Friends With Benefits

I awoke the next day at the ungodly time of nine forty-five in the morning to the most obnoxious car honking noise I had ever heard in my entire life. I rolled out of bed and looked out the window to find Fletch had parked in my driveway. He was honking like crazy and I decided to take my sweet time getting ready to meet him, in the hopes that my parents would be home and scare him away. Unfortunately, my parents had gone to brunch with some of my dad’s co-workers and there didn’t seem to be anyone else on the block as pissed off as I was about being awoken so early on a perfectly good Saturday morning. After doing everything I could to stall, I finally went outside and Fletch stopped his incessant noisemaking.

“What the hell do you want?” I seethed at him.

“Took you long enough,” Fletch snorted.

“I thought you’d be so hungover from last night you wouldn’t be able to stand loud noises like that,” I shot at him.

“I recover fast,” Fletch replied. “What are you so pissy about?”

“Lugging your drunk ass home last night and then your smelly ass waking me up this morning,” I glared at him.

“Get in the car,” he ordered.

“I’m not getting in your shitty car,” I snorted.

“Get in the car, Iverson,” he ordered again.

“Not even if you put a gun to my head,” I replied fiercely.

“Dammit, Aileen, get in my fucking car!” Fletch roared. I huffed and puffed and, in the end, I got into the passenger seat.

Of course, I did everything I could to annoy Fletch about it. I put in a piece of gum which I popped extra loud and rested my feet on the dashboard, which he hates and made a great show of ignoring him by checking and rechecking my makeup and hair in the flip down mirror as he pulled out of the driveway. Fletch pretended not to notice that I was exploiting all of his little ticks and annoyances, but I could tell I was getting to him by the way he was gripping the steering wheel and doing everything in his power not to look at me or snap and tell me to quit it.

“So, why are you kidnapping me?” I asked him with a snort. “And where did Will get off to?”

“After I woke up, he took me to get my car and then ditched for practice,” Fletch snorted.

“God, being hungover makes you moody,” I snorted. “You know, you owe Will and me big for making sure you got home safe.”

“Yeah, I already heard from Will how I totally cockblocked him when it came to some girl named Cindy and her big tits,” Fletch snorted.

“You’re making that up to piss me off,” I glowered.

“Nah, he was pretty pissed about it,” Fletch snorted. “So, you had to make him drive me home?”

“I can’t make Will do anything,” I snorted. “In retrospect, I probably should have left you blowing chunks all over Jason Birchman’s bathroom. Probably would have done you some good to not have someone around to pull you out of trouble.”

“Get bent,” Fletch replied harshly.

“Where the hell are you taking me, anyway?” I said to him.

“Breakfast,” he replied. “I need some sober-me-up pancakes.”

“And you’re bringing me along because…?” I asked.

“I hate eating alone and I’m not in the mood to explain to my parents why I didn’t come home last night or why I have a pounding headache, a nauseous stomach, and yet an insane craving for bread,” Fletch replied.

“Well, this is fan-freaking-tastic,” I hissed at him. “You have no right to get all pissy with me.”

“You’re the pissy one,” Fletch snorted. “Did you get your period or is all that bitchiness because last night Will was totally read to screw any girl that came along except for you?”

“So help me, Fletch, I will do a barrel roll out of this moving car if you don’t shut up,” I glowered at him. “And what do you know anyway? You were all drunk off your ass and moaning about Ivy last night. It’s not like you remember anything, huh?” Fletch suddenly turned pale as a sheet when I mentioned Ivy’s name, looking as if he was going to puke his guts out again. He gripped the steering wheel tightly. “Was she there? Was she macking on her boyfriend?”

“No one calls it ‘macking’ any more, Aileen,” Fletch snorted. “Get with the damn program.”

“No one says ‘get with the program’ any more, Fletcher,” I shot back.

He eyed me up and down and sighed. I reached over for the radio, determined to blast a song Fletch hated just so I could rattle his hungover brain a little bit. I found a song I liked, which I knew Fletch hated and turned it as far up as I possibly could on the radio. Again, he gripped the steering wheel and made a disgusted face, trying his best to hold in his fury at what I was doing to him. Finally, he couldn’t stand it any longer.

“You could turn that shit off?” Fletch said angrily.

“No Doubt isn’t shit,” I shot back at him.

“I can’t stand that whiny voice,” Fletch muttered.

“Gwen Stefani does not have a whiny voice,” I glowered at him.

“Can we listen to some actual music for once?” Fletch moaned.

“As opposed to that screechy emo crap you always listen to?” I snorted.

“Coheed and Cambria is not an emo band,” Fletch shot back furiously.

