Spellbound

When the plane touched down back in Pittsburgh the first thing I did was call Max, letting him know I’d be over there as soon as possible to rant about Tom. Geno insisted on coming with me, saying he’d make lunch while I spoke to Max, he just didn’t want to leave me alone.

We got to Max’s, it was just him there, Marianne was out somewhere with friends. Geno excused himself to go make us some lunch. Pasta is what he’s told us we’d be having, typical man food, they can’t seem to cook anything else. At least he could cook though, I thought as I smiled to myself.

Max caught sight of my smile and raised an eyebrow. I just raised mine back at him and sat down on the sofa. “So, what’s going on with you?” he asked, nodding his head towards the kitchen and Geno. He wasn’t going there surely, was he? I decided that no, he wasn’t, and began to tell him about Tom.

“Yeah, yeah, we all knew Tom was a wanker. But what about now Els? Anyone else take your fancy?” He again nodded his head in Geno’s direction as I felt a blush creep through my cheeks.

I shook my head no, “No! Max, we’re just friends, that’s all” I told him. He didn’t look convinced. “He’s cute and all that, but trust me, friends it is. Nothing has happened between us apart from a few hugs here and there” I explained to him.

“But you want something to happen?” he probed.

I blushed once more, knowing full well that Max knew how I felt towards Geno. Sure I liked him; he was cute, adorable, and handsome. Everything a girl wants, but we were friends, and that was how it was going to stay. I didn’t want to risk something this great for something that may or may not work out.

I shook my head to answer Max’s question and just as he was about to call me out on my shit we heard a crescendo of Russian swearing from the kitchen. I rushed in before Max had even stood up; fearing Geno was hurt, and ran over to him inspecting his hands for burns, cuts of any other sort of kitchen injuries.

“I’m ok” he assured me, taking my hands into his and kissing my forehead. There it was again, that tingling feeling that I only ever seemed to experience when Geno’s lips brushed against my skin. We hadn’t ever kissed, not even when I drunkenly asked him for sex, he’d only ever kissed my forehead a few times. I glanced over at Max who had now reached the doorway and was looking at us, eyebrow raised.

“You don’t want to stay like that too long,” I told Max, “the wind might change.” He just rolled his eyes at me as Geno stood looking confused at the two of us. When no one said anything, he suggested it would be better to go out and eat seeing as he’d overcooked the pasta. I laughed, and I thought pasta was a fail free dish.

We found ourselves in a steak house not far from where Max lived. He’d rung Marianne up to see if she wanted to come too, but she’d told him she was busy, and her cravings weren’t for steak at the moment. We were seated in a booth by the window and the waitress came to take our order whilst flirting outrageously with Max.

He shamelessly flirted back and as soon as the waitress left us I growled at him. “You aren’t supposed to be doing that anymore, no more women remember. You have a baby on the way” I scolded him. He didn’t look too impressed, and I figured that finally the novelty of having a baby with a woman he barely knew was wearing off, and the reality of it was settling in.

I didn’t push the issue any more and resided myself to the fact that as soon as the waitress brought the drinks over, Max was going to flirt some more. This wasn’t the case however; we had a different waitress bring the drinks to us, and she seemed very interested in Geno. Much to my dismay, he seemed fairly interested in her too.

I ignored this fact and quietly sipped my Diet Coke. Not too long later the food arrived and I tucked in to my steak. There wasn’t much conversation as we all devoured our food; I’d finally found my appetite after the last few days. I began to think back to Tom and what an idiot I’d been staying with him for so long.

I was brought out of my thoughts by Geno once again raising his voice in Russian. Max and I looked at him to see what was wrong but he didn’t reply. He just kept on muttering to himself in Russian glancing at the back of the restaurant every few seconds. Max and I caught on and looked behind us.

Max immediately stood up and walked over to where Marianne was getting rather close to LaMarr Woodley. “What’s going on here?” he asked them both quite calmly. That was one thing about Max, he might seem calm, but you never knew when he would blow up in your face.

“Shit” Marianne squealed, looking around for some sort of escape route.

“Hey, are we bothering you man?” LaMarr asked Max, “We’re just trying to get a bit of lunch”

“No, have lunch that’s fine, just remember she’s my girlfriend though, yeah man?” Max warned him. He looked taken aback at Max’s comments.

