The Culture of Hooking Up

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Pancakes at one in the morning are the best kind of pancakes. They are the warmest so the butter melts right into them, and the fluffiest so they melt right in your mouth. My sister and I used to always love testing out all the different fruit flavored syrups usually resting  at the end of every laminate diner table even though we already knew which ones we preferred over others. I always joke that in a few years we can go midnight diner hoping instead of midnight bar hoping.

     "Oh, before I forget," Jack says as he reaches into the front pocket of his jeans. "You left this the other night." He reaches for my hand and slides my biggest silver ring—my favorite silver ring with five intertwining bands and some crisscrossing incrusted gems—back onto its usual place on my left middle finger.

     His voice from a week or two ago echoes in my head. "Can these stay on today?"  Cool metal on hot skin just hits different. 

     "So, why night clubs?" Jack asks, reminding me that this isn't just any late night snack craving but rather a flapjack confessional. Even though I have yet to receive my actual flapjacks, I still have to face the annoying flapjack sitting in the maroon booth across from me. "Why not strip clubs?"

     "What?" I jolt my hand away before leaning back against the booth. Jack mimics my actions, but slower and with an all too cocky smile that makes me almost roll my eyes. Instead, I grab the ends of my hair, pulling and twisting the long strands back over my shoulders and tucking it behind my ears before tugging the hood of my black sweatshirt forward. I cross my legs at the ankles and flatten the backs of my heels against the floor.

     Thankfully, the waitress comes with my iced tea and Jack's chocolate milk, which buys me even more time because I add a few packets of sugar to my glass while Jack is left mixing the extra syrup at the bottom of his.

     I take a long swig out of the straw before straightening back up again. "So . . ."

     "So," Jack mimics as he continues to slowly—tantalizingly—swirl his straw around. "Doesn't it get annoying? Going to the club every week?"

     "At first no," I admit. "But lately, yeah."

     Jack lifts one arm up and rests it on the booth beside his head before his face follows suit, his lips, his eyebrows, his forehead, all tugging upwards. "That wouldn't have happened if you choose strip clubs." I almost rebut but decide to take another sip of my tea instead, which only makes Jack continue, "you don't like strip clubs?"

     I shrug. "I've never been in one."

     "But you could've."

     "Why do you even care?" I laugh.

     "Because . . ." He tilts his head, the same excessive way he did at the club. "I feel like . . ." His eyes travel in a slow circle around my face. "I don't know. It's more of a gendered place, no?"

     "Eh." I shrug. "Kind of equal."

     "Really?" 

     "Yeah." I nod.

     We continue to stare back at each other. Jack with a smirk that makes my eyes narrow into slits. If Violet was here, she'd mockingly mimic my expression. If Taryne was across from me, she'd jokingly stick her tongue out. Instead, I'm reminded that I'm sitting across from an annoying flapjack because he decides to just wiggle those dark eyebrows of his.

   I slunk back down in my seat, mimicking the "too cool for school" attitude he's got going, albeit feigning.    "Why don't you research strip clubs then."