Chapter 5

totally frustrated by how the playoffs are going & I think it shows...

 I had never planned on staying in Buffalo. I’d kind of planned on backpacking in Europe or learning to surf in Australia. I should have stuck with those plans but he gave me an easy and free way out of the city. I agreed to try it, for a while, with a few conditions. 

After I‘d found out why his friends had all been sniggering behind their hands all summer, that Pat with the muscles and the all American frat boy grin was no co-ed, but was actually a big deal he thought I’d be impressed. Instead I was pissed. What I knew about hockey you could put in a thimble but that didn’t make me feel any happier about being lied to all summer. So there were going to be some ground rules, like I was going to get a job and pay rent. 

I had no idea why that made him laugh until we got to the windy city, into his big white Chevrolet SUV and into the traffic, until I had to look up, waaay up, at the glass and steel buildings that seemed to kiss the sky.  We drove along the river, past shops and restaurants and then into the underground parking of a skyscraper with a river view. 

The place I’d offered to pay rent on was a huge, swanky bachelor pad with all the toys, including a fucking brass pole at the end of his king sized bed. 

“Seriously?” I narrowed my gaze at him. He shrugged, a smirk on his face that, although I was now used to it, seemed to be begging to be slapped off his face. 

“Oh c’mon, it’s just for fun,” he replied seriously. When I didn’t smile he smirked. “It’s supposed to be a good workout?” With a roll of my eyes I opened the closet doors and found a walk in that was bigger than my entire apartment back home.

An enormous closet is every girl’s dream, except this one was filled with designer suits and a ball cap collection that I’d be willing to bet good money would rival that of any rapper’s. The shelves were stacked with t-shirts, jeans and shorts. Not that my meagre suitcase of clothes required much room, but there was hardly any to spare but the first ‘empty’ drawer I found wasn’t really empty. 

I pulled out a leopard print thong by my fingernails and turned, accusingly, towards him. 

“Must be Jessie’s,” he shrugged, as if that could be the only explanation. I tried to imagine his sister wearing the skimpy underthing. I couldn’t. On the other hand, I thought as I stood there with the tiny piece of fabric hanging from the end of my index finger, I couldn’t exactly rule out that possibility. He was close to his family, that much I’d been able to figure out as soon as I’d seen them together. There was no doubt his sisters would stay here when they came to visit and everyone has a wild side. “C’mon, drop your stuff, let’s go for dinner,” he suggested, one hand on the small of my back and the other reaching for the offending piece of fabric.

I let him take it from me and I let him lead me out of the room with the brass pole without starting another argument. There was a voice at the back of my head that I did my best to ignore that warned me that I was letting all female kind down by letting it go so easy but it wasn’t like I could just leave. I was in a strange, big city and he was the only person I knew. 

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“Patrick, so good to see you again.” 

The blonde bombshell at the front of the restaurant practically fell over herself to greet me. I smiled and thanked her and tried to remember if I’d ever tapped that. I was pretty sure by the way she let her hand linger on my arm when she told us our server would be with us soon that I had. When she gave me a wink over the top of Beth’s head I was pretty sure I had. 

Had Beth noticed? I was pretty much certain she had because she picked up the menu right away and refused to look at me, or the waitress who came to the table and pretty much ignored Beth altogether. She sat on the corner of the table, turned her back on her and chewed on the end of her pen and grinned at me like she was picturing me standing at the end of the aisle. I never assume that girls are picturing me naked like they do when they look at Tazer.  Most of the time I think they’re just imagining my pay-check. Ninety percent of the time I don’t care, except Beth had never looked at me like that. Even now that she’d finally seen my place, I knew she still wouldn’t just automatically order the most expensive shit on the menu. 

“Do you think that’s sanitary, your panty hamster on the table?” I almost spit water right at her when she said it, but I managed not to, but only just. The waitress, in her tiny black skirt, narrowed her eyes at Beth who returned her gaze with equal hostility. With a roll of her eyes and a toss of obviously fake red curls the waitress slid off the table. 

“I guess you want something to eat?” Beth raised an eyebrow and closed her menu with a loud snapping sound.

“Not here. I think I’d rather eat somewhere people have manners. In fact, I think I saw a McDonalds down the street,” she added, pushing her chair back and folding the white linen napkin before dropping it onto the gold charger on the table. “Coming?” she asked, looking directly at me with a look in her eyes that made it crystal fucking clear that she was leaving, with or without me. 

“I guess we’re going,” I said, maybe too apologetically to the waitress who was now smirking at Beth. She turned to me and the smirk disappeared, replaced by one of those looks that Sharpie calls ‘the come hither’. Whatever the fuck that means.

