Manage Me

My jaw dropped straight to the floor. Katie turned around when I didn’t say anything. I took a few steps back as I stared into her eyes. I had slept with my maid. I had slept with Katie. I HAD FUCKING SLEPT WITH THE ONLY GIRL I HAD LIKED IN MONTHS. I wondered if she knew, if she even remembered. It all made sense the more I thought about it. The girl had looked so familiar, even in that clouded air. And then when Katie had showed up the next morning she had looked different to me. And it was because I had slept with her. I hated myself for not realizing it until now. God, she must have known it was me. That was why she had left so quickly that morning. I couldn’t believe she had been so nice to me even though I was the asshole that fucked her and then didn’t even realize it was her.

“Jack? Are you okay?” She looked concerned. I had to get out of here.

“Uh, yeah, I just remembered I have to meet Zack for lunch. Sorry.”

I saw her face fall slightly, but I just rushed away without saying anything. My feet were moving as fast as possible and I nearly tripped several times before finally making it out to my car. I drove so far over the speed limit it was a miracle I didn’t get pulled over. I had been freaking out to myself the entire drive so I was panting when I finally made it to Zack’s house. Normally, I would have gone to Alex, but Zack had been there that night. He was the one I needed to talk to.

“Jack!” He pulled the door open swiftly and I stumbled forward. “Calm your fucking tits, dude!”

“Zack, it’s her.” I breathed out, pacing back and forth. Zack grabbed onto my shoulders, forcing me to stop.

“What the fuck are you talking about, bro?”

“You remember the girl from the club?”

“The one that pulled a fuck and chuck?” He laughed. “Yeah, I remember her. You won’t shut up about her.”

“It’s Katie.” He stared at me, completely serious.

“Who’s Katie?”

“The blonde!” I exploded. “It was Katie! Kathrine Rae Feist! My fucking maid, dude!”

“Kathrine Rae Feist?”

“Yes, that’s her name, Zack! Is that seriously all you just got out of that conversation? I’m telling you the blonde I had mind-blowing sex with, the one that made me forget about Holly completely, the one that I’ve been completely obsessed with is Katie!”

His eyes got wide and his hands dropped from my shoulders. He ran a hand through his hair, letting out a huge breath of air.

“Holy shit.”

I nodded. We both stood there silently before Zack finally spoke.

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Get drunk and pretend it’s not real?”

“That’s a shitty plan, but whatever. There’s beer in the fridge.”

I nodded my thanks and made my way into the kitchen. I grabbed two beers and popped the top off of one of them before sauntering into the living room and tossing the other one to Zack. He grabbed an Xbox controlled off of the coffee table and I followed his lead. We made it through two beers each and a few rounds of COD before he started talking again.

“So what are you really going to do about the Katie situation?” I sighed.

“I seriously don’t know dude. I’ve kinda been talking to her the past few days. That’s how I know her full name. We played 20 questions.” I smiled.

“Well you could do worse, dude. She’s fucking hot.” I shot him a look and he grinned. “Chill, I’m not gonna try and steal your girl.”

“Like you could.” I snorted.

“I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that cause the ladies love me.” I snorted again. “Anyway, what I was going to say is, she’s not crazy. Like she didn’t try to exploit you or even bother waiting around for you the next morning. And she didn’t mention it. Even if we caught her singing one of our songs, she doesn’t strike me as a fangirl.”

“She’s not.” I grinned as I thought about her. “She said she thinks our music is good but, and I quote, ‘I’m not going to rip off my clothes at the sight of you because of it’. She likes Taylor Swift a lot though because she’s ‘wholesome’ and her best friend is like, the only person she loves. Well, she loves two people but she won’t tell me who the other one is. Her favorite color is yellow, but not just plain old yellow, sunshine yellow. Her favorite television show when she was little was Hey Arnold! She went off on a rant about it earlier, it was kind of really fucking adorable.” He stared at me with his mouth hanging open, but I just continued rambling, Katie consuming my thoughts. “She taught me how to do laundry, bro. And make a bed. Like, what? She got me to fucking clean. She’s got a tattoo, which is weird right?, because she looks so young. But she’s 20, which I guess is still young, but not that young. She’s just so tiny and innocent looking, but she won’t tell me everything. I’m trying though, dude. I was thinking of hiring her full time and having her move into the pool house…”

“Fuck.” He said after a minute. “You’ve got it bad. Like worse than Rian and Cass bad.”

“That’s not even possible!”

“Jack, you just said you were thinking of having her move into your pool house.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

I took a long drink of my beer. Zack returned to playing the game, leaving me to my thoughts. I finally stood up after draining the bottle in my hand.

“Good luck.”

“How did you even know I was leaving?”

“I saw that look in your eye, bro. Don't fuck it up.” He smirked at me.

I grinned and rushed out of the door.