Cheap Shot 2

You don't check your social media. Do you?

It's hard to say. I don't "see" you online very often. We exchange messages on each other's public walls periodically. Happy Birthday. Merry Christmas. I post to you, "I'm in town." You might reply that you are too. Or maybe you won't.

We don't send each other private messages. Not because we don't want to, but because it isn't really a thing at this time. Do those apps even exist yet? If they do, no one is using them as a real communication tool.

We don't text each other. Texting isn't really trendy or prevalent at this point in time, yet, either. Everyone is still getting charged per text. In terms of our specific history, we are so used to speaking in person, or on the phone. And neither of us is brave enough to dial.

In light of our sparse communication, I wonder if you hear through someone else that I might be out on this night. And I am. So are you.

I don't see you until you are next to me. I've been talking to the friend I came here to meet. Both she and the crowded bar are pulling my focus.

Your voice gives you away. You call back to someone you are with, and my ears perk. By that time, you are sidling up next to me, getting ready to say something. It now shows you did not plan anything in advance, because the best you can come up with in the moment is, "Hey."

"Hey," I reply. "So you're here."

"I am here," you confirm.

You look at me meaningfully. I realize you have been here a little while, and the beer you are holding is not your first drink. Suddenly, you are more bold than either of us was willing to be online.

So, where has

this

guy been?

The bartender finally acknowledges us. My friend and I place our first round of drinks. You gaze at us with silent, comical impatience, more of an indication that you are a little buzzed.

"Vodka?" you ask, negging my drink choice.

"Yeah, so?" I ask.

"Are you trying to get wasted tonight?"

"I just want my money's worth," I tell you, taking my cocktail from the bar. I've never been much of a beer drinker. How many of those do

you

have to order, to get you through the night, anyway?

The guys call to you from the back. You raise up a hand and begin to move away. I hate to admit that my stomach drops a little. I thought you might be staying. Did you just stop by for a second?

I turn back to my friend. Our friend, really. She's known you longer than me.

"He's hilarious."

"Yeah. I guess." I laugh through my emotions.

"What's up with you guys?"

I almost choke on my vodka. "What do you mean?"

"Like... you were dating a long time ago, then you weren't. Right?"

"Yeah, that's right."

"Then what?"

"Umm."

"Did more stuff happen?"

"It got... complicated."

"Like how?!" She's thirsty, now.

"Well, it didn't really. We almost never talked about it. We only kept hooking up once in a while. All the time. It's always been amazing. Then it just stops, and starts again. Then nothing. And we don't talk. Then we do. Then we do it all over again."

"Oh my god, still?"

"Kinda?"

"I was going to ask. He barely even said hi to me."

"He's definitely a little drunk."

"Even still. He zeroed in on you just now."

As if summoned from the dead, you appear again, over my shoulder. I could even swear I feel your hand on my lower back. But no, you wouldn't do that so quickly.

Maybe you would. Are you being that forward right now?

"We have that corner table in the back, if you guys want to sit with us," you offer.

I flash my eyes to my friend, since you are slightly behind me and can't fully see my facial expression. I hope the subtleties of my face communicate to her that I am only slightly terrified of where this might lead, but that I am more than willing to go.

She looks at me quickly, and gives away nothing. What a friend. She makes eye contact with you. "Who's over there?" Smooth. She's the best.

"Well, me," you scoff. You're such an ass. What number beer is this?

"No kidding," she says.

"And some of the guys."

"Thanks for getting specific," she replies. "We'll think about it."

"Great!" you say, a little too excitedly, and now I know. You hurry back to your crew, because you know you've given yourself away.

"He's DTF," she says to me, as soon as you're out of earshot.

"Oh god." I bury my face in my hands.

"Why, do you not want to? We can stay here." She is about to wave at the bartender to ask for her credit card back, indicating we've changed our minds about keeping a tab open. However, she is also ready to hold back in case I protest.

"No, no. It's that I'm DTF too."

"Oh, good!" She mimes a signature in the air.

"I can't keep doing this with him," I groan.

"Well, what do you want?"

"I don't know."

"Other than to get railed." She signs the real credit card slip.

"Stop it!" I cry out.

"Let's go."