“Oh, don’t go,” she purred, reaching out and laying her hand on my arm. They always do that when they want me. I don’t know much about chicks but that much I’ve figured out. 

For just a moment I hesitated, mesmerized by the way her white shirt gaped just a little across her chest so you could see just a hint of black lace bra underneath and milky white skin. I like women, all women. I don’t really have a preference for dark or light meat or blondes or brunettes. I just like them all. 

“Yeah, I guess we have to,” I told her, dragging my attention away from her chest long enough to pull my wallet out and dig out a five. “Sorry about that,” I told her, not that I meant it. She pouted in that whole bottom lip quivering sort of way and batted her eyelashes at me. 

“Don’t you even want my number?” she asked in this little girl Marilyn Monroe voice that girls think is sexy and I guess it can be, sometimes.

“No thanks,” I said and meant it and turned to go after Beth who was already heading out onto the street.

“Jesus why didn’t you just hump her right there on the table!” she hissed at me like a snake when I fell into step beside her. 

“I didn’t want to,” I told her, almost honestly. There had been a minute there when I’d pictured it but it went away pretty quickly. I grabbed Beth’s arm, maybe harder than I’d meant to, and spun her to face me. “All I can pretty much picture is fucking you right now.” That I meant and when she looked me full in the face she knew I meant it too. “This was a mistake. Let’s order in.” 

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It felt dishonest, sneaky even, as I looked down at his boyish features that were turned towards the wall and I listened to his slow, even breaths to be sure he was sleeping deeply enough. I watched for a few minutes until I had satisfied myself that he was deep in dreamland before I slipped from beneath the covers and headed out on my scouting mission. 

Finding the leopard print panties had been one thing but whole theatrics with the waitress had been humiliating but worse than that, it had convinced me that I didn’t know nearly enough about Pat. Getting my Miss Marpole on, I headed for bathroom. 

I wasn’t surprised by the varied boxes of condoms I found there. After all, a young, red blooded male had a right to a healthy sex life....

So if I thought that why was I sleuthing in the middle of the night? What I wanted to find was evidence that he hadn’t lied about the thong, that his sisters spent enough time here to leave behind what every girl needs when she stays for the weekend; tampons, deodorant, hair product. 

The first drawer I opened had a first aid kit with only some band-aids missing and that stuff you spray on burns. The second drawer had some rolled up tensor bandages, about a dozen bottles of Axe body spray and about a dozen bars of unopened ivory soap. There wasn’t much under the sink, just the usual unopened rolls of toilet paper, some cleaning stuff and the plunger. 

The medicine cabinet had all kinds of expensive colognes, most of which seemed to be full which explained the body sprays, and the usual aspirin, Tylenol, Claritin and a bottle of Tums, mostly full. There was no Midol, or Pamprin or any of those essentially female pain killers. 

There were only two drawers left on the other side of the sink and the first was almost empty, like it was waiting to be filled with my make up bag, hair brushes and dozens of bottles of nail polish. But it wasn’t entirely empty. Shoved towards the back were two pairs of panties; one red lace, the other a white cotton bikini style. I didn’t have to do the sniff test to know they hadn’t been cleaned and put there; they were crusty and stuck together and I tossed them in the waste basket beside the toilet and slammed the drawer shut. 

Even telling myself that I wasn’t being strictly fair by being angry at him, that it wasn’t like I was some kind of virgin myself, but it pissed me off to know that he was that lackadaisical about these women that he’d just shove their things into the back of a drawer. It made me wonder when my things be dealt with in the same manner. It was disrespectful. 

It was tacky. 

Taking a deep breath I pulled open the second, and last, drawer. Again, it was nearly empty, but not completely so. There was a single hoop earring, the cheap and over sized kind that girls where to clubs. I ran my hand to the back of the drawer but couldn’t find its mate. 

These things didn’t belong to his sisters. If they had, the earring would have been returned, would even now be in some jewellery box with its matching twin. I tossed that earring in the trash with the panties and turned to the shower. I cranked the hot water on and stepped inside.

Who were these girls who had done the walk of shame from his apartment without their panties, with only one earring?  How could he have sent them out into the world like that? How could he be so crass?

I let the hot water run over me, scalding my skin and tried my best to loofah away the feeling of him grunting and groaning over me. I’d made a mistake coming here. I’d made a mistake thinking he was someone I could trust. I’d let his sisters warmth and his mother’s smile lull me into thinking he was someone other than that overly cocky college boy I’d known he was. 

Now I just had to figure out how to get myself out of here.