To Hands Between Legs

“I asked Grace to be my girlfriend.” Ryan announced at Pete’s house two weeks after the party. He leered at Patrick, waiting for a response.

The room, filled with Pete and Patrick’s friends, Andy and Joe, and Brendon, seemed shock by the sudden news. With Brendon’s highly raised eyebrows, and Pete’s slightly agape mouth, it made Patrick almost feel bad for Ryan.

“Well. Congratulations.” Joe nodded his head in approval.

Patrick darted his eyes to him, wanting to shake his head. No. This wasn’t good. Not for him, not for her, not for Ryan. He wouldn’t stay faithful. How could he be a good boyfriend when all he did was make people feel bad and stare at bartenders breasts? He wasn’t trying to be rude, but it just wouldn’t work out. He knew it.

“Ryan Ross. Settling down!” Pete said, clapping his hands together with a beam pointed in the younger boy’s direction.

Ryan furrowed his thin brows together. “Settling down? She’s just a girlfriend.”

Just a girlfriend. Well, there it was. Just a girlfriend.

“Right. But instead of dating her, you’re in a relationship with her,” Pete nodded slowly, as if he was trying to get Ryan to understand. “You know. Buy her candy and flowers, watch her chick flicks. Stuff ladies love.”

“The only difference between dating and relationships, is that when you’re dating you can’t ask for head after work. When you’re in a relationship, it’s perfectly fine.” Ryan shrugged.

“You’re right,” Pete replied. “But you’re thinking like a fifteen-year-old.”

Patrick’s eyes darted between the two as their conversation went on. He started shaking his leg every time Ryan spoke, scared that the next thing he’d say would be how he loved Grace. He couldn’t love Grace. Did he even actually like the girl? Or was he only using her for the after-work blowjobs? He shook his head, trying to get the thought away. Ryan was incapable of love. Plus, it was too soon.

If Patrick was being honest, he’d admit easily that he grew a crush on Grace the past few weeks. He’d say how much he appreciates the way she actually talks to the guys and laughs with them, unlike his friend’s past girlfriends who’d just grow red and storm away. Whenever she giggled and laughed, he’d noticed, she’d cover her mouth. Which, to Patrick, was completely insane. She had the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen.

They even had a few conversations with each other. Grace was interested in the same type of literature as him. Between all of the conversation about which poem by Charles Bukowski was the best, her laughter whenever he’d try to be funny, and his heart going too fast to keep up with, his head had begun to get dizzy. Even remembering it made him dizzy.

He was a mess. He couldn’t let Ryan date her. The last girlfriend Ryan had was when he was eighteen. Patrick only barely knew him at the time, so he didn’t hear much of her. But Brendon would tell the stories about the fights they got into. He used complex words, and his eyes would grow black with fury. Two elements of being an asshole in fights.

“I was there at one of the big fights,” Brendon had said to Patrick, only a month before the bunch met Grace. “I forgot what they were in a fight about, actually. Something silly. Like going to Michigan for the weekend or something. He just started going off about how she didn’t care about anything he thought, threw in a few big words, and before he could finish she was already sobbing. He asked her what she was crying about and she just said ‘I can’t do this.’ …And that was the end of Piper and Ryan.”

How could he let Grace be friends with that? How could he let Grace be in a relationship with that?

Did it possibly run through Patrick’s head that Brendon was probably exaggerating? Maybe. He was too obsessed with Ryan and Grace to even realize that his mind was trying to get him to notice the doubt.

A week later, Patrick really started to dislike Ryan. He became… self-obsessed and narcissistic. It wasn’t like he wasn’t before, but now, with a beautiful woman on his arm, it was almost worse. Every time he walked into a room, his nose was up on the air with a smirk that said ‘I’m better than every single one of you.’”

When he asked Pete about it, Pete weakly nodded.

“I mean… I guess,” The older one threw his shoulders in a shrug.

Patrick hummed to himself, slightly annoyed that no one else saw the sudden change in their friend. Brendon would. But Brendon wasn’t currently at Pete’s with the most of them. He was at the stupid smoothie shop making gross smoothies.

An hour later, the pizza arrived and so did Grace and Ryan. They both came in, dressed fancily. Grace with her long hair straightened wearing a simple black dress, and Ryan is dress slacks and a button up shirt. They almost looked like a match made in heaven.

“Hey guys,” Grace greeted happily. “Sorry we look so fancy. I made Ryan come to a dinner party with me.”

“You look nice,” Patrick quickly replied. “Uh, both of you.”

“Thanks,” she smiled.

Ryan sniffed out the pizza sitting on the coffee table in front of the couches and made his way towards it. Patrick, who was sitting directly in front of it, moved out of the way quickly. Grace made her way to the couch Patrick sat at. She sat, crossing her legs. Patrick forced himself not to stare at her bare legs. His palms began to sweat.

“Hello to you too,” Joe, sitting on the Lazy Boy, said.

Ryan glanced up at him. “Hey,” he mumbled. He finished the pizza in two bites.

“Uh,” Grace piped up. “Ryan didn’t really like the dinner party.”

“Why not?” Patrick asked, mostly in Ryan’s direction.

“It was full of her rich family,” he said like it was simple.

Patrick stole a quick glimpse at Grace. She stayed smiling, though the corners of her mouth twitched.

“I’m going to have a smoke. You wanna come?” Ryan asked his girlfriend.

“You know I’m trying to quit,” she mumbled, shifting uncomfortably.

“Sorry.”

Patrick didn’t wait for the door to shut to turn to Grace.

“I bet the dinner party was nice,” he said.

Pete nodded on the other couch. “Yeah. Don’t take Ryan personally. He gets like that sometimes. You just gotta whip him into shape.”

A pink shade rose onto Grace’s cheeks. She grabbed her knee, bobbing her shoulders. “I know how he gets.”

Patrick wanted to yell then. He could never wrap his head around people staying with someone knowing how they were toxic.

“So, how’d you guys meet Ryan?” she asked.

“He came here for school. Columbia College, I think. We met him at a bar, actually. He was trying to get in even though he was only eighteen. Pete got him in. We all hung out and grew a liking. Three years later, here we are,” Patrick said.

“Not as interesting as I was hoping. I was expecting he fought a bear off of one of you or something,” Grace laughed at herself.

The rest of the guys laughed, too. Patrick only sat there, biting his lip.

He isn’t as heroic as she thought.