Page 39 of Dirty News
The cab ride to my place didn’t take long, and I saw a smile fill her face once we got inside my apartment and I didn’t press her up against the door immediately. That seemed to be our usual routine every time we were alone—up against the wall, our mouths fused together withinseconds.
Pointing to the sofa, I said, “You turn on the television and pick out a movie. I’ll grab us a couple of beers. Take your shoes off and relax. I’ll be rightback.”
Going to the kitchen, I stood there for a moment to groundmyself.
No sex, just show the girl a nice time. Show her that you care and that this is worthsaving.
ChapterNineteen
Lila
Duke was true to his word. We cuddled on the sofa, watching an action movie and sipping on a couple of beers while munching on popcorn. He took me home, kissing me at the front door of the bed and breakfast. It did feel like a real date, and it gave us the chance to get to know one another a littlebetter.
I learned that he was the oldest of three children. He had a younger brother named Jake, and the baby of their family was a girl named Jana. His parents had been married since college, and they lived in a small town in Louisiana called Denim Springs. He’d gone to LSU, majoring in journalism, though football had always been his toppriority.
Duke had had only one goal in college, and that was to get on a professional football team. He’d achieved that goal, being drafted as soon as hegraduated.
He’d been in New York since he was my age, 22. Ten years, he’d been in this city, and he had no intentions of leaving it anytime soon. Though he did say that he’d like to get a house someday, with a yard, in a nice neighborhood, and stop living the apartmentlife.
He’d like to have backyard barbeques, and he’d get a dog too, he said. He’d had one when he was growing up. Spike had been the only dog their family had ever owned, but he’d lived to be fifteen years old—pretty old for a dog, according to Duke. The mutt had been a great protector, and Duke missed him a lot attimes.
I let Duke in on some of my life too. Told him about my family and how my parents had been married young, just out of high school. Dad went to college while Mom went to work as a secretary for her father’s firm. When they were 25, they had Lonnie, my brother. A few years later they had twins, me and my sister,Lilly.
Duke asked me if we were identical twins, and when I told him we were, he asked if we looked exactly alike now. To which I also said yes, and he seemed much too intrigued by that. I gave him a jealous little pout and he laughed at me for being worried aboutthat.
Even though the night was great, it didn’t fix a damn thing. We still had to hide things fromeveryone.
Nina and I had met up to eat lunch the day after our “first date,” as Duke called it. I was bouncing some things off her to see where they landed. “If you worked in a place that didn’t have this strict no-dating policy, do you think it would okay to have a relationship with someone you work with?” I askedher.
Chewing on her slice of pepperoni pizza, she pondered the question before answering. “I’ve actually been thinking about that lately, and no. I don’t think it’s okay to date someone you work with. Not for any moral or ethical reasons, but because the eventual breakup would make things difficult in the end. Or even think about the occasional arguments that all couples have—those are definitely not a thing I’d want to force my coworkers to dealwith.”
I hadn’t really thought about those things. If Duke and I were in a relationship and had an argument about something, we probably wouldn’t be able to do a very good job as co-anchors. And what about if we ever did break up? That would make it incredibly hard to sit next to him everyday.
“Yeah, you’re right,” I agreed as I dipped one of my fries in someketchup.
Nina’s eyes went into a dreamy state. “But it is hard not to notice your coworkers sometimes. How handsome they are. How nice they are. How perfect for you they’d be if you didn’t work at the sameplace.”
“Hmm, sounds like you’re speaking from experience. Are you?” Iasked.
She nodded. “I had a job when I was in high school. A fast food place with a hot manager who had the hots for me, too. It was cool for a while. I’d do my job, he’d do his. And every so often, after closing, of course, we’d get naked and nasty in his office, on his littledesk.”
“Was he a lot older than you, Nina?” I had to ask because he was her manager, after all, and she’d said she’d been in highschool.
“Only by a year. Fast food places almost always have kids who are fresh out of high school in managerial positions. The pay sucks, and not many grown adults can make a living doing it.” She sighed, and I imagined she must be picturing the guy in her head. “I thought we were in love, Paul and me. But one day Paul hired Martha Stone. Martha had bigger tits than I did, and she had a bit of a slutty side to her that Paul liked. One day I found them in the walk-in cooler together, makingout.”
“Crap.” I thought about how I’d react right now if I saw Duke kissing another woman. I’d probably have ameltdown.
That thought told me I was in deeper than I was allowing myself to believe. You couldn’t be jealous if you didn’t have feelings forsomeone.
“When I saw them together, he ran after me, trying to explain things. I stopped to see what he had to say to me, but all he said was that I needed to be mature about things. And that we were over, and he was going to be with Martha.” She shook her head as if shaking away the terriblememory.
“And so work became awkward, huh?” I dunked another fry into the ketchup then popped it into mymouth.
“Awkward, infuriating, you name it. Paul was careful not to put Martha and me on the same shift. And I turned into a groveling little idiot who’d constantly go to him and beg him to take me back and get rid of her. I loathed myself, to say the least.” She took a big bite of herpizza.
Groveling too?Shit!
Would I stoop to that if it I had to see Duke with someoneelse?
