So the Season's Changed Your Face

Mike was in a much better mood by the time the evening wrapped up. He wasn’t even criticizing my driving as I drove him home, which is a first for him, might I add.

Although we declined to join Bill, Christine, and Jack at Bill’s after the game (by the way, Barrington won – go Broncos!), it was not because Mike was thoroughly disgusted with my friends. Quite the contrary – Mike is pretty much in love with William Beckett (he likes Jack and Christine, too).

We have been in the car for ten minutes and he has not yet shut up about Bill.

“I mean, I have never met someone so musically compatible with me! Not even you!” Mike exclaimed, talking animatedly with his hands. “Like, every single band he likes is a good band. You don’t come across those people very often! Like, I would be in a band with this guy. I would definitely be in a band with this guy!”

“Then why don’t you be in a band with him?” I questioned, as if this was obvious.

For the first time in ten minutes, Mike was silent. “I don’t know. I guess because I’m already in a band. And he’s doing his thing.”

“So?”

“So…we have other commitments,” Mike said. “I mean, I can’t just leave my band.”

“Why not? You told me you hated that band,” I reminded him. “You tell me at least three times a week.”

“Yeah, but that’s my band,”

“Mike, why would you do something that you don’t like?” I asked. “That’s so unlike you. It’s not like you’re really in the band anyways. You guys haven’t held practice in like, two months.”

“That’s true,” he mused. “You’re right, you’re right. I mean, I don’t like being in that band. We don’t make music I like. And I don’t really like any of the guys. I mean, I like them enough, but, I don’t know, they don’t really get me.”

“Mike, nobody gets you,”

“No, like, they don’t get me musically. There’s no compatibility between us,” he explained. “There’s no cohesion.”

“Then what’s stopping you from leaving?” I asked. “It seems pretty simple to me. If you don’t like what you’re doing, don’t do it. Right?”

Mike shrugged. “I guess. I don’t know.”

He was quiet again, clearly deep in thought. “It’s not like it’s easy to quit a band and start another one,” he said suddenly.

“I know,”

“And I’d have to talk to Bill, of course. It’s a two person decision,”

“I know,”

“And we’d have to find a drummer and a bassist and maybe another guitarist,”

“I know,”

“Plus, Bill and I just met,”

“I know,”

“So it wouldn’t be easy,”

“Nothing worth doing is easy, Mike,” I said. “You have to work for the things you really want sometimes.”

Mike pursed his lips and nodded. “That is a good point. That is a very good point.”

“If you want to do it, then go for it. I mean, I know you just met and everything but maybe after you get to know each other a little bit, you can bring it up,” I paused. “God, it sounds like I’m giving you relationship advice.”

Mike smiled. “I know you’ve been waiting for at least an hour to tell me you told me so, so just…get it over with. I have emotionally prepared myself.”

For dramatic effect, I held my outburst in for a few moments. But Mike was right – I had been waiting for the last hour to tell him I told him so. “I did tell you, though!” I proclaimed excitedly. “I totally told you and you were like, ‘No, Vivi, I’m not gonna like him because he’s an asshole’ and I was like, ‘No you’re totally wrong, Mike’ but you didn’t listen to me!”

Mike rolled his eyes and shook his head, but I continued without mercy.

“Have I ever steered you in the wrong direction?” I asked.

“Yes, you actually have. Multiple times. You never know where you’re going,” he pointed out.

“I didn’t mean in a literal sense!” I said quickly. “I mean, have I ever made you do something that you ended up not liking? Have I ever forced you to do something that made you uncomfortable? Have I ever put you in a situation that blew up in your face?”

Mike thought about this. I knew he was looking for something – anything – to make me wrong (as I would if he said the same to me), but we both knew that I have never landed him in a truly bad situation, and if I have, I got him out of it. “I suppose you haven’t,” he finally said.

“I haven’t,” I repeated. “I know you, Mike. I know what kind of people you get along with. I would have never forced you to meet Bill if I even thought for a second that you two wouldn’t get along. I would never do something like that to you.”

“I suppose I should thank you, then,” Mike said sarcastically, smirking. “I mean, now I have a friend who I actually like and who isn’t you.”

“Hey!” I laughed.

“I kid, I kid,” Mike said, though he was still smiling. “I must say, though, it’s nice having a prospective friend who is male. You’re great and everything, but sometimes I just need to be around other men…who aren’t related to me…”

“I can be a man if you want me to,” I said, feigning seriousness.

“Ummm, no, it’s okay. I’ll pass,” Mike patted my knee. “You stay female. I appreciate you as a female.”

