Flipping Coins

I woke up the Monday morning to a big surprise. Quite fucking literally.

“Jordan!” I yelled aloud, my popping eyes darting about the tiny card as I reread the messy scrawl that spelled out nine words:

There’s more where this came from. Call me, sexy.

At first, I wasn’t all too fond of the lime green, five foot tall monkey clad in only a skimpy pair of hot pink Speedos placed right on the foot of my bed. In fact, the sight of the obese stuffed animal had almost managed to scare me just about off the bed completely. Thankfully, my Cat-Woman-like reflexes yielded me from plummeting to my bedroom floor, so I wasn’t too upset.

The card I was still examining with my wide eyes had been purposefully stationed exactly inside the pouch of the vintage swimsuit, so I had to pull it out. All of these little details fabricated one name into my brain.

That name was Jordan.

Sure enough, after I had been able to get over my shock and slight irritation, along with some kind of odd, wobbly stomach ache in my tummy that I had no clue how it came to be, it was only then that I moved to action to begin my Sunday morning.

After a few chores, my home phone began to shrilly sing.

“Emie,” I said shortly and simply, in a hurry so I could return to my microwave peach oatmeal steaming on my counter.

“Well don’t engorge me with your greetings! God, Miss Friendly,” Jordan snapped sarcastically.

I held back a laugh as I responded, “What do you want, you horrible being.”

“Wait--why am I a horrible being again?”

“Um--I dunno. Maybe it has something to do with me waking up to see King fucking Kong ready to rape me in my sleep,” I answered dully.

There was silence on the other line for a long period of time, and I seriously considered hanging up to retreat back to my beckoning breakfast. That was until Jordan responded unsurely, “Uh…have you taken your meds today, Emie Goosey?”

This time I couldn’t hold back my laughter at the thought of how my words would have sounded to stranger to the incident regarding the five foot monkey in my bed, and I finally sputtered up the words, “I--gosh--you--oh man--WHAT DO YOU WANT, ALMOND?!”

“Almond? Is that some kind of sex position?” Jordan questioned, a quirky tone breaking into the phone line.

I had to hold onto the walls for support as I throttled around in my fit of laughter. When I was finally able to regain my composure, I held the phone back to my cheek and said breathlessly, “You know what I meant! Seriously, dude, what do you want? I’ve got breakfast waiting!”

Jordan chortled. “Alright, I’ll stop. I was just getting a tad impatient waiting for your call, which I clearly instructed on the card--which you must have seen hiding in King fucking Kong’s---“

“Shit! Sorry about that!” I cursed, slapping my forehead repeatedly. “I meant to call you as soon as I got out of the shower, but the steam must have gotten to my head---“

“Shower? Ooh, sounds sexy! Mind if I join you next time?”

“God--SHUT UP, JORDAN!” I yelled through my laughter. “Just get to your point!”

And then he just went right to it.

“You want to go on a morning date with me to the International House of Pansies?” he shot out at a speed of 60 words per second.

I stopped laughing instantly, and I couldn’t help myself. I let the silence fill the phone line, biting my lip to keep from laughing. I knew he was getting impatient and anxious and that the wait was killing him, but--being the heartless wench I was--I loved it.

After a minute of no response, Jordan finally exploded.

“EMIE! ANSWER M---“

“Yes,” I laughed. “I’ll happily go with you on a morning date to the nearest International House of Pansies.”

And that’s how it began. The substitution, the weaning off of obsession, the cure, the solution, the new boyfriend---the first step to letting go of Brendon.

X………X

As I laughed for the [insert unreasonable number here] time that day, Jordan interrupted me with a smile and asked, “You ready for the final part of our epic date?”

I nodded eagerly--my hysterical laughter calming down to a feeble giggle.

Jordan’s smile cocked sideways as he leaned forward and said softly, “And you promise not to think of me as shallow for it?”

“Oh god---“

“Swear on your life!” he ordered, raising his index finger in a demanding manner.

I sighed, rolled my eyes, and agreed monotonously, “Yes. I swear on my life to not think of you as shallow for whatever you’re about to do.”

Jordan smiled approvingly. “Good!” he shouted cheerfully, ducking into a cab he had just hauled.

I rolled my eyes again and followed after him, watching as he slipped the taxi driver a twenty and declared with clarity, “I would like to go to the airport, please.”