“They make my ears bleed,” I retorted.

“If anything that makes someone’s ears bleed constitutes an emo band, than you must be an emo band because your voice makes me want to claw out my whole inner ear,” Fletch said furiously.

“If you hate the sound of my voice so much, why did you pick me up to eat a hangover breakfast with you?” I snorted.

“I honestly have no idea anymore,” Fletch grumbled as he pulled into a parking place.

I looked up, a tad disgusted to find we were at The Buttered Roll, a local buffet restaurant in the style of Ryan’s or Golden Corral or Shoney’s. The had this huge breakfast buffet that had twice as much grease in one ton of bacon as the whole of New Jersey used in it’s hair. Of course, I wasn’t surprised that Fletch wanted the nastiest, greasiest, most unhealthy food on the planet to recover from his binge drinking the night before. We quickly got a table, each ordered the buffet – since there was no point in ordering anything else – and began piling up our plates.

I returned to the table quickly with some oatmeal, a plate of bacon, scrambled eggs, toast, and some fresh fruit. Fletch took his sweet time and returned with a plate containing a stack of pancakes, one with a stack of waffles, a plate entirely of bacon and sausage, and then got up and went back for another plate of biscuits and gravy. I looked at him disgustedly as he sat back down and took a giant swig of his soda. I nearly choked, feeling sodas were not breakfast foods and sticking to my hot chocolate. Fletch didn’t seem to notice anything awry and launched into his food like a starving dog into a bag of kibble.

“You look absolutely disgusting,” I informed him after a few minutes.

“I’m starving,” Fletch admitted with a moan.

“You’re a pig,” I shot back. Fletch ignored me and continued devouring his breakfast. I glanced at him, delicately biting into a slice of cantaloupe. “So, what happened last night?”

“What do you mean what happened last night?” Fletch asked.

“Why’d you get all drunk off your ass. You never do that,” I replied. “Was it because Ivy was there?”

“Why do you think Ivy was there?” Fletch asked worriedly.

“Because you kept murmuring her name over and over again when Will and I were taking you home,” I said. “So, was she there?”

“I really don’t want to talk about it,” Fletch replied.

“Are you sure…” I began.

“Yes,” Fletch grimaced.

“I’d like to meet her,” I informed him. “Just once. Just to see if she’s everything you say she is.”

“She is,” Fletch replied.

“Well, then maybe we could…” I began.

“Can you just drop it, Aileen?” Fletch grimaced. “I’ve got a pounding headache.” I glowered at him, knowing he was just saying that to shut me up.

“Do you think you could drop me off at school after this?” I asked him.

“Why on earth would you want to go to school on a Saturday?” Fletch snorted.

“I wanted to watch Will practice,” I shrugged.

“Again, why?” Fletch snorted. “It’s boring.”

“I want him to know I support him,” I replied lamely.

“Yeah, you and like fifty-odd bimbos who found out he broke up with his girlfriend yesterday,” Fletch rolled his eyes. “Hate to break it to you, Lenny, but if you’re in a crowd of dumb blondes who not only wear tight shirts and short skirts but would be willing to suck Will’s dick at a moments notice, there is no way Will is going to notice you.”

“Will isn’t like that,” I argued.

“All guys are like that,” Fletch snorted.

“Even present company?” I asked.

“Especially present company,” Fletch shot back.

“Ass,” I glowered at him.

“If you really want to torture yourself, I have no problem dropping you off there,” Fletch informed me. “Of course, I’m not sticking around to watch with you and you’re going to have to find some other way of getting home because I’m not going to pick you up. And I’m not loaning you any money for snacks or anything while you’re there.”

“Anything else?” I snorted. Fletch looked at me, confused as to why I hadn’t been deterred from going.

“And I’m not going to stroke your ego or make you feel better after Will goes home with some slutty bimbo rather than you,” Fletch finished.

“Fine then,” I nodded. We finished breakfast and paid then headed out to Fletch’s car so he could drop me off at school. I thought he was going to quit pestering me about it, but he kept on as soon as he had pulled out of the parking lot.

“What if Will goes home with someone else?” Fletch asked.

“I’ll deal,” I replied.

“What are you going to do if you can’t get a ride?” Fletch asked.

“I’ve got my cell. I can text Sara to make Eric pick me up,” I replied.

“You’re pathetic,” Fletch snorted. “Letting this guy lead you on all the time.”

“He’s not some guy. He’s Will, your supposed best friend,” I snorted. “And he’s not leading me on if he doesn’t even know I like him.”

“Whatever,” Fletch snorted.

We rode in silence until Fletch pulled his car up into the parking lot behind the football field.