however, when someone got under my skin. In fact, I turned pathetic real fast, something Josh could attest to.
“Why are you smiling at your phone?” Josh asked over our dinner of some buffalo wings he’d cooked up seemingly out of nowhere. I was a shitty cook, but Josh really took to the kitchen. When I was too poor to afford to eat out, I’d crawl over to Josh’s for something delicious.
“Memes,” I replied.
“Yeah, which one?” Josh leaned over the table and tried to get a good look at my phone. I pulled it away a second too late, and Josh blurted out a surprised laugh. “Who are you texting, huh?”
“None of your business. Leave me alone.”
“Awww, come on. Tell me.”
“No. You have buffalo sauce all over your mouth, by the way.”
Josh wiped his face but wouldn’t drop the subject. “Since when do you smile at your phone, huh? Usually you’re all…” Josh made the most exaggerated grumpy face imaginable. “Because you hate fun and everything.”
I decided there wasn’t much point to fighting him about this, partially because I actually did want to talk to someone about it. “I’ve been hanging out with this guy.”
“I’m shocked. Continue.”
“And we had sex a few nights ago.”
“You have sex with everyone, Justin.”
“Not everyone, geez. But this sex was different. I stayed the whole night and it wasn’t even that awkward the next morning. And he’s really sweet.”
Josh didn’t look impressed, probably because he knew the kind of guys I went for, and no matter how much I swore up and down that they were gentle little kittens, two months later I’d be sobbing into Josh’s shirt and complaining about their cruelty.
“I’m serious. You’ve met him.”
“I have?”
“Briefly. ‘Member when we went to that concert with Sven? And we met the dudes in the back alley to chill with some beers?”
Josh squinted into the distance, as if he had such a vibrant social life to filter through. “Oh yeah, I think I remember that. Was it one of the super hot twins?”
“No. It was the drummer. Peaches.”
“It’s all coming back to me now.” Josh stroked his chin, leaving trails of buffalo wing sauce across it. “Wait, that guy? He’s gay?”
“Apparently.”
“Huh. Well, hopefully he’s not as weird as his name.”
“He’s not. He’s super normal, just quiet.”
“Quiet? Since when do you date quiet people? I thought ‘loud belligerent asshole’ was a requirement?”
“Haha, very funny.”
“So you gonna start dating him or what? You’ve already reached the ‘smiling at your phone’ level of your relationship, which is high up there, since smiling is such a chore for you.”
“I mean, maybe? He just broke up with this beautiful blond whose body was way better than mine, so he may need some time to get over that.”
“So you’re going to go slow.”
“I think so.”
Josh snorted. “Justin. Going slow. Okay.”
“I can go slow, Josh.”
“How long did it take you to blow him? Five minutes?”
“I am capable of restraint.”
Josh rolled his eyes. “Believe that when I see it.”
“Josh.” I frowned, because while I realized he had every right to make assumptions, I really wanted to do this thing with Peaches right. No rushing in, no falling head over heels, no explosive ending where I got super drunk and yelled at him from across the street until someone called the cops. As I came into adulthood, I wanted to be more responsible. I wanted to be better. Like how it had been with Josh.
Josh threw up his hands in a helpless gesture. “Hey. Not trying to be a dick. Just telling it like it is.”
“I did not blow him in five minutes. We hung out a few times before we had sex. And I didn’t fuck it up, because he’s returned all my texts so far. We’re going to hang out tomorrow a bit.”
For once, Josh did not provide a sarcastic reply but instead nodded. “Sounds great. I’m rooting for you.”
“I know I’m shitty at this sort of thing, but I want to try.”
Josh’s expression softened at the vulnerability in my voice. “Not everyone wants to use you and toss you out. Some people actually treat others with respect. Maybe eventually you’ll figure that out.”
Maybe. We would see.
***
Thus began my tentative friendship/fuck buddy/pre-relationship with Peaches. It was never really properly defined because I was afraid to push too hard, and Peaches never seemed ready to make anything official. Whenever I pushed a little harder than usual, he’d pull the whole “it’s not fair to you” thing because he still had feelings for his ex, and I pretended to be understanding and okay with that.
