Playing It Safe: A Playing it Cool Fanfic

The Mom

I bet you expected me to be married to her now. Settled down? Maybe we'd have started a family? What a joke. I thought I was in love. Turns out I was just in the middle of a giant mistake. We lasted exactly three months.

The first month was all hot sex and goo-goo eyes. I thought damn, this is what love is. I told everyone and anyone who would listen. No one's love was as true and down to Earth as mine. No one else could possibly understand what it was really like to be in love. I was the one in love. I was the expert.

The second was all apathy. Yeah. I guess I still love her. She's the one who's here right? She left her fiancé for me so I had to love her. She had to love me too. I guess. Who cares really? I don't hate her. So that's something. We just were.

The third we fought constantly. She cheated on me. I cheated on her. She pulled out the 'I left my fiancé because of you' card. All. The. Time. We were both angry with each other constantly. Eventually, we just didn't care any more.

Then we split.

It was inevitable. After that, I didn't know what I was doing any more. Everything felt forced. Like the life I was living wasn't my own any more. I was just floating along, not engaging with anyone any more. All these people who I once thought of as my family were just people who I had to be around out of social obligation.

When Granddad died. It was peaceful. He just slipped off in his sleep. I thought I dealt with it. I thought I was okay. When she left it made me realize I had just used her to distract me from that.

That changed everything. It broke me. I didn't leave my apartment at all for a month. I didn't wash. The others were scared to come by and see me. I didn't feel sorry about it. Only Scott really stuck with me. It was obvious he was reluctant about it.

Grief is strange. It can dominate everything about you, and then one day you are still sad but it doesn't own you any more. I woke up, showered and realized something. I didn't want to be in LA any more. So I packed up and left.

I didn't go too far, just far enough that I could reset. I could still go see my friends if I wanted to, but it took just enough effort that I would have space to breathe.

I found a place in San Diego. In an apartment complex that was relatively new close to the beach. It was one of those complexes where all the apartments circle a large courtyard that you need to pass through to get inside. Mine was a ground floor, which sucked because the people above me seemed to own a small herd of water buffalo. But it was new. I could have a do-over.

Which is exactly what I did. I am a novelist now. I write books about dystopian futures where no one is allowed to love any more. I also fell back into my old comfortable habits. There were lots of new places for me to find women to fuck.

If you have certain skill sets, it's a shame to waste them.

I fell into a pattern. I'd work through the morning in my boxers at home. Then I'd go sit in the Starbucks by the beach and write from there. Sometimes that was where I picked up. I'd see some girl come in alone, I'd make some joke about pumpkin spice being a gift from god. That was usually enough. Otherwise I'd find a bar. Usually the ones down in the Gaslights were good. Seaport Village was another good spot. Drunk tourists. You didn't have to worry about drunk tourists hanging around. You just needed to make them believe that what you had to offer was part of the tourist experience.

And that's how it went, until she moved in.

She moved in about a month after I did. In the apartment opposite mine. She was hot in that, 'I kind of know I am but I don't like to draw attention to it' way. Dark hair, light eyes. She wore oversized t-shirts over jeans-shorts and sandals. I thought, hey maybe we could work out a mutually beneficial relationship. It would have to be clearly defined fuck buddies only, but it could work. Then I wouldn't have to go out so often. Nothing wrong with being lazy from time to time.