Sighing, and steeling myself against your gaze, which is about to penetrate directly into my heart and soul, we step away from the bar and head towards the rear corner of the room. There is a series of built-in banquette tables, one of which you and your guys are sitting at. As we step up, I see there is only four of you. So us joining you doesn't overcrowd as much as I thought it might.

We all know each other, from the old days at school. Luckily, there's no old drama or bad feelings among the folks here. At least, none that I know of. It's nice to know that we should be able to just sit and hang out for a little while.

Well, except you and me. I have no idea what's going on here. The unspoken teenage subtext flowing between us is completely undecipherable, and I feel like we need to make up a new language that only you and I speak in order for us to figure out how to decode everything.

You are sitting on one end of the banquette, and slide in to make space. One of the guys on the other side does the same. Sensibly, I slide in next to you, as if it's a given. Your eyes reel me in, and my friend doesn't give me a chance to make an alternate choice anyway. She sits next to the other guys.

Now that we are a party of six, it is a tighter squeeze at the table, but not uncomfortable. Our bodies are now touching, sitting next to each other but not completely jammed. Shoulder to shoulder. Your body language has distinctly changed, and is always very telling. You are pivoting towards me, opening yourself up while we're talking. You prop your arm up on the back of our seats, as if you're preparing to put your arm around my shoulders. You feel so close.

"How long have you been home?" you ask.

"Since last week," I answer. "You?"

"I just came in two days ago."

"Well, you're closer than I am. You don't usually stay as long, right? And you drive in?"

"Yeah, I'm driving."

"I flew, and I'm borrowing my mother's car."

"Sorry." You can't help putting on a mocking tone.

"Yeah, well. She's not usually keeping the same hours I am when I'm hanging around, so it's not so bad."

"Right." Your fingers encircle the bottle you're holding, coiling and uncoiling around it. Stop that. Stop that right now.

"And I fly back in another week."

"Wow, you stay for a long time."

"I have to make it worth it. I don't come back very often."

"You don't." It's a statement, not a question. "Why don't you visit the city while you're here?"

"We just did, actually."

"Who?"

"I was with some of the family. We stayed over, saw a show. My mom wanted to do it."

"I didn't know." You sound like you're complaining. You lift your drink to your lips. I haven't seen your mouth do anything tonight but speak, up to now, and I'm surprisingly triggered watching you wrap your lips around the amber glass. For some reason I am tempted to reach up and touch your jaw. After you're finished, I want you to replace the bottle with my fingers.

I try to tell my lizard brain to shut the fuck up.

"Sorry I didn't alert you," I say, with just a twinge of sarcasm. "Did you want to hang out with my mom?"

"No," you counter, quickly, with a smirk.

"Oh, okay," I smile at you.

Across the table, some of the other guys catch my eye. One of them, who I've known longer than the rest, lifts his chin at me, in a knowing gesture. "What's up? How you been?"

"Not bad," I answer.

"Don't let him monopolize you all night," he warns, meaning you.

"Don't worry, I will," I say, deadpan, and lift my own drink to my lips.

This prompts a few double takes and chuckles from the other side of the table. I hear one of your other friends say, "Some things never change," probably more loudly than he intended. Maybe our trysts over the years were more obvious than I thought they were.

Your face freezes in a confident but subtle grin, and you lean back a tiny bit. Maybe I shouldn't have made that joke. Any public reassurance you get makes you backpedal. We play too many games with each other.

Our idle chit chat devolves into messy old stories, as gatherings like this tend to do. Someone remembers this one time someone did something dumb, which prompts another person to remember another time we got caught doing something else we shouldn't have done, and so on. Someone buys us our second round of cocktails, and I'm unsure what round of beers you guys are on.

You're all holding yourselves together quite nicely, even if we are a little lively. We are in a bar, after all.

Then, suddenly, I feel something.

Someone says something funny. A joke, an old nickname. Something. It's surprising and sudden enough to make all of us laugh, and my knees bump yours under the table.

We both know what social norms would dictate, in terms of what should happen next. We would sit back, and separate our bodies from each other again. But our legs stay connected. I feel your knee through your clothes, and I know you can feel mine. Familiar territory.