“Your girlfriend? I don’t think so dude. We’ve been dating for a few months now, we’re even having a baby together”

“What?”

“We’re having a baby together. So there must be some sort of misunderstanding. Sorry” LaMarr told him.

“No. No misunderstanding. Marianne’s having a baby alright, but my baby”

“Is this true babe?” LaMarr asked her. Geno and I watched as she fidgeted around nervously. I decided, possibly against my better judgement, to intervene.

“Marianne” I began, “what’s going on?”

She just hung her head and LaMarr went to say something but I put a finger up to shush him. A couple of minutes when she was ready, Marianne spoke.

“Neither of you are the father” This caused us all to gasp in shock. I couldn’t believe it, Max wasn’t going to be a dad? I looked over at him, he looked crestfallen. “I just wanted to have someone famous to pay for all the baby equipment. I can’t afford much myself, so I thought I could trick famous sports players in the city into thinking they were the dad and buying everything for me” she explained.

“Didn’t you think about us?” Max raised his voice to her, garnering support from LaMarr.

“Yeah, how the hell did you think you were going to keep this up once the baby was born?” They continued their yelling as I turned to go back to Geno and explain what had happened to him. My mood fell even further when I saw him enter what I assumed to be his number into the waitress’s phone before leaving with her.

God, could this day get any worse?

Yes. Yes it could.

I walked back to Max’s only to find Tom sitting on the porch, waiting for me. I sighed in frustration and ignored him as I walked to the back door to get in. He didn’t accept that though, and followed me to the back.

“Leave me alone Tom” I warned him. He kept approaching me, not taking heed of my warnings to call the police. He snaked an arm around my waist essentially trapping me between him and the door.

“I want you back Els.” I snorted at his remark. Like hell did he want me back. “I’m sorry for sleeping with those other girls” Girls? There were more? “If you could just come back to Canada with me”

“No.” I moved to get out of his grasp but he held firm. “Tom, I’m not going back. Not now, not with you, not ever. I have a life here now” I told him, slightly exaggerating that part. Max was going to be cut up for weeks, and Geno was off gallivanting with his new waitressslut girl so I was all alone. But that was better than being with Tom, for sure.

Just as he was about to protest my phone began to ring. I looked at the called ID only to see it was Geno. I sighed once more and accepted the call. Before I spoke to him I told Tom to hold on a minute, just to wind Geno up. If he was with some girl, he could at least think that I was back with Tom.

“What do you want Geno?” I almost yelled into the phone.

“Could you pick me up?” His voice sounded pleading and despite the fact I was fuming at him, I found myself unable to say no. I commanded that Tom get in the car while we go fetch Geno and I started to drive to the area of town he said he was. A few minutes later he texted me with the address and we carried on driving.

The longer I spent with Tom the more I realised I was a complete jerk, almost as much as he was. Why the crap did I stay with him for so long? Jeez. All he cares about is himself, he never did anything for me so I wasn’t going to do anything for him now. As we pulled up at the house Geno was at, I told him to get out and leave me the hell alone. When he didn’t move, I pretty much threw him out of the car.

As my mind kicked back into gear I saw Geno standing on the side of the road in just his boxers, holding his clothes trying to cover himself up as much as possible. I raised an eyebrow, un-amused by the scene in front of me. He tried to explain.

“Elodie. Sorry.” He hung his head in shame, just like he should. “There was a slight mix-up” he told me. I nodded for him to carry on as he got into the car, putting his clothes on out of sight of the whole street. “I, um, I moaned the wrong girl's name as we were making out”

I tried to stifle a giggle, but it didn’t work. He looked at me with saddened eyes. “Well if you’re going to pick up random girls in restaurants at least get their name in future.” I told him, still laughing at the mess he got himself in.

The woman from the restaurant had come outside to yell at Geno one final time. As if throwing him out on the streets in his underwear wasn’t humiliation enough, some women are just power crazy, I thought. “Good riddance” she shouted, “Now you can go back to that Elodie bitch whose name you moaned, fucker”

My brain hadn’t yet registered what she’d said as I looked at Geno and saw him looking back at me sheepishly. Just wanting to get home at that moment, I began to drive away. A few minutes later I gasped, breaking the silence in the car as everything finally clicked into place.

That woman said that he moaned Elodie.

I’m Elodie.