Flirtasaurus Page 7

  All right, I definitely overcorrected on that one. Though I can’t say it was much of an exaggeration.

  “What?”

  “Hm?” I play dumb. Never a good look on me.

  “I don’t have abs for days.”

  “But you do have an ass that won’t quit?” I squeak.

  “Well…”

  “Gosh, is chivalry dead? Take my stuff upstairs, dude!”

  “Geez! That’s what I was trying to do in the first place!”

  “Okay! Well then, git! Git!”

  I shoo him off like he’s a dog trying to headbutt me in the crotch. Don’t you hate when dogs do that? Makes me feel so vulnerable. And this guy… he definitely makes me feel vulnerable.

  He doesn’t git at all, though. He just stands there at the base of the steps, his beautiful eyes boring over the boxes, straight into mine.

  “You know, you can be kind of mean when you’re nervous,” he says.

  It isn’t the first time I’ve been told that. Not that I’ll be sharing that little tidbit with him.

  “I prefer the term direct. And who said I’m nervous?”

  “Alright, well. Care to… direct me to your door?”

  “Fine. Yeah. Three floors up and to your left.”

  He starts trudging up the steps, stomping a bit louder than is necessary, frankly. He’s absolutely right, though. I’m hella nervous. Because should I even be fraternizing with this man? I wonder if there is a museum policy about that. I mean, there’s likely a big difference between having dunch with a female visiting bug lecturer and inviting a sexy male astronomer up to your apartment after work hours, right? I should check my internship contract and see if it says anything about that. The absolute last thing I need is another reason to get on Dr. Knowles’ bad side.

  I proceed to follow him up the staircase while whipping out my phone in search of said contract. He peers at me over his shoulder.

  “Right behind ya, big guy.”

  And I am. Right behind him. Yeah, I’m basically eye level with his butt. His tight, sweet, perfectly sized nugget butt that seems to be propelling itself upward step by step by step with the fuel of its hotness alone. I mean, how the hell a man’s butt can look this good in a pair of museum-approved khakis is beyond me. Seriously, it’s like he’s smuggling two delicious, muscled flesh nuggets in his back pockets that are just begging for me to…

  “Did you just spank me?”

  Silence.

  Oh my God. Did I?

  “What? No!” I blurt. I did, though. I just spanked the man.

  What the hell is wrong with me!?

  “Uh… yeah you did.”

  “Nuh-uh! There was a, um… a-a mosquito on your nugget. I mean, your butt! I mean, your back pocket! So, I smacked it. I basically saved your life, man. You should be grateful!”

  “Okay…” He sounds far from convinced. “Thank you then. I guess.”

  “You’re very welcome. Stay safe out there, killa!” I say, and then—God help me—I spank his other cheek. In all fairness, though, spank is a generous term. It was more of a “good game, buddy” kind of smack. You know the kind I’m talking about.

  This time, he doesn’t say anything. He just stares at me blankly. But am I imagining that his lips are starting to curl up? I don’t think I am. He straightens his lips, turns away, and continues up the stairs. With much less stomping this time, I note.

  “Here we are!” I say as I breeze past him and unlock the door to my apartment.

  He follows me inside and lets the door click shut behind him. As I kick off my shoes and hang up my purse, I notice that he’s just standing in the foyer scanning the place. Is it pronounced foy-yer or foy-yay? Foy-yay if it’s fancy, foy-yer if it’s not, right? So, in this case, definitely a foy-yer. Oh, who am I kidding. It’s a three by three square with a coat hook and a shoe rack.

  “Wow, your apartment is—”

  “Weird? Old? Dated?” I feel like I sound defensive.

  “No, actually. I was going to say… classic.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Most people in their twenties have those same square Ikea side tables and that little rolling cart thingy for their Goldschläger—or sometimes toiletries, don’t they? But you… you have a… gosh, what do you even call that, a… china cabinet? And what are you displaying inside the china cabinet thingy? Rocks?” He’s squinting over the boxes.