“Just say the word, Mike, and I’ll be anything you want me to be,”

“You are so weird! Do you-” Mike snickered, “Do you know that? Do you recognize how weird you are?”

“Believe it or not, Mike, but I was completely normal before I met you,” I countered. “You can even ask my mom and she will say the same thing. I was into totally normal stuff and then you came along and introduced me to all this weird shit. You messed me up, man.”

Not unlike a hyena, Mike began to laugh raucously, his mouth wide open and his nose scrunched up. When he finally composed himself, he smiled devilishly. “I have been told I am a bad influence.”

“Bad isn’t the right word,” I said. “You saved me from a life of normalcy. That’s not bad. I mean, imagine how I would be if you hadn’t barged in and forced me to listen to good music? I’d still have posters of puppies and kittens and fucking bunnies on my walls.”

“You had posters of puppies and kittens on your walls?” Mike laughed. “That’s adorable. A far cry from the gigantic poster of Billy Corgan you currently have above your bed.”

“He watches over me while I sleep. Sometimes, it’s the only way I can sleep at night, knowing that he’s watching,” I commented.

“That’s a little bit creepy,” Mike remarked.

We were in front of Mike’s house. I put the car in park and turned off my headlights, though I didn’t really have any intention of getting out of the car. “So my mom wants you to have dinner with us tomorrow night because she thinks it’s about time she meets my boyfriend.”

“Your mom has known me since I was fourteen,” Mike furrowed his brow. “She already knows me. And I’m not saying I don’t want to have dinner with you guys – I do – it’s just that I don’t understand why she feels the need to meet me when she already knows me.”

“She says it’s different now. I’ve been trying to wrap my head around it as well. But apparently it’s completely different now that we’re dating,” I tried to elaborate. “It’s a mom thing, I think. I mean, I stopped having dinner with your parents in like, tenth grade, you know? But all of a sudden, now that we’re dating, I have dinner with you guys all the time. I don’t know, Mike. But she would really like you to have dinner with us. I mean, you haven’t really been in the house for more than five minutes in over four months.”

Mike looked a bit guilty, but he suddenly looked concerned. “Does she know?”

“Does she know what?” I asked. “That we’re fucking?”

Mike flushed. “…Yes. That we’re fucking. Does your mom know that we’re fucking?”

“Yeeeahhhhh...she knows,” I said, nodding gravely.

“Did you tell her?” Mike asked, his eyes wide.

“Mike, she figured it out. I mean, c’mon. She’s my mom. She can tell,”

“How can she tell?”

“Mike, I’m not a mom. I don’t know how moms know things! I’m sure that if we had managed to keep it on the DL, your mom still would have figured it out. Moms have a sixth sense or something.”

“Maybe it’s like the virgin-alarm from Spaceballs,” Mike thought out loud. “It like, goes off when their kid gets too close to another person.”

“Possibly,” I shrugged. “Plus, I came home under suspicious circumstances. I mean, she expected me home that evening and when she woke up in the morning and I wasn’t home, she probably figured I was at your place. That's where I was the night before. I’m surprised she didn’t call.”

“But you’ve spent the night at my place before,” Mike pointed out. “Why would that time be different?”

“We weren’t dating those other times,” I reminded him. “And I was pretty open with my mom about us just being friends so she didn’t think too much about it. But now that we’re dating…she must have put two and two together.”

We were quiet for a moment. But me being me, I couldn’t leave on that note. I had to make a final joke before driving off. It's my policy.

“Plus, I was probably a bit bowlegged when I came home, so…”

Mike snorted. “Do you wanna come in?” he asked.

I looked at him for a second or two, my lips pursed. Yes, I wanted to come in and never leave, but…

I sighed. “I better go home. My mom doesn’t like me staying out too late with you. Especially unsupervised.”

“My parents my home,”

“Without her supervision, I mean. One of the many disadvantages of her knowing,” I sighed again. “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Oh, yeah, what time should I be over?”

“I don’t know. Six? I’ll ask my mom and I’ll call you tomorrow,” I promised. “I hope you like casserole!”

“At this point, I will pretend to like everything your mom cooks just to get back on her good side,” Mike remarked.

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. My mom likes you,” I assured him. “She just doesn’t like the fact that you’re porking her daughter.”

“Ohhh-kay, and that is my cue to leave,” Mike said, opening the car door. “I will see you tomorrow.”

He leaned over the console and kissed me. It had been a week since we had kissed each other or even been near each other, for that matter, and that made it so much harder to leave.