“About what?”
“About you.”
“How’d I get into it?”
“Jemini has very strong feelings about our …” I waved my hand searching for the right word.
“Situationship.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
“Didn’t you explain it was a mutually beneficial fuck buddy arrangement? I get to see you naked and you get to ride my dick.”
“I think you’re getting the short end of the stick.”
“That … that was funny.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.” He leaned in placing a soft kiss on my lips. I don’t know if it was the campus bookstore or being with my college sweetheart but something about him made me feel soft and girly, like coquette bows and almond-shaped nails. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Make the world stop and shit.”
“Because I only have eyes for you. Everything else, everyone else is just set dressing.”
“More kisses. I need more kisses.”
He obliged with pecks to my neck, forehead and lips. “You know the only opinions that matter when it comes to you and me are you and me.”
“Mhmm?”
“So if we want to keep it casual or transition to something more. Or if we want to go off the grid and make oat milk, that’s our business.”
“Oat milk?”
“Have you never had ice cream made with oat milk?”
“No.”
Aldridge’s face lit up. “It’s going to change your life. And it’s going to ruin you for all other ice creams.”
I feel like that could be a metaphor for our relationship. “Really?”
“It’s my only vice. I gave up alcohol and all that other stuff and it’s just this. My decadent, creamy, little secret.”
“I need a man to talk about me the way you do your oat milk ice cream.”
“Listen, I have two loves. One is oat milk ice cream.”
“What’s the other?”
“I can’t say because right now she thinks this is a situationship.”
I smushed his face playfully, “Shut up.” Grabbing a six-hundred-page textbook from the shelf, I handed it to him. I didn’t want to hear the love word, this was too new and Aldridge was a serial dater. He was the type who loved being in love and maybe what we had was more about nostalgia than anything else, and he’d quickly lose interest.
It’s like Bubble Charm Babies, they were a popular toy when I was growing up. I had like ten of these charms hanging from my backpack. I thought I was so cool. I mean I was because all the popular girls had them. And the more charms you had, the more social credit you earned. But like with all trends, it quickly fizzled out and I wouldn’t be caught dead with one of those charms. “I refuse to be a Bubble Charm Baby.”
