This story begins the way most stories do. With a girl and a boy. My name is Katie and I am that girl, though it took me a while to figure out who the boy was. You see, I had been seeing this guy off and on through college and it never really had a definition. We sort of dated other people, but somehow always ended up in bed together. And it was fun and familiar and incredibly unhealthy. Jake stressed me out beyond anything else in my life. Midterms, finals, graduating, job hunting, and life in general all fell within the realm of controllable. But him... he was chaos. He kept me on baited breath, waiting and hoping for something more.
"Well don't you look stunning tonight." Dan smirked at me from the couch of our living room.
"Thanks."
"Hot date?"
"Yeah, I'm meeting Jake."
Dan's eyes narrowed for the tiniest, fraction of a second. I knew he didn't really approve. But he knew how I felt and kept his opinion at bay. You see, Dan was one of my best friends. From the moment I met him at my cousin's house warming party, I knew he was special. Tall, funny, and confident, he was everything I wasn't. Now I'm not saying I'm not happy with who I am. I'm very content being the quieter, mousy girl with her nose in a book, but whenever you're around him you can't help but feel... more.
Stacy, my cousin, met Dan her third year of college and everyone, including me, thought for sure they would get together. They seemed perfect for each other and everyone in our family secretly thought they were hiding a relationship from the rest of us. But after a couple of parties and plutonic coffee dates it became obvious nothing could be farther from the truth. They were, truly, just best friends. Something I respected them both for, because there had definitely been opportunities where their relationship could have taken a more physical turn. Especially with all the encouragement and goading our group of friends laid on at every chance.
Anyway, Dan moved around a lot after school but when he finally finished his work abroad and moved home he needed a roommate, and so did I. And for the last several months, he's become one of my dearest friends. Even listening to me go on and on about Jake, and how I want more, and how he was hesitant and indecisive about our relationship, and how he avoided and dodged any real conversations about our future. But despite everything, I still wanted him. Still needed him. And I could tell how much it frustrated Dan.
Now many of you are probably thinking that Dan is in the friend zone. But this couldn't be farther from the truth. We just didn't see each other like that. Not that we hadn't thought about it. It just, didn't seem smart. We were just too different to be romantically capable... right?
"Well, you should knock him dead in that dress."
"That's the idea." Dan turned away, and went back to his laptop. Usually he was going out or watching a game or playing some new game on his Xbox, but once in a while he'd sit down and write. And when he'd write, he'd go at it for hours. It was amazing and also a little unnerving to watch the normally boisterous and loud guy I knew so well, sit in silence for hours with a look of deepest concentration on his face. I liked to read when he was in one of his writing moods. Almost as though his thoughts supercharged the air of the room. It made reading that much more intense for me. And I loved it.
"Got any plans tonight?" I asked.
He took a moment to answer me. I could see his eyes darting back and forth across the screen. The tapping stopped and a moment later he looked up.
"Huh?"
"Plans? You doing anything tonight?"
"Oh... Nah. I'm grabbing coffee with Stacy tomorrow morning, so I'll probably go to bed early." He forced a smile and asked, "How about you? Where are you and Jake going?"
"I dunno yet. He's taking me to dinner in the Mission."
""That should be fun. You coming home tonight or you going back to his place?"
I couldn't help but chuckle slightly. "Depends how good dinner is." I told Dan everything about Jake and me, including our love life. I'd never really done this with anyone before, but he was so uninhibited about sex and stuff that I didn't feel weird talking about it.
Knock, knock, knock.
Jake was here. Dan gave me a final, fleeting smile and went back to his computer. I walked to the door, knowing full well I'd probably be venting some new frustration about Jake to Dan tomorrow and already feeling guilty about it. You see, Dan never really dated. Despite his confidence and charm, he had very little with anyone romantically. Not to say he was celibate. I came home once and heard a very noisy bout between him and some young lady I never did meet. I teased him for days about it, but he'd just laugh with me... more proud than anything else. Still, such nights were few and far between for Dan. He just didn't go looking for it. Just let it find him once and a while.
And then there was Jake. I opened the door to see his familiar pale face. He and Dan were so different. Where Dan was almost six foot four, Jake was only five ten which still towered over me at a petite five feet. David was athletic and Jake was scrawny and skinny. And Jake's eyes were dark. So very dark. I'd lose myself in them wondering what was looking back at me. While Dan's were the faintest blue grey and seemed to twinkle whenever he laughed.
"You ready?" He said with the same half smile that had made me bite my lower lip all those years ago.
"Yeah. Let me just get my coat." Walking to the closet, I glanced quickly at Dan hoping for a reassuring smile or nod, but he was staring at the screen; his eyes weren't moving.
"See you later!"
"See you."
I knew what he was thinking. And I secretly knew it too. That tonight wouldn't be different. That I'd come home feeling the same uncertainty and emptiness that always followed an evening with Jake. But I had to hope. I needed there to be a chance that tonight could be different. That tonight we could move forward. Because, if we didn't it meant I'd been used. It would mean that I'd fallen for the same play again. And the cycle would keep repeating itself. I needed that hope; Unwarranted and blind hope that the scrawny, dark haired boy smiling that smile really did care for me. And that I wasn't the dumb girl who was there when he needed someone to console him, or someone to fuck.
The car ride felt odd. Normally Jake talks a lot, about himself or his music, but tonight he seemed distracted. He had the look of someone running a conversation through his head over and over. That look of concentration people get when they're stealing themselves to do or say something important. It gave me goose bumps, seeing him with that look. Because I started doing the same thing. Picturing him telling me how he felt and where he wanted this, by which I mean "us", to go. I looked down and stared at my hands, nervously rubbing them together. And then his hands, bony and strong, were there too. He took my hand, and I took his, and I looked up. There is was. The smile that made me forget everything except for how his body felt against mine and how his hair smelled when I held it firmly against my chest, lost in the pleasure that he gave me.
"We're here."
I snapped out of my memories and saw a quaint little restaurant I'd never been to. The trees outside twinkled with lights and the windows were fogged slightly.
"Where are we?"
"Little place I found after a gig a few weeks ago." He took my hand and led me inside. "Let's get our table. There something I want to talk to you about."
The inside was warm and comforting, like a ski lodge. And it reminded me of when I used to go to Tahoe with my family while growing up.
"Anything to drink?" I hadn't even noticed the waitress come over.
"Rum and coke." He always had rum and coke.
"And for you?"
"Um…" I was still thinking about the Christmases in the Sierras so I figured what the hell. "Do you have hot chocolate?"
"Yeah, want a cup?" She asked with a smile.
"Please."
Everything here seemed magical and surreal. Like a town inside a snow globe. Even the hard wood architecture seemed whimsical in a way.