I was not okay with that.
In fact, I really fucking hated it.
It was one thing to come in second to someone who was on your level, but the more I learned about Eddie, the more he became the peerless Golden Boy that I could never compare to. I hadn’t yet met him since our first introduction after the Pugnacious set, but I heard people talk about him. One time I stopped by Peaches’s place and found fucking apple pie there with the note Made too much. :) Who made too much pie? Who? It wasn’t signed, but I just had this feeling like it was Eddie’s handiwork, and when Oliver walked in he confirmed it.
“Yeah, he gave that to me last night,” Oliver said, “when I was at the bar. You know he’s a bartender, right? My brother and I are there all the time.”
It wasn’t the job I would have picked for someone who made pie with cute little notes attached, but I was at least glad that it was a somewhat normal job and nothing glamorous that could make me even more jealous.
“He bakes a lot,” Oliver continued, oblivious to my discomfort. “Cooks, bakes, does all that housewifey shit. He’s fucking weird, man.”
Since Peaches had dashed out to get some beer from the booze shop down the block, I had a whole ten minutes alone with Oliver to grill him about the person that Peaches never wanted to talk about but who kept being used as a reason I couldn’t get closer. So I took advantage.
“How long had he and Peaches been together?”
Oliver shrugged as he started to cut the pie into four pieces. “Fuck if I know. Feels like forever. Eddie really helped Peaches out, got him off the streets and taught him stuff. I let him stay in my apartment, but Eddie got all pissed when he realized I wasn’t teaching him things.”
“Like what?”
“Like how to do laundry and shit. How was I supposed to know he didn’t know how to wash his own damn clothes? Apparently being homeless and living in a foster home with fake parents who barely remember your name doesn’t do much for your self-sufficiency. He couldn’t do anything and he’s so damn quiet that he won’t ask for help. So then Eddie chewed out my ass for not babysitting him appropriately.” Oliver used his fingers to pry apart his pie piece and then tried to hold it together when he took a bite. “That’s Eddie’s thing, you know. He’s gotta mother everyone. Sometimes it’s great.” Oliver gestures to the pie in his hand. “But, like, I’m a grown ass man. I don’t need a mom. Peaches, though… Peaches has the patience for that. I’m an independent person who likes doing what I want, and no one is going to tell me otherwise. But Peaches likes having direction and being told what to do. He tells me it makes him less anxious.” Oliver shrugged. “Whatever works, I guess.”
I tried to remember my brief interaction with Eddie from before. That glimpse into his personality had shown someone who was accustomed to issuing orders and having them followed, and I hated to think that Peaches just bowed his head and said “yes, sir” to that shit. He seemed plenty capable of independence with me, even though he always deferred to my preference on where or when we hung out.
“Don’t get me wrong, I love Eddie. He’s like that annoying sibling who you can only spend about twenty minutes around but who you’d risk your fucking life for. He’s a super good person. Just… really intense. And I think Peaches got so used to someone riding his ass all the time that now he’s got some kind of withdrawal. Like he doesn’t know what to do with himself now that Eddie’s not there telling him what to do.”
“How would I compare?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“I can spend more than twenty minutes with you,” Oliver replied.
“Oh. Great.”
“Pie?” Oliver asked.
“No thanks.” I didn’t want to eat the pie, enjoy it, and hate Eddie even more. He sounded a bit like a nightmare to me, especially when compared beside my memory of him snapping at Peaches for something as dumb as putting away an amp by himself. I imagined someone controlling and heavy-handed, someone who flew off the handle whenever he was defied. I began to construct Eddie’s personality from these gathered bits so that I could better understand what Oliver called Peaches’s “withdrawal”. Perhaps I could fill in some of that void. Oliver described Eddie as intense, and I’d been called the same, albeit for different reasons. I wasn’t bossy or controlling, and no one would ever accuse me of mothering anyone. Mostly my flaws emerged most starkly when I drank, and if I only nursed a beer or two around Peaches, then I could pretend that I was perfectly appropriate.
Peaches entered the apartment again, and so Oliver’s focus drifted away from Eddie and to the beer Peaches carried. Mine remained riveted.
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