Page 55 of Bad at Love
“I don’t know. Like she’s always beenyours, you know.”
“She’s my friend.”
“I know. You never hold back from telling me that. I think Lazarus doth protest too much.”
“And I think Scooby doth fallen off his bike a few too many times.”
“That’s not how you use doth.” He waves his spatula at me.
“You think I don’t know? Anyway, we are friends and no she doesn’t belong to me. She isn’t mine.”
“It bothers you, though. I mean, you don’t seem like an alpha but I bet if you had the chance, you’d totally be claiming her.”
I exhale noisily and press my fingers into the table. “What are you going on about now? Alpha what?”
“You want to stick your dick in her.” He looks at me with a big grin. “It’s obvious, dude.”
“I do not…” I start but there’s no point in lying now, is there. “How is it obvious?” It’snotobvious. I’ve been very careful about that in case Marina got the wrong idea. Also,I’ve always had a girlfriend, which made hiding my attraction to her even more imperative.
He shrugs and gets plates out of the cupboard. “You look at her in a certain way.”
“Yes. As a friend.”
He snorts. “You do not look at me that way. And for that matter, you haven’t looked at any of your girlfriends that way either.”
I frown, feeling more confused than ever. Scooby is strangely astute for someone who is always high but I still don’t know what exactly he’s talking about.
“How do I look at them? How do I look at her?”
“Not that you asked,” he says as he slides the toast on the plate and nudges it toward me, “but you look at me like I’m the coolest man you’ve ever come across and your mind is blown daily by my infinite wisdom.”
I burst out laughing. “Okay, man. How high are you right now?”
He ignores that, passing me a fork, and then sits down across from me. “You look at your girlfriends like…sort of like they’re science experiments.”
“Science experiments?” I repeat through a mouthful of toast, then start coughing from the powdered sugar going up my nose.
“Yeah. Like, let’s take that last one. Simone, right? You were very analytical with her. Observant. Curious. You know, like you’re doing math in your head. You know that popular meme of the blonde lady solving a math equation? That’s you”
“So I looked confused? Do I look like I’m doing math in my head right now, because I am mad confused.”
“Okay so I take it that you’re not good at math. My bad. I should have figured since you’re one of them creatives andall. Okay, so you looked at them like you were thinking all the time, trying to figure them out. You were never relaxed. You were always on.”
I mull that over. Maybe Scooby is right. Looking back over everyone I dated, I can’t remember a single moment I was relaxed. Maybe during sex but even right afterward, I didn’t feel that peace that I should have felt. That comfort I should have had with the girls I had been dating for a long time. In hindsight, it’s like they never stopped being strangers to me.
“And with the hot blonde beekeeper,” he says, stabbing a piece of toast and letting it hang off the end of his fork as he thinks, “you look at her like I look at this French toast.” He brings the toast right in front of his eyes as his face contorts into a mix of…hell, I don’t know what that is. He definitely looks hungry and yet sad about it at the same time.
“Constipated?” I guess.
“That will happen later.”
I grimace.
“But what I’m trying to convey is that you both want her and hate yourself for wanting her. You’re both longing and lusting.” He sighs dramatically. “I guess all those acting classes I did haven’t really paid off.”
“That’s because you took acting classes across the street,” I say, pointing out the window at the building where M Street Coffee is housed. Sure enough, on the other side of the building is the office of Alan M. Feinstein who taught Scooby a really bizarre version of method acting for a few weeks last year. Every time he came home from class he was limping. I’m still not sure what went on in there.
“Don’t change the subject,” he says. “You wanted to know what I thought, well there you have it.Marina is the dessert that you want but can’t have because you either think you don’t deserve it or you’re worried about the calories because you haven’t been going to the gym as much lately.”