“Airport?” I questioned as he leaned back in his seat, a mischievous smile placed upon his light face.

“Yep. I have to return to L.A. Where I live.”

It was only then that I noticed the small black bag he was holding--his luggage. How had I missed that?

“Los Angeles? You live in Los Angeles?” I asked with disbelief.

Jordan grinned, keeping his eyes straight ahead. “Nope. This L.A. actually stands for Lazy Ass Central--the C is silent in the abbreviation--which is where we, as the residents of the Lazy Ass Central, gather to worship the Lazy Ass God--Bush.”

I normally would have laughed again, but I was too biased by the fact that Jordan Hillman was actually living in the City of Angels. It was just surreal to picture it.

Jordan noticed my attitude, and looked over at me. He rolled his eyes with a smile and said, “Yes! Of course Los Angeles! Why is that so shocking?”

“Because you hate that city.” I made a c’mon! face at him. In the past, he had made it clear to me of his utter distaste for L.A. using that vibrant vocabulary he had.

“At a time. When I was a stupid little Boston boy who knew only of the cold, and of the cold only,” Jordan answered, returning to stare ahead.

“Why are you living in L.A?” I asked, curious.

He shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe my band has something to do with it.”

“Come again?” I said, squinting my eyes to focus extra hard on his words. Maybe I had heard him wrong.

Jordan met my eyes with his sharp green ones and shouted, “I’M IN A BAND, DEAF MUTE!”

I slapped him on the arm and gawked, “You’re joking! You have to be! There is no way---“

“Check our myspace--myspace-dot-com-slash-Sparks Will Fly. Too l’s on will, bee-otch,” Jordan shot back with some weird gang sign.

I must have stared at him for several hours until I finally clocked in after a sharp tug at my ponytail.

“Ouch!” I shouted, rubbing the back of head while glaring at the redheaded boy before me.

Jordan smiled. “Hey! You’re back!”

“What do you play?” I asked instantly, now very much interested.

Jordan looked down at his thumbs shyly. “Um--the microphone.”

“You sing?” I gushed, eyes wide and mouth open, trying not to laugh.

“We’re here!” cried the taxi driver as he parked the car right in front of the airport.

“Thanks, bud,” Jordan said eagerly as he slipped out of the cab.

I shook my head a few times and jumped out of the car, catching up to the escaping Jordan speed-walking inside the busy airport.

“You have got to be kidding me. You don’t sing,” I said, still staring at Jordan.

Jordan sighed, still refusing to meet my gaze. “Believe what you want, Emie.”

I threw my head in the air and laughed. “Oh my gosh! This boy is full of surprises, now isn’t he?”

We continued to carry on through the bustling airport like that--me laughing and stalking Jordan like one of Ryan’s hysterically obsessed fan girls as Jordan silently mazed through the place, getting more flustered by the second.

We had finally reached the boundary of my accessibility as a non-passenger, and I was still loudly snorting about Jordan’s career as a supposedly "experienced singer" that lived in L.A, when Jordan zipped around to face me.

His face was red, and for a second there, I thought he was going to yell at me, until he did it.

He slinked one of his arms around my waist and the other got knotted through my messy hair, and he pulled me to him, rooting me to his body. Then he leaned in and kissed me, right there in the middle of the airport.

Just when I realized what was happening and Jordan’s tongue began to slink through my lips, a loud voice announced the last call for the departure of gate 32--to Los Angeles.

Pulling away, Jordan’s face was significantly bright as he grinned at me. “Now I know what they mean when they say angry sex is the best sex.”

I made a face at that. “That was totally romantic, Jordan. The cherry on top of the moment.”

Jordan’s grin broadened, and without so much as a goodbye, he turned and walked to the crowd of people waiting to go through the security measures. I wasn’t offended by his actions; I had learned that that was Jordan’s style of saying goodbye. He hated serious things, and that was just how things were with him.

I stared at him for a while, until I realized I was being ridiculous, and I finally turned back the way I had come, by myself.

As I hauled another cab, somehow reality had whipped into me, and the aftershock of Jordan’s kiss had dispersed. In that moment, my mysterious stomach ache had returned--but only then did it really hit me that it wasn’t a stomach ache.

It was really a pack of butterflies.