Bits and Pieces

Hurry Up!

I give the Uber driver an extra large tip and promise to give her a good rating when she pulls up in front of my house. She'd read my body language and hadn't tried to make idle chit chat with me at all, even when it looked like she might have recognized me. She let me sulk and stare at my phone for the whole ride, and her choice in radio station--80's power ballads--was appreciated.

"H-have a good night," she calls to me when I step out of her car and I grin at her.

"It can only go up from here," I tell her, and wave as I head up the front walk. In all actuality, the night probably can't go up. Mitch is on a date and most of the shows that I watch on Netflix are ones he watches too, and I'm forbidden to watch without him. I'm in too acidic a mood after my own failed date that I don't think I should post much on social media. As I unlock the front door, I decide on my trajectory: freezer for ice cream, then drawer for spoon, then downstairs and into bed for a nice sulky binge.

But I can't even complete step one of my plan because there's someone in my way, rummaging in my freezer. He stands and turns to face me and I jump, not just because I'm not expecting to see Mitch home at this hour. I jump because he's dressed in a bathrobe and his beautiful face is obscured by a thick green facial mask.

"The fuck are you doing?!" I ask, more coarsely than I intended.

He very slightly raises an eyebrow at me and holds up the very pint of ice cream I'd been looking forward to.

"So your night went well too then?" I guess and he rolls his eyes hugely at me. "Wanna talk about it?"

He doesn't answer but he does go to the drawer and pull out two spoons. He hands them both to me along with the pint and begins to move toward the staircase. I follow him down, unnerved by his silence, but too curious to do anything else.

When we get to the downstairs hall, he points for me to go to my room and then he makes a gesture at his face followed by more pointing, at his room this time. When I tilt my head in confusion, he gives me a small tired smile and I see that the mask is tight and has all but immobilized his features. He couldn't open his mouth to talk to me if he wanted to.

I give him a thumbs up with my free hand and chuckle, heading to my room. It's a little messy, various articles of clothing strewn around as I'd fretted about what to wear. I peel off my Raf Simmons sweater and shake it out, thinking it could probably be worn again without being cleaned first. It had only been on my body for a couple of hours, and I certainly hadn't gotten into anything that had caused me to work up a sweat in it.

I spend a couple minutes tidying up and then I boot up my laptop, trying to predict which show Mitch will choose. When he joins me, he's still in his robe but his face is shiny and clean and fully pliable again. He flings himself down on my bed and I follow him with the computer and our late night snack.

Mitch ignores the computer, choosing to focus his attention on my face. "You go first," he says. "I thought you had high hopes for this one."

"I did," I mumble, thinking of last week when Ray and I had locked eyes in the club. He'd been easy to spot, standing several inches taller than the others around him. I don't always go for tall boys, but it makes some things easier. We'd hit it off well in the loud, wild club. We'd shared a sloppy kiss as we waited for cars to take us home. We'd texted on and off for days and it had been promising. But once the preliminaries had worn off, he'd fallen short of what had been advertised. "He's cute enough," I tell Mitch. "And he seems like a decent guy, but we didn't make it five minutes before he started name dropping producers he'd sent his demo tapes to. Apparently he adores Danny Harle and hopes to meet him soon."

Mitch rolls his eyes and groans. "I bet he does. Whoever said 'it's all about who you know in the music industry' is a real asshole."

I chuckle at his indignation. "The sad part is, it's true. A guy like him, new in town, no connections... He has no hope of scoring an A-list producer without help. So I'm the asshole for not giving it to him."