  “Want to put those down?”

  “Sure, yeah.” He moves toward my table, then stops short. “Oh, wait. Shoes off? Do you want me to…?”

  “Oh, are you staying?”

  “Staying?” he asks, somewhat suggestively.

  “Not like for the night! I meant for like a few minutes!”

  “Okay. So to be clear, you’re not asking me to spend the night? Because I thought for sure you were asking me to spend the night.” He smirks.

  “No! You know what, you should probably just—”

  “Calliope, I’m kidding. And I’d love to stay for ‘like a few minutes,’ thank you. Since you asked me so nicely.”

  “I didn’t actually ask you to—”

  “Too late! They’re off.” With that, he toes off his shoes and manages to steer them with his feet to line up right next to mine. Big and small. He walks farther into the room and places the boxes on the table, then walks over to the cabinet to take a closer look through the glass.

  “Those aren’t just any rocks. That’s my fossil collection. Been collecting them since I was seven. And the china cabinet thingy is my grandma Darla’s hutch. It was her grandma Harriet’s before that.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah, I guess I just generally really like old shit. Dinosaurs. Furniture.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “Oh, hey. You mentioned Ikea before?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Unacceptable. Ralph, Ikea is the Swedish devil. Don’t give in to the Swedish devil’s particle board promises. You’re better than that.”

  “Noted,” he says with a chuckle that he’s clearly trying to stifle.

  “I’m serious, dude! Did you know an Ikea Billy bookcase is sold every ten seconds?”

  “I did not know that, no.”

  “Well, now you do. Don’t let yourself be a statistic.”

  “Thanks for looking out for me, Calliope,” he says. “That’s not something I’m used to.”

  He’s not used to what? Having someone look out for him?

  “Want a beer? I want a beer.” I’m a master at changing the subject.

  “Sure,” he says. “I’d love a beer.”

  See? A master. The subject is officially changed. I step away from him and open the fridge.

  “Holy shit, that’s a lot of Yoo-hoo!”

  I slam the door closed again.

  “Where?”

  “In your refrigerator. You have a whole shelf of Yoo-hoo in there!”

  “Yeah? So what? Have I offended the vegan with my abundance of chocolate milk?”

  “Hate to break it to you, but while there are many ingredients in Yoo-hoo, actual milk is not one of them.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “’Fraid not.”

  “Go figure. Well, listen, if bringing this up was your not-so-clever way of asking for one of my Yoo-hoos, you don’t have to be so sneaky, Ralph. You could just ask.”

  “Uh, no. Thank you. I’ll stick with the beer.”

  “Alright then.”

  I grab the growler I got from Hop in the Barrel yesterday and start pouring it into two glasses.

  “I bathed in this brew yesterday. Well, not this exact liquid, of course! This is a fresh batch. Rest assured, no human bodies have soaked in the beverage you are about to imbibe.”

  “Huh?”

 
“Never mind.”

  “Okay.”

  “Cheers?”

  I lift my pint glass to him. He does the same.

  “Cheers.”

  We clink and sip. I can’t help watching him over the rim of my glass while we do. His eyes are closed as though he’s savoring it. Geez, why does that make me want to nuzzle his neck? Yikes, his eyes are open now. Mine immediately dart to the imaginary fuzz on my sweater. I put my beer down on the counter so I can imaginary pick the fuzz off.

  “Mmm. It’s good. Doesn’t taste like soaking human bodies at all.”

  “Right?”

  “Ya know, I didn’t even ask you what’s in these boxes.”

  “Oh. Gala invitations. Yeah, just one of my many prestigious responsibilities as Dr. Knowles’ intern.”

  “You need to stuff all of them? Tonight?”

  “Yes. Why do you seem excited by this?”

  “Because I love tasks like that! Repetitive motions, getting into a rhythm with a partner, feeling that mutual pleasure and relief at the moment of completion?”

