Knickers

A Flounce A Bounce A Twirl

It's late in the morning when we finally wake, both regrettably hungover. Last night's events trickle pleasantly through my mind, hiccuping slightly over our brief stumble of awkwardness and a noncommittal kiss. I don't remember much after it, but the tour bus is in absolute shambles, and Dom's shirt is ripped open in front. He's slouched sideways, his cheek pressing against the counter, an overturned and empty bottle of vodka only inches away. This time I am in his lap, my arms wrapped around his knee, his hand partway in my hair.

There's a ringing in my ears that mutes the muffled voices just outside. Even if I could make them out, I'm too hungover to recognize them. The door pops open, flooding the interior with light, almost bright enough to blind me, and with it comes an agonizing pulse of pressure through my skull.

Before I can recover fully two figures appear before us, spinning slowly, surveying our disastrous surroundings in silence.

Then, a booming voice.

"The fuck happpened, Dom?"

Both of us startle into wakefulness. My body heaves, flattening me onto my back, and when the blur in my vision clears I recognize Adam's face above me, softened by the sunlight in tandem with my headache.

"Alright?" he asks me.

"No," I tell him.

"Fuck, what happened to this place?" Dom groans, adjusting in his seat, bobbing my head on his lap, rattling my brain around in my skull.

"We leave you alone for one night and you wreck our bus?"

"It's not wrecked," I interject, sitting up slowly, painfully. "It's redecorated."

Dom clears his throat, tugging his shirt halfheartedly closed over his chest. In doing this reveals a dribble of dried blood on the white fabric.

"Who bled?" Adam asks.

I hold my elbow into the light, finding the bandaid unsoiled and still securely in place. "Not me."

Dom tilts his head to one side, his hands coming down on my cheeks as he turns my face every which way. Finally, he looks directly up into my nostrils and curses.

"Your nose," he says, prodding at it. "Dehydration, maybe?"

The following pain tells me in no uncertain terms that it certainly is not dehydration.

"I think I fell or something," I say. "Feels like I got hit."

Adam chuckles easily. "Did you fistfight or summat, Dom?"

"Maybe," he says, his brows furrowing. "You alright?"

My back pocket vibrates before I can answer. My heart drops into my stomach as my neglected responsibility comes flooding in.

Just as I suspected, it's Maya, and she's yelling at me before I can even greet her.

"Where the everloving fuck are you?" she snaps, her voice exploding from the speaker, loud enough to be heard by the other three in the bus. "You promised me you'd be here by nine."

"When did I promise that?"

"Last night," she says. "Remember our call?"

"Not at all," I say, but I can't blame Maya for not realizing how hammered I was. I have an uncanny ability to sound sober on the phone.

"You were drinking with him?" she chastises. "Alone?"

I send an apologetic glance Dom's way, to which he shrugs indifferently.

"Where are you?" she demands.

"Tour bus."

"I'll be there in five," she says, and hangs up.

"I'm in trouble," I sigh, pushing against Dom's shoulder to help me to my feet, coming face to face with the other newcomer, one I don't recognize, as I'm collecting my capsized backpack. "Hi. Marley. Sorry for destroying your bus."

"S'alright," he says with a shrug. "I'm Tom."

"Pleasure," I say, touching his arm on my way past him. "Good to see you, Adam."

"Likewise, Marley."

Dom scrambles to his feet to walk me out, like I had suspected he would. He follows me down the stairs and out into the open, the flaps of his torn shirt whipping back and forth in the late morning's wind.

"Sorry again about last night," I tell him. "For the things I remember and for the things I don't."

"I don't regret a thing," he says, ruffling the knots out of his hair.

I extend a hand toward him. "Friends?"

One corner of his mouth turns endearingly upwards, and he joins our hands together and pulls me into another first-rate hug, but this time, with our newly cemented sense of familiarity, he nuzzles his face against my shoulder. He's right, he's very much like a puppy, and the easy closeness makes my chest hurt.

This time it's me who won't let go, and I don't feel like he'll demand an explanation for it. Maybe for him there's no space for logic in a hug, and how wonderful that must be.

Before I know it, Maya pulls up on the opposite side of the fence and blares her horn, agitating our hangovers. He catches my eye on our way apart, holding my gaze for an extra moment. The headache has subdued him slightly, and I can't help but feel there's something fundamentally missing in this moment. A flounce. A bounce. A twirl.

"See you Saturday?" I ask him.

"Bring all your angst," he returns, with a wiggled eyebrow.

I watch him in the side mirror as Maya pulls away, our suitcases half open and thrown carelessly in the backseat. She's fuming, but thankfully not enough to make her terrible driving worse. She and I are silent until we reach the freeway, though her interrogation doesn't start until we pass three exits.

It begins with a suspicious sideways glance and an anticipatory drumming on the wheel. "Did you fuck?"

"No."

"Second base?"

"No."

"You're not wearing a bra, Marls."

I cup my chest, and holy hell, where's my bra?

"Shit, I must have left it on the bus," I mutter, mortified. "No, no second base. I don't think."

"First base, then?"

I chew my lip at the memory of our almost-kiss. "Kind of?"

"Elaborate."

"Felt weird," I say. "I was scared it would lead to a hookup."

"Didn't you want to hook up?"

"I thought I did. I was wrong. I wanted to..." I grimace. "I wanted to cuddle, I guess."

Maya rolls her eyes. "He's a stranger, Marls."

"He perplexed me," I say. "It felt like a gamble, you know. Like cashing out for a fuck when I could have a real friend next game."

"Whoa," she says. "What about me?"

"You're the main piece, always," I tell her, taking her hand and kissing her knuckles. "Thanks for picking me up, Maya."

"Yeah. You're buying me breakfast."