Lennox. Me. & Apartment C.

009.

Let me tell you guys exactly what I was thinking when Lennox was luring me into his trap. It was: crap. Crap. CRAP. OH MY GOSH. WHAT THE-- INSERT ANY EXPLETIVE HERE.  Nonetheless, despite the lurching in my stomach and my feet actually hesitating and falling behind me, I took the bait. Well, no, it's not like I fell for the stunt. I pretty much walked into it. In my defense, things had been a little bit weird because we hadn't been talking and there was an awkward atmosphere in the apartment. Granted, he did upset me-- and I was going to tell him that-- but I did miss breakfast in the morning and he was starting to become a bit more tolerable and it is sorta hard to look at his face when his face isn't really around. I know, "Take a picture; it lasts longer." A picture though isn't really an accurate showing of what a person really looks like or how they actually are. C'mon, think back to your school picture in junior high. Pfft, think back to the selfie you just took earlier today that you just deleted in the end. Well, Lennox was the same way. Having a picture of him would actually be creepy but, as difficult as it is to admit, I liked looking at him and I mean-- really looking at him. So I sat. I grabbed a Mason jar out the cupboard, poured a couple bottles, and my friend, Jack Daniels, and I joined Lennox for the party. Now, who said three's a crowd?

So, throughout the whole night, we're drinking and refilling. We're laughing at bits and pieces of some movie that's playing in the background. At some moment, we completely stopped watching or caring about the movie and just talked. As great as Lennox is to look at him, that's pretty much it. His life is a bore and I'd rather smell roadkill. Nah, I'm totally kidding. It was quite the opposite actually.

Lennox told me so much about his past and his family and his life before coming to college. He had played baseball for a while and was a pitcher actually but he hurt his shoulder at the start of his junior year. The coach offered him a chance to be a manager and work with the team until he was ready to play again. He did that for a little while but it really upset him to not be able to do what he loved. So he hung out around the house more and helped out his mom and that's how he became such a good chef! His mom works a 9-5 as a secretary in a law office. So, after school, Lennox would pick up his little brother and sister, who are fraternal twins, help them with their homework and start dinner. His dad is a commercial airline pilot so work keeps him away several nights a week because he's off flying planes. He doesn't resent his dad or anything like that though, but that was his driving force for being in the business school, so that he could have a practical job, like an accountant or a private banker, and just have a normal life with the white picket fence and 2.5 kids.

Now, when I say it: it sounds like a Sparknotes summary of the guy's life. When you talk to him though, you can see the wrinkles in his eyes when he starts spilling about his brother and sister and you can feel the hurt that comes from a bit of disappointment when he mentions his dad and that he's not there for family dinners every night. At the end of it all, he invited me to his house for Thanksgiving dinner because he only lived a two and a half hour drive away. I think somewhere in the conversation I mentioned that Dad wouldn't be around for Thanksgiving this year because of work and that, especially with a family of three, things won't be the same with him gone. However, I couldn't just let the invite be an invite. Of course, it's classic Quinn to go and mess something up. For the record, I would like to take this time to pull a Jamie Foxx and blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol.

In my tipsy, faded, buzzed stage, I managed to just blurt out, "Just because you're being sweet now doesn't mean that I just forgive you for being a cotton-headed ninnymuggins all week."

Now, for those of you who don't get that reference, you can go eat all the gum on the streets of New York... It's free candy.

Lennox, whose head was a bit less cloudy than mine, decided to entertain this conversation: "How was I being a cotton-headed ninnymuggins all week? I was hardly here!"

"Because," I started. "You got mad at me and you literally have not said a word to me until tonight."

"But I was hardly even here!"

"No! It doesn't matter. You can text me or something, anything. I thought you hated me and I don't like that. I don't like you not liking me?"

"What are you going on about? You're not making sense. No more drinking for you," he said as he tried to take my glass from me.

"No, I know what I'm talking about," I pulled away from him. "You wanted to 'hang out with me'" --Yes, I used air quotes-- "and I called you out on trying to play me."

"I wasn't trying to play you."

I think the goddess of Side Eye suddenly overtook my face and released her I'm-Not-Buying-It look because Lennox jumped on the defensive and went zero to a hundred, real quick. Real freaking quick.

"Honest," he put an open palm up to his chest like that actually meant something to me. "We just had been getting along lately and I wanted to get to know you better. I was doing nothing. You were doing nothing so I figured we could do nothing, or something, together just like right now."

"Just like right now?" I repeated.

"Just like right now."

"And we can do nothing?"

"Nothing," he repeated before adding, "Or something."

I swear I saw a smirk play on his lips when he finished talking but then again, maybe that was the drink having me imagine the eyebrow raise. Either way, I just answered, "We're going to do nothing."

I put my drink down on the ottoman-table and my head on his lap and curled up on the stupid, unsanitary sofa. I felt a warm hand come up to the side of my face as it began to stroke my hair. I just looked up at the TV and with a soft sigh mentioned, "This is nothing."

I felt really comfortable and at peace lying there. This is going to sound bad, but let it go there. Last time, I was on a couch-- snuggling, cuddling, canoodling, whatever-- with a guy, I didn't feel comfortable. I remember being tense and staring at the clock to see when it would be acceptable to go home and eat a pint of ice cream with no pants on. With this fool, things were the complete opposite. Maybe it's because holding the last guy was basically the resurrection of that planking phase back in 2011 but with Lennox, I instantaneously felt at-ease, relaxed even. Him playing with my hair made me calmer, and maybe a little giddy, but that's irrelevant.

Now, an hour or so passed and the movie had ended and we had begun our descent into the lower altitudes of cable television which consisted of sitcoms and bad late-night talk shows, so I decided to head to my room and call it a night. Somewhere during the somnolent blinks and the brief moments when I started to doze off, Lennox had slouched down on the couch, propped his feet up on the ottoman-table, and my head had used his stomach as a pillow. Therefore, when I got up and the weight of my head was no longer crushing his appendix into the floor, he grabbed my hand and sleepily mumbled, "Come back."

He was awake but only awake insofar as his eyes were open, technically. His head was bobbing was like buoy and his eyes were rolling to the back of his head like some wicked exorcism.

"No," I breathed out in exhaustion. "Do you want something?"

And Lennox in a daze of confusion, nodded and said, "Nothing."