We don't look at each other right away. I make a move for my drink, instead. Your hands stay where they are. As I bring the glass up to my mouth, I raise my eyes up to you. Sure enough, you're looking down at me. It appears as if you're staring at my lap, daring me to take it further than it's already gone.

You're infuriating. We used to do this when we were younger. Holding hands under tables. "Accidental" bumps. Cryptic messages to each other in the yearbook. But I was never sure if any of it was really real. We had terrible follow through, and never expressed our actual feelings to each other.

Somehow, this seems a little different. You're scared, but not running. We're both nervous of being watched by our friends, but we've both obviously told our respective camps about "us" and they're not harping on it. Several of your fears of being found out are being proved wrong, and the alcohol is lowering your inhibitions.

This all occurs to me, over the course of several seconds, as my drink hits my lips, my eyes still on your face. I see that your eyes haven't moved off of my body, and even begin to move lower, down my legs. Then, I know why.

Your other hand, the one I saw fingering the bottle neck, slides under the table, and onto my knee. Smooth as can be, so no one notices. Hell, I barely notice. Everyone is still wrapped up in the levity of the moment. Speaking of the moment, your focus quickly readjusts on the group, and you begin making eye contact with them again as soon as your hand is on my body. You rejoin the laughter, an easy smile on your face, your free arm still draped over the seat behind me.

No one is the wiser.

I have no idea what my face is doing, as I am in a mild state of shock.

You're touching me. Your hand is touching me.

And it feels exactly the same as it always did.

Oh my god, she was so right. You are very DTF. I think. I don't know. Maybe.

For several moments it's almost as if your fingers are frozen; rigid, and floating above my clothes. It's as if you're afraid to transfer frostbite to my delicate body. But then, we remember how things work between us, and something begins to thaw you out. Your muscles relax, your hand doesn't stay static. Your fingers begin to play, the way they do, and dance around. My skin is on fire, underneath the fabric of my clothes.

You no longer have a free hand to handle your drink. I wonder if you're going to go above the table again, to grab for it. Then go back to my knee? That, in itself, would give our game away and make it obvious to everyone where your hand was going. So, maybe you'll just go without?

I make the mistake of looking at your face again. You feel my eyes on you, and return my gaze. Your fingers stop moving on my leg. I feel the entire weight of your palm, and slowly, you slide your whole hand just a centimeter or two further up my leg. You're venturing up my thigh, our eyes on each other.

Something in my body shudders. I can't keep a wave of moisture from flowing into my panties. I know it's there. It's not just your hand, or your eyes on me, or the undivided attention you seem to be giving me by turning your body towards me. It's everything. It's the electricity.

"Dude. You're next round." One of the guys is trying to get your attention.

"What?" You attempt to tap back into the conversation.

"You. Your turn." They shake a few empty bottles at you.

"Right," you answer, a bit disconnected. Your eyes flick back to me. "Let me out?" you ask.

"Yeah, sure," I fumble. I slide out from under your hand, and stand up from the table. My leg feels cold, leaving an invisible handprint where you were touching me.

You stand up after me. I'm about to sit back down, as you head to the bar to get your new round of drinks, when you lean in close to me. Discreetly, you say, "Come with me."

Once again, I'm pretty sure I have a terrible poker face. I try not to let my mouth hang agape, while my feet stutter as I decide whether or not to grab my drink before I follow you to the bar.

Your beer bottle is gone, so I take my drink as well, and begin to follow. I don't make eye contact with any of our group before I depart. I can't. I don't want to know what they think of us. They must know.

You beat me to the bar, and are already leaning against it when I come up behind you.

"You wanted company?" I ask, when I join you. I write my own lines, I swear.

"Hi there," you say, in a low tone, more direct than when you were speaking to me before. Your voice penetrates directly into my chest, settles in my core, melts into a liquid and helps moisten me even further.

You aren't finished with your drink, since you stopped drinking when your hands became busy shortly after I sat next to you. You raise your bottle to your mouth again. I watch you.

I can't keep drinking my drink in good conscience. What I've already had has gone to my head, and honestly, I don't like feeling drunk around you. I want to see you. Be fully aware around you. We move so naturally around each other, and my intuition with you is sharper when I'm sober. So, my own drinking slows.

