Page 46 of The Wrong Sister

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mina

My thoughts are still hazy, clinging to the last tendrils of a sexy dream where our date night ends the way it should have. I can almost feel Griffin’s hands on me, holding my hips firmly. Except in reality it’s my sheets wrapped around my legs and there’s no way I’m falling back asleep now. I’m still tired, I’m horny, and I’m resolutely ignoring how it felt being confronted by Troy last night. That has no place here. I’m not scared. I don’t feel unsafe in all the places that are most important to me. I’m not vulnerable.

I’M NOT THINKING ABOUT THAT.

Fuck this, I need to work out.

An hour of lifting heavy weights, my mind empty of everything but the movements, helps as only exercise can. After I cool down and shower, I end up aimlessly wandering around my apartment. I could clean. I guess. Laundry probably needs to be done. I don’t remember when I changed my sheets last so that screams ‘it should be today.’ But the longer I move around my apartment, the more the thoughts I’ve been punching down deep threaten to rise back up. Quiet, lonely introspection isnoton this weekend’s agenda. Or, you know, any weekend’s agenda. That shit is permanently off the list. Not doing it. With an exasperated exhale, I snatch up my bag and march out the door. Not today Satan! I have an errand I was meant to run anyway.

As I’m walking across the street, I decide now is as good a time as any to test some relationship boundaries. One could argue that I’m only thinking that to avoid addressing real issues, but one could also fuck off and mind their own business. Griffin answers my knock at his door with a laundry basket tucked under his arm and very scrummy, unexpected scruff.

“Was I…expecting you?” He looks confused but steps aside to let me in.

“Nope! Completely on a whim, I decided to test the girlfriend waters by showing up unannounced, with no plans in place. How ya doin’ so far? Am I making you anxious?”

He shakes his head at me with a little, crooked smile. “It’s fine. I hope I don’t bore you though. Sundays I deep clean my apartment and take care of all the laundry.” Why does that not surprise me?

“Oh, before I forget,” I dig into my bag until I find what I’m looking for, “Linda gave me this to give to you.” I hand him the bag I’ve been carrying around for a week or more. “She said it’s no big deal, just a wet/dry bag, but she found an extra and you can leave it with your emergency hanger in case you ever need it again. I’ll confess, I found the whole conversation confusing, but I was going to see you again before she did so I agreed to give it to you.” I bite my lip and smile embarrassedly. “Except then I kept forgetting about it.”

He sets down the basket and takes the bag, folding it precisely and putting it in his briefcase. Someone isn’t forgetting about it until much, much later, Mina-style.

“When’d you talk to the receptionist at my office?” He directs his confused expression at his laundry basket as he picks it back up from the coffee table.

“Oh, I dropped off some paperwork on my way back from a meeting—you were in court. She’s a doll! I wish I had my own Linda!” I plop down on his couch, stretching out my legs. “So you don’t do chores when they need to be done? Like, as things come up?”

“How would things come up? I don’t suddenly find I have to change my sheets on Wednesday if I’ve already taken care of that on Sunday.” He doesn’t look like he’s messing with me but that’s just uptight enough to make me feel like he is.

“Ooooookay. Well, how can I help?”

He gives me a bemused look but shrugs his shoulders. “I was about to put this load of laundry away, in the bedroom. Would you mind starting the record? I was about to turn it on when you knocked.” He carries the basket back while I go over to his record player.

“So many points, Griffin!” I yell back as I set the needle and sound starts pouring out of the speakers. I fucking love Lous and the Yakuza!

I head back to his bedroom and he was not exaggerating. His bed is stripped bare and everything smells fresh, with a hint of something like rosemary. We work together, making his bed while Marie-Pierra Kakoma raps, in French, about wishing she could be far from her problems and dilemmas. That done he starts laying clothes out on his bed.

“Would you mind grabbing me the 5 sets of hangars right inside the closet?”

He doesn’t even turn, he’s so focused on smoothing down fabric and lining things up. The left-hand side of his closet is open and empty, except for 5 different sets of hangers, each a different color. I remove them all from the bar and stand next to him, trying to figure out what on earth I’m looking at.

“I didn’t factor in time for steaming,” he grumbles to himself, standing back to survey the wrinkles on a pair of grey pants.

“Two things.” He turns to meet my eyes, possibly for the first time since I got here. “I’m seriously considering taking sex off the table—one day for every minute I’m here and you pick laundry over kissing me.”

He drops the pants he was holding and yanks me to him roughly, scratching my lips with his stubble as he kisses me very, very thoroughly. “Hi,” he whispers, his breath soft and warm. “You are in all ways superior to my laundry.” I curtsey playfully. “And the second thing?”

“Why exactly do you have five different colored hanger sets?”

Faint, rosy pink slowly creeps up and over his sharp cheekbones. “One for each day of the week, of course.” That rose is deepening and he’s looking everywhere but at me.

“So is there a color assigned to each day?”

Is it possible for his flushed face to get any brighter? “No, one per work outfit.”

I step back, eyeing his closet and the clothes laid out on his bed. I have to be missing something. What is so embarrassing about having an organized closet?

“Alright, so every slacks and shirt combo has its own color hanger. But the colors don’t correspond to a day of the week…” I let my eyes roam over the row of coordinated greys and muted blues, stripes and solids, button-downs and… I gasp loudly. “Holy shit. Griffin. Do you use color-coordinated hangers to give theperceptionof spontaneity?!”

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