On Sturdy Legs

With the Fisher Girls

Tuesday couldn't come fast enough. Izzy and Molly were adamant that I stay as far away from James Fisher as possible; Tom was doing his best not to comment on the issue since he must have assumed it was more of the girl thing that he really didn't have the right to talk about. I decided to ignore all of them and when my alarm woke me up a half hour earlier than normal, I was quite enthusiastic to turn it off and get out of bed with the loudest volume I dared to. Since I wouldn't be going to the gym with Tom even if he decided to go, I went ahead and took a shower, brushing my hair after shampooing to almost tame the curls. When I got out, I wrapped a towel around my head and pulled on a pair of dark blue cut off shorts with relatively large pockets, a camouflage sports bra--one with thinner straps than usual so my tank would hide it better--, camouflage socks that came up somewhere around mid calf, and a tank top that was quite the annoying shade of maroon but was one of my favorites because the words RUN FORREST RUN were across the front in thick, gray letter; the back read out in slightly smaller text If you can read this, you are losing. As I pulled the tank down over my torso and adjusted so my bra straps were mostly covered, I realized that I had ended up matching my bra with camouflage boy shorts too and decided that I needed to change that. I ran back to my room to pick up a pair of bright orange boy shorts instead that I pulled on in the bathroom. That was much better.

I hung my towel back up and laced on my tennis shoes before I headed down stairs. To my slight surprise, Tom was up looking very sleepy and holding a mug of coffee between his hands to combat that.

"Morning," I greeted him with the decision not to question his awakeness as not to prompt the reason I suspected he was up so early.

"Morning," Tom yawned in reply and moved out of my way as I poured myself a cup from the pot he had brewed. I fixed my coffee the way I liked it and made Tom move out of the way again as I dug a granola bar out of the pantry--a cup of coffee was not an entire breakfast after all. My attempts at avoiding Tom's purpose for waking up this early failed quite epically my second bite into the granola bar. He was already launching into a speech I suspected he thought he could wing, as it turned out he couldn't.

"Look, Ariadne, uh, Ari. Um. Some guys are assholes. And uh, sorry about that. Look, if anything, uh, happens? You need to say, uh, no, I guess. And, well..."

I interrupted him since this clearly was not going well. The oven clock struck five thirty on the dot and I knew James Fisher would be ringing the doorbell any minute now. "I know," at least I thought I did. The bell rang. "If I want respect, I have to demand it."

Tom didn't seem to be doing much better at the speech thing so he gave up, "call me if you need a ride."

"No problem," I called over my shoulder as I ran to the door. I opened the door to see James Fisher in a full suit for work and whisker free; he had finally shaved. "Hey."

"Hi," he greeted and closed the screen door he had been holding open as I closed the wood one.

His car was parked in the driveway; it was exactly the kind of car that I would imagine belonged to a guy like him--a 2012 Camaro; however, to his credit, it was dark blue even if it did have the black racing stripes. Something about the way James swallowed hard as he opened the passenger door for me made me wonder what he was thinking. Did James Fisher feel like he was going to make a huge mistake hiring me? Was he expecting another rape accusation or preparing for one? I pushed those thoughts away and strapped in tight as he pulled out of the driveway and sped up the street with a speed that was a little fast for a neighborhood, even this early.

"I swear," he began, turning to look at me yet managing to not hit anything in front of him, "I bought this before the Transformers movie came out."