Stay With Them Tonight

JASON P.O.V.

I stared ahead, not paying attention to Cher, who was talking in my ear. The air was pleasant but already cold, and we both had jackets on. We sat on a bench outside of the coffee house, The Matadors, her melted into my side while my arm rested around her shoulders comfortably.

We had been here since I ran into her while driving in town, not really knowing where I was going.

“Coffee? Then back to my place?” she had asked when I recognized her and picked her up on her way home.

“Sure,” I said easily, used to such arrangements by now. We had been sitting on the bench for about ten minutes and my mind began to wander.

Why did Allie go off with that stupid pedophile? By this, I meant Tyler. He was almost three years older than her.

Not that it’s really unusual, my mind told me. My aunt was six years younger than my uncle-in-law, and I was pretty sure Tracey had said she dated a twenty-year-old guy before she dated me. And she was only sixteen when we started.

But Tyler posed a problem. I didn’t know why I was so intent on finding out why he was such an obstacle, or even what sort of problem he was creating, really. I just suddenly felt the urge to hit him squarely in the face. And usually I had a reason- I hadn’t ever gotten into many fights, and I hadn’t started any of them.

I should have been focused on nothing but Cher, and her big . . . eyes. I imagined the look Allie would give me if I had talked about Cher’s “attributes” out loud, and smirked to myself. She wouldn’t talk to me for a week, and only after hitting me. She was abusive, when she wanted to be.

Cher was small and slender, with a large chest, and long curled midnight-black hair. Over the summer we had both seen that neither of us was interested in a relationship, and became fuck buddies on the first night we met.

In an unexpected benefit, we also developed a friendship based on easy talk and not giving a shit about personal things. I didn’t know her last name, or if she had siblings or anything but where her place was and the four walls that made up her bedroom. She was the only girl I had seen regularly since Trace.

I looked down at her as she became quiet, an intent look on her face as she stirred her chai tea. I knew Allie liked chai tea, but that she much rather preferred a coffee ice thing, or whatever the hell they called them.

I didn’t ask what Cher was thinking so hard about- we never did. It was the reason she hadn’t asked me so far. We didn’t get personal; there was an unspoken expectation that when we did, we would break it off. Neither of us was ready for another relationship.

I had a flash of an image in my head, but it was there long enough for me to know it was Allie, triggered by the word “relationship.”

Allie, Allie, Allie. Relationship? Again that flash of her face, set in the narrow-eyed look she favored when looking at me recently. A corner of my mouth lifted.

I wondered what she was doing right then. Was she still with Tyler?

I became annoyed with myself. Here I was, my arm draped around a friend, and I’m not paying attention to a fucking thing that’s happening. Instead, I’m daydreaming about a girl that I met recently. I fought the urge to roll my eyes at myself when I realized I had picked up the habit from Allie. It was ridiculous, the way she made such an annoyed gesture look attractive.

I knew Allie was attractive. Seemingly ordinary, she has a way of going about things that makes you want to watch her- she’s so predictable, and at the same time she exceeds your expectations. What is it about her?

I thought back to what she had said earlier- “I get it. Everything was a mistake, and we were stupid, okay?” Mistake. Mistake.

It didn’t feel like a mistake. It was in-the-moment, yes, but still, two days after the fact, I didn’t regret it. I didn’t know why, so I ignored it. Cher never felt like a mistake either, so it’s not like she was special. Right?

Right, I answered myself.

“Cher?” She looked up at me, her dark, indecipherable eyes glinting in the dim light from the lamp over our heads. She smirked at me and got up. I followed after her, both of us dumping empty cups into the trash.

I knew how to get to her house, and we spent the drive in pleasant silence. We entered the house, dark as always, and instantly pulled each other closer, mouths locking together, hands reaching.

And in the dark, I was confused for a moment, thinking that Allie wasn’t this short. And then Cher slid her hand down, and I remembered who it was.

And I didn’t think of Allie for the next hour- a record for me.

*****

RYAN P.O.V.

