Love and Conspiracy

It was just reaching the four hour mark by the time we were finished with our day’s activities. I spent a total of $72 throughout the whole day: including a band tee, a pair of shorts, a dress, and lunch.

“Mike is gonna be speechless once you walk in that door!” Jess said excitedly.

“I hope so,” I said distantly.

“He will! You look damn good in that dress! He won’t be able to keep his eyes off of you!” she exclaimed. I laughed to cover up my uncertainty. I wasn’t used to wearing dresses, let alone anything that showed off too much skin. My nerves began to grow as I looked down at what I was wearing: a red, summer dress that was backless and tied behind my neck. The lacy fringe at the bottom barely covered my knees when I sat down.

We pulled into the parking lot and she stopped in front of the stairs up to the apartment. I sighed before looking over at her.

“Thank you, I had a lot of fun today,” I told her sincerely.

“I did, too. We’ll have to hang out more often. I know how it can be hanging out with guys all the time,” she said as she stuck out her tongue before smiling. I giggled.

“Well, wish me luck!” I said as I got out of the car. She pulled away as I continued to stand there. Why did I let her pick this out for me? I thought to myself. What I was wearing was not me.

As I slowly walked up the stairs, I prayed that by some chance that Mike wouldn’t be there and I would be able to change before he got home. I reached the door, carefully opening it. However, my hopes didn’t exactly fulfill themselves. Billie briefly looked up from his place on the couch, but focused on the TV again. It took him less than a second to do a double take at what I was wearing. His eyes widened in shock for a moment, but then slightly squinted as if he were disgusted.

“What are you wearing?” he asked flatly. It was like a slap in the face. All the nerves came crashing down at once as I felt defeated.

“A dress; what does it fucking look like I’m wearing?” I spat back at him. He didn’t even seem fazed at how offended I was. I stormed off into Mike’s room and slammed the door as I sat down on the bed. ‘What are you wearing?’ I mocked in my head. I didn’t want it to look like he had won this non-existent fight, so I put on my other outfit I had just bought and walked back out into the living room. His back remained towards me as I went to the kitchen to get the cup of water I had gotten earlier that morning.

“I asked you a question, I didn’t say that it looked bad,” he said, without looking over at me.

“Why the hell would you ask me that? You can obviously see what I’m wearing with the two eyes on your face,” I said angrily. He started chuckle.

“You need to stop taking what I say so seriously,” he chuckled before continuing, “I’m a jackass, haven’t you noticed that yet?” I gritted my teeth together in anger.

“Yeah, I have actually and it makes perfect sense now why your girlfriend would leave you!” I said, but immediately started to regret it. His smile dropped. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that.”

“Yeah? What’d you mean to say then?” he asked as he got up from the couch and walked towards me. I grew nervous.

“I said it out of anger, I didn’t actually mean it,” I said, trying to defend myself. He got inches away from my face.

“Don’t ever fucking mention my girlfriend to me again,” he said before continuing to his room. He turned around once more, “You looked fine in the damn dress; I was just giving you a hard time.” With that, he closed the door.

“Okay, go hide in your room just like you always do!” I said loudly so he could hear. The door swung open again.

“What? Do you have something more to say?” he asked in mockingly nice tone.

“No, now just go back in your room and get stoned already. I can’t stand you sober,” I said, turning my back on him.

“Hmm, cute…” he said with a smile, “I was fucking high before you walked in the door. Now look where we are,” he said holding out his hand. His fake smile dropped. “Get out of my fucking apartment already,” he said as he slammed the door shut. I scowled at the place he was just standing.

“You’re a rotten son of a bitch, I hope you know that!” I yelled.

“Yup!” I heard him yell back through the door. I growled as I started back to Mike’s room, slamming the door behind me, as well. I picked up the dress and threw it at the door before flopping down on the bed.

“Who the hell does he think he is?” I said out loud to myself. From the other room, I heard the front door open.

“Anyone here?” Mike called out. I sighed and kept looking at the ceiling. The door opened and Mike stopped in the doorway, leaning down to pick up the dress. “I think you dropped something,” he joked. I sat up and looked over at him.

“Oh, yeah sorry about that,” I said awkwardly. He chuckled.

“How was your day?” he asked.

“It was pretty fun. Jess and I really bonded,” I said sweetly, not wanting to tell him about Billie. He held out the dress.

“Your idea or hers?” he asked with a smile. I felt a tinge of hurt again.

“Hers,” I said flatly, ashamed that I let her convince me to get it.

“I can’t wait to see you in it,” he said, smiling. I smiled back, feeling a little bit better. “So, Tre and Chris invited us to go to the bar later on if you’re up for a little drinking,” he said.