"You're being bold, tonight," I say.

You smile. You can't help it, but also pitch your eyes downward. "Do you mind?"

"No. Not at all." I have to be honest. When I assure you, I see your eyes flick back up to my face.

"I didn't think so."

"Hey now." I raise up my hand. I don't need you to get too cocky.

"Well," you lean your mouth closer to my ear, "you

weren't

pushing me away."

Cheap shot. You know I love your hands. I can't stand you. "Look," I say, a bit seriously, pulling back to look at your smirking face, "I just want to know what you want from all this. Do you want to... run off somewhere?" I'm slightly kidding. We're each staying with our families, and it's late. What would we do?

"Yeah. How about one of the bathrooms?"

I am silent.

"You guys taken care of?" The bartender approaches, and interrupts your inappropriate suggestion.

Yes, this definitely needs to be taken care of. Thank you.

"Three of these, thanks." You lift your bottle. You don't seem to be getting another for yourself. Your wallet comes out.

A quick pros and cons list begins to accumulate in my brain. Pros: the bathrooms in this place aren't completely gross. They are a part of a larger restaurant, and I think there are several we could choose from. They are close by. We would get this going, like, now. The excitement factor is sky-high. I've never done something like this before. Have you? I love being your first for stuff.

Cons: getting caught. Would we get kicked out? Blacklisted? That's embarrassing. If we were gone for a significant amount of time, our friends at the table will absolutely know where we are and what we're doing. (Then again, what's wrong with that? They already know.) Doing it in bathrooms, generally, seems gross no matter where you are. Comfort level is probably low. This is not romantic at all. Is that what we've reduced

us

to? A fuck in a bathroom? Aren't we more than that?

But, damn it, we are hungry for each other.

"Seriously?" I ask, as that's all I'm able to verbalize.

"If you don't want to..."

"I didn't say that," I clarify.

"Then what?"

You're pressing me, because you know I want to. So do you.

"Let's go somewhere," I try to persuade you. "My place. Or your place. Or my car?"

"It's 30 degrees outside. My parents can hear everything in our house, and your place is super far." I watch you count out the cash for the bartender.

All of that is true. Why are you so sensible at the worst times?

The bartender returns with the drinks you ordered, and your bill. You toss cash on the bar, and drain your own drink. Your eyes return to my face, as if to ask me what our next move is. Seconds feel like hours.

"The upper floor," I say. I cave, and I hope this idea works. I know about a VIP room on the top floor of the building, with restrooms outside of it. It has very low traffic on weekday evenings, if it's used at all.

"Okay." Your face opens with familiar a glow I haven't seen in a while. "I'll meet you there." You pause to pick up the drinks in both hands. You need to play waiter for a second. I wonder if you're going to make an excuse to everyone, or just drop them off and say nothing. Then, you truly surprise me. Drinks in your hands, already turning to make your way back towards the table, you lean down and quickly peck me on the lips. "Two minutes, Sunshine."

Jesus. You called me that once, when we were kids. I remember, because I wrote it down in a notebook I was keeping at the time. I try not to fall on the floor as you walk away.

You disappear into the crowd, and I know it will take you no time at all to drop by the table. I hope my plan works, and the hallway I'm thinking of is unmanned by any staff. I walk away from my drink on the bar, push through the crowd, and head towards the rear door that spills out into the main restaurant.

Once I get through, I find the stairway that leads to the level I remember. Sure enough, I see two restrooms at the end of the hallway. The empty hallway.

I take a few more steps towards the two doors, and realize that I did not specify which restroom we should meet in. Another pros and cons list begins to rapidly build.

I nearly miss the sound of your footsteps, as I'm tallying the ridiculous items on the new list in my head. Stalls versus no stalls. Which one might be cleaner? I just stare at the two doors. My brain is deteriorating before we even begin.

Since I legitimately don't hear you at first, I don't turn to face you until you have already rounded the corner at the top of the stairs. Your shoulders lead the rest of your body, authoritatively. You haven't brought anything with you, having finished your drink. You only brought yourself.

Good. That's all I want.

I don't think you were expecting to see me when you rounded the corner, and you slow to almost a complete halt. I turn to look at you, and something softens in both of us. It's okay now. You walk to me.