Kelly watched intently as Tyler adjusted his hand, his fingers now intertwined with Allie’s. She let out a little gasp, too focused on the couple walking far ahead of us to notice. I steered her around most of the crowd, amused that she didn’t even seem to know where she was going. I also held her back, walking at the same pace as Tyler and Allie and staying far behind them.

Really, Kelly made a horrible sleuth. I was watching her more than I was watching them, although I knew I should be doing something. My brother had to live with whatever decision Tyler made, based on a possible whim of his.

Kelly had assured me repetitively that Tyler didn’t take things lightly, but his interest in Allie seemed very sudden. I knew Kelly was as stupefied as I was, but she went along because Tyler was her brother.

I had no loyalties to him, and it felt like I was betraying my brother to watch another guy making moves on the girl he loved, even though he hadn’t claimed her in any way. I wanted to shake him, tell him he would lose her if he didn’t move soon.

“I can’t hear what they’re saying,” Kelly said.

“If we get any closer, they’ll know it’s us,” I pointed out reasonably.

“We could just say we went on a date,” she said, like they wouldn’t see through it in three seconds flat.

“I don’t think so, Kells.” She sighed.

“Listen, this is really bugging me. It’s not really our business,” I tried explaining. “Whether Allie chooses to go out with Jason or Tyler, we both have a bias. We’re just prying, Kells.” She sighed, knowing I was right.

“But what if Allie doesn’t wind up happy?” she asked. We had stopped, and she turned to me with conflicted eyes.

“Then it’s not our responsibility. And besides, it’s not like we won’t try to make her happy after she’s decided. I don’t think she even knows anything is going on.” Allie was- in one word- blonde. She was a girl who trudged on blindly, caring about the distant future and trying to make everyone happy, but not necessarily paying attention to what was going on at the moment, and writing things off as coincidence and improbable. She was interesting.

“Okay, smarty pants. Let’s go and get some ice cream, then.” I grinned down at her, proud that she so easily saw reason once it was there. I pulled her away from the direction Tyler and Allie had gone, towards the closest exit.

*****

ALLIE P.O.V.

Tyler was holding my hand. TYLER was holding my hand, our fingers laced together, and he had initiated it.

I stared at his back, the way the muscles moved slightly in his shoulders as he walked. I walked slightly behind him, waiting for my blush to subside. He had never shown any interest in me beyond friendship, and that was what I used to calm myself.

Even still, I felt my heart beating in a rapid rhythm that sounded like drums beating in my ears. The slight nip of cold as we walked on the path worked on my face and blew through my hair.

Justafriendjustafriendjustafriend. Just. A. Friend. I repeated that in my head until I believed it. I realized with a drop of my heart in my chest that if Tyler continued acting like this, holding my hand and smiling and taking me out, I would get my heart broken twice in a short period- once by Jason, and again by Tyler. That thought sobered me, and my heart slowed to a steady thump in my chest.

Jason didn’t date. He wouldn’t date me. I knew he played with girls, and chose to fall for it. I wouldn’t fall for it with Tyler. And I couldn’t blame Jason for being what he was. So I would just go along with things, and maybe it would be normal again.

I walked forward so that I was walking steadily with Tyler, and he looked down at me. I smiled up at him, pretending my mind wasn’t screaming to run far away before I made something of the situation that he didn’t mean. I had to act normal in order for things to become normal.

We made our way down the seemingly endless list until we landed on “peacocks.” I frowned- I didn’t remember seeing peacocks on the map. I looked at Tyler- he looked as baffled as I was.

Peacocks had always been some of my least favorite animals- they looked unnatural, with tails longer than them, and a million eyes peering out at you from the feathers. Plus, they sounded like dying cats when they “talked.” They had iridescent shades of green and blue and brown mingling on their bodies and tails, and they walked as if they owned the world- they were the natural “strutters” of the animal kingdom, and not at all as beautiful as everyone seems to think they are.

It was no surprise I never looked for them in the zoo before, and consequently never knew where to find them. Although unimportant, I suddenly felt that I didn’t know the zoo as well. Something familiar became alien as soon as something new was entered into my knowledge. It was kind of how I felt with this new Tyler.

Things had changed, and I was left wondering what else I had missed, what else was to come.