“I’m not of age, remember?”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. We go to a place that a friend of ours owns and he’s let us drink there since we were seventeen,” he answered. I slowly nodded.

“Well, as long as I can get away with it, then I’m up for anything!” I said excitedly. He smiled as he put his hands on my face and kissed me. His lips lingered there for a few moments before we slowly parted.

“Is Billie here? I should probably invite him too so he can blow some steam off,” he said, walking out of the room. I quietly groaned to myself.

~~~

Two hours had passed and we were finally getting ready to go. After some convincing, Mike finally got Billie to agree to come along, too.

“So I’m gonna get to see you in your dress, right?” Mike asked.

“You want me to wear it to the bar?” I asked in a shocked tone.

“Yeah, why not?” he asked. I shrugged.

“I guess I will if you want me to,” I said in a fake irritated voice before smiling. He smiled back and left the room so I could change quickly. I looked at the red dress lying on the bed and sighed. However, I realized that it would irritate Billie even more if I wore it, which was exactly what I planned to do.

After putting on the dress, fixing my hair into slight waves, and spending a little extra time on my make-up, I opened the door to the living room. I bit my lip as Mike turned around to look at me from the couch. His eyes widened along with his smile as he got up and walked towards me.

“You look beautiful, Lucy,” he said, wrapping his arms around me, “I love it.” He gently kissed me before pulling me into a hug. From over his shoulder, I could see Billie looking at us. When our eyes met, he shook his head and headed towards the door. He was already halfway down the stairs by the time Mike let go of me. “You ready to go?” he asked with a huge grin on his face. I nodded.

~~~

When we pulled up to the bar, it looked like a small little place with a few chairs set outside, but once we got inside it was much bigger than it seemed and was nicer looking, as well. There were tables and booths filling up the room, with a bar on the far side of the room. Music was blasting through the place as people were drinking, if not already drunk. We made our way over to the bar where Tre and Chris were sitting, enjoying their first beer. Tre’s jaw literally dropped when he looked over at me. He slowly nodded his head as he looked me up and down.

“Looking fine, Lucy! Tre likey,” he said before giving me a hug, “Mike, you are one lucky man!” Mike chuckled as I sat next to Tre. Once Mike sat on the other side of me, he ordered two beers for us.

“Where’s Jess?” I asked Tre over the loudness in the room.

“She said she didn’t feel well, so she decided to stay in for the night,” Chris answered for him. I nodded. Probably her time of the month. I thought to myself. At that moment, Billie walked in and sat on the other side of Mike without saying a word to any of us.

Half an hour later, Mike, Tre, and Chris decided that they wanted to play a game of pool so they went to the corner of the bar where the tables were set up. I carefully sipped on my second beer, wanting to take it easy on the drinking that night. As I did so, I could feel Billie’s
eyes on me from his seat. I looked over at him, but he didn’t look away this time.

“What are you looking at?” I asked rudely. He rolled his eyes.

“You,” he said before taking another gulp of his drink. We remained silent, listening to all the other voices in the room. I softened up a little.

“Look, I’m sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean to snap, I was just offended. I didn’t really mean anything that I said,” I said, kissing ass a little too much. I blamed the small amount of alcohol. He sighed before getting up from his seat. I closed my eyes, embarrassed that I had just let him win. However, when I opened them again, he was sitting in the seat next to me so we could hear each other better.

“I wasn’t trying to offend you or anything, I was just messing around,” he said defensively.

“Sorry to break it to you, but it’s hard to tell whether you’re being serious or just joking half of the time,” I said in truth. It caused him to slightly chuckle.

“Eh, you’ll get used to it eventually,” he said.

“I hope so. I’m tired of getting mad at you all the damn time. And it’s only been a few days!”

“I’m sure you’ve had legitimate reasons all the times I’ve pissed you off. I have a knack for doing that to people,” he joked.

“Well, I’m still sorry. That’s no excuse for what I said to you today,” I said, ashamed. He shook his head.

“You were completely right, though. That is why she left me,” he said. I paused to think of what to say next.

“Are you just trying to make me feel worse about it now?” I teased. He immediately started to laugh.

“Yeah, a little bit. But I accept your apology. I’m sorry, too… about hurting your feelings and everything,” he said sincerely, finally looking up at me for the first time during the conversation. It was like he finally let himself really look at me in that moment. His eyes glided all across my body, from head-to-toe, pausing at my lips and then looking back up to my eyes. He quickly turned back to his drink. “I’m gonna have to say that I agree with Mike on this one,” he added before taking another drink of his beer. I looked at him dumbly until I realized what he meant. I blushed at his compliment as he got up and walked over to the rest of the guys.