“I said thank you for giving my best friend her first orgasm. She seemed surprised.”
“Keely.”
“She also seemed pleased. She tried to hide it but I saw it.” Keely sips her refill. “I like her, Zo. She’s intense but she’s real. You can tell she actually cares about you.”
“How can you tell that?”
“Because she didn’t kick me out for saying that. Anyone who tolerates your friends is in deep because let's be honest, we're a lot. Like a lot a lot.”
Mia brings up the music. She’s been listening to the playlist all night, head tilted, trying to identify things. “Is this what you’ve been listening to? This punk stuff?”
“It’s not all punk. There’s post-punk, riot grrrl, ska-punk, hardcore—”
“You sound like a Wikipedia article.”
“I sound like someone who’s been educated.” I glance at the bar. Teague is serving someone else but she catches my eye and holds it for a second, just a second, before going back to pouring. “She taught me all of it. The Pretenders, the Clash, Patti Smith, Against Me!. She knows everything about punk history.”
“And you find that attractive?”
I smile. “I find her attractive. The punk is a bonus.”
Jordan comes back from the pool table and drops into her chair. “Okay, I need the full story. Keely gave us the highlights but I want the beginning. How did you two start?”
I tell them. The whole thing. The graduation, Station 24, the campaign to get into Station 11. Walking into Anthem ona Tuesday and ordering oblivion and getting a Shirley Temple instead. Punk history over a Moscow mule. Coming back, and back, and back. The song requests. The text messages. The night she kissed me after I got into Station 11.
They listen. All four of them. Keely already knows most of it but she listens again because Keely will hear your story a hundred times and react like it’s new every time. Mia’s eyes are wide. Jordan is nodding. Raquelle has her chin in her hand.
“She gave you a Shirley Temple,” Raquelle says. “Instead of getting you drunk.”
“On my first night. Before she knew me.”
“That’s a green flag the size of a building.”
Exactly. I'm glad she gets it. “I know.”
“And she taught you about music and texted you at three in the morning and kissed you after you got your dream job.” Raquelle looks at the bar. “Zoe, that woman is in love with you.”
Yeah, maybe she's not as smart as I thought. “She says she’s not the dating kind.”
“She’s the dating kind,” Keely, Mia, Jordan, and Raquelle say in unison. They look at each other and burst out laughing and I laugh too because my friends are ridiculous and correct and they’ve known Teague for two hours and they can see what Teague is still pretending she can’t.
At midnight the girls start gathering their things. Hugs, coats, the usual fifteen-minute exit that takes thirty because someone always forgets a phone or a jacket. Keely pulls me aside at the door.
“I love her for you,” she says. Not whispered. Full volume. “She’s tough and she’s hot and she looks at you like you’re the only person in the room. Don’t let her convince you she’s not into this.”
“I won’t.”
“And Zo?” Keely squeezes my hand. “Bring her to brunch. I need to ask her about the tongue thing.”
“There’s no tongue thing.”
“There’s always a tongue thing. Ask her.” Keely kisses my cheek and disappears into the night with Jordan and Mia and Raquelle, laughing, their voices echoing down the street.
I go back to the bar. Teague is wiping down the counter with the focus of someone who is thinking about fourteen things and choosing to express none of them.
“Your friend told me thank you,” she says. “For your orgasm.”
“She’s direct.”
