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“Um,” Jake lifts his eyebrows, thinking. “You talked about just one lately, but I’m having trouble remembering it because it was so. Long. Ago…”
“Fuck off!” I say, snickering. “I’m still wrapped around her, Jake. I don’t know what to do.”
“Did you have sex again?” he asks, as clinical as a psychiatrist evaluating a patient.
“No,” I reply, “But we kissed.”
“Oh, that changes things,” he says. “At that pace you’ll be married in roughly thirty years.”
I sigh in resignation, unsure if I can keep on dealing with all the jokes. “She’s a lady. I don’t want to scare her off,” I say.
“Let me guess, then: she’s having cold feet after you two had sex?” he says.
“Yeah,” I say, thankful that he can explain it better than I can. “I have to see her every day and I don’t know what to do.”
“Wait. You see her every day? How is that possible?” Jake asks, intrigued, both elbows over the table.
“She’s…” Now I’m screwed and have to make up something fast, “She’s an employee of the Villas,” I finish, hoping he doesn’t see through the lie.
He shrugs, “Why can't you just ask the administration for her to be reassigned somewhere else? Away from you.”
I place a hand on my forehead and lean backwards in my chair, wondering why I even bother asking Jake for dating advice.
“I don’t want her out of my life, Jake!” I moan in desperation. “And I can’t make her life difficult. This girl is an angel.”
Now Jake is the one who sighs, growing tired of me. “So, you want her to be yours, but she doesn’t?”
“I guess you can say that,” I inform him, already packing my things to leave.
“And this all started with just a one-night stand, then a kiss, right?” he asks.
“Yes. I mean… There’s more to it, but that’s the gist. Why?”
“Try going backwards, my friend,” he says with a big, triumphant grin, “Ask her out on a first date.”
It’s as if he discovered gunpowder, and I was there to have the privilege of being the first one to hear it.
“Motherfucker, you’re right,” I can’t believe something useful actually came out of Jake’s mouth.
Jake stands, and so do I, ready to leave and get home so Joyce can get to class on time.
As we walk to the door, he places a hand on my shoulder and says, “I’m not just a motherfucker, okay? I’m yourfavoritemotherfucker.”
He claps me on the back and disappears out the door, taking a left to get to Jefferson’s office. And I go out and make a right, towards the exit, bidding the receptionist goodbye.
When I get home, Joyce and Anna are playing a party videogame on the TV. The living room is full of noise and excitement, something I haven’t heard at home in a long time. I’m starting to realize that before Joyce, things were pretty dull around here.
I look in the living room and go unnoticed to Anna, but Joyce looks at me with a bright smile and a cheerful nod. I then go upstairs to change into jeans and a polo and return downstairs to interrupt the little party.
“Can you girls pause the game for a second?” I ask, trying to sound polite, but just sounding grumpy.
“Sure, Mr. Bardin!” Joyce says.
Anna groans in complaint, but I ruffle her hair and she clings to my leg.
“I want to talk to… You!” I say, moving my finger around randomly in the air and then stop to point at Anna.
“Did I do something wrong?” she asks, pressing her lips against my jeans.