  Okay. Am I a pervert? Or is he actually just talking about the act of stuffing envelopes?

  “Shall we then?” He gestures to one of the boxes.

  “Sure, uh. Yeah. Let’s do it.”

  Ralph tears open the boxes with gusto and starts meticulously arranging the various pieces of cardstock, envelopes, and gauzy little inserts into neat assembly line piles.

  Yup. It’s official. I’m a pervert.

  He steps back a moment to check out his setup.

  “These are really nice invitations.”

  “Beautiful, right? Damon… Have you met Damon? He does most of the graphic design for the museum’s special events and exhibitions.”

  “Yeah, Damon’s cool. He maybe talks about fonts a tad too often for me, but other than that, he generally seems like a good guy.”

  “Agreed. On both counts.”

  So!” He rubs his hands together in anticipation. “You have a clean sponge and a shallow dish we can put some water in?”

  “Surrrrrre,” I say as I turn to the kitchen to retrieve the things he requested. “I’m getting the impression you’ve done this before.”

  “Big time. My mom had a lot of odd jobs while I was growing up. One was stuffing mailers for a bunch of local companies, and I helped a lot. Oh, thanks,” he says as he takes the sponge and dish from my hands and places them down at the end of the table, right in front of him. “You cool being the stuffer, and I’ll be the sealer?” he asks with excitement.

  “Fine. Yeah.”

  “Great.”

  We sit down side by side and quickly find a rhythm, while stealing sips of our beers and the occasional looks at each other. I notice that his jaw is a bit scruffier than it was this morning. I guess this is the kind of guy who gets the literal five o’clock shadow.

  “Aw, did a niece or a nephew draw that for you?”

  He’s looking at the tiny crayon masterpiece framed on my wall.

  “Uh, no. That would be mine.”

  “You drew that?” He has a little laugh. At my expense, it seems.

  “Well, not recently!”

  “Oh, okay, good!”

  “Excuse me! You are looking at the award-winning prize picture of a velociraptor I drew in the third grade. Prize-winning!”

  “Third grade? Damn, for third grade, that actually is really excellent. Very cute.”

  “Ugh. Cute? I’m allergic to the word cute.”

  “That so? Alright. Your artwork is the opposite of cute. It’s sophisticated and… profound.”

  “That’s what I’m saying, dude!”

  “Question for you. How come in Jurassic Park the velociraptors look all sleek and scaly, but in all the textbooks and in this esteemed drawing of yours, they look like psychotic chickens?”

  “Yes! Dude! You’re totally speaking my language! Drives me bananas! There are supposed to be feathers! Velociraptors were feathered dinosaurs. Where the fuck are their feathers in Jurassic Park?”

  “You call me dude a lot.”

  “Well. Yeah. You’re a dude.”

  “True enough. It just feels sort of…”

  “Sort of what?”

  “I dunno… emasculating?”

  “It feels emasculating when I call you dude? Dude is like the manliest moniker there is.”

  “Oh, so you think I’m manly, do you?” he asks with a somewhat naughty smile.

  “Make up your mind, pal. Am I complimenting you or emasculating you?”

  “Alright, so maybe emasculating wasn’t exactly the right word. It’s just that when you dude me, I feel like—”

  “Did you just use dude as a verb?”

  “I did. When you dude me, it feels like a metaphorical bro punch to my shoulder. Which, by the way, you also sometimes do literally. In addition to all the spanking, of course.”

  “All the spanking.” I scoff. “There was one lifesaving swat, followed by a single encouraging pat.”

  “Semantics.”

  “Semantics can be important.”

  “True.”

  I notice his glass is almost empty. Mine is too.

  “More beer?”

  He hesitates, then says, “I mean, I will if you will.”

  “Well I will if you will.”

  “Well, will we?”

  “We will. Yeah.” I hesitate. “Yeah, okay, we will.”

  We’re acting weird. And I’m pretty sure we both know it.

  I head back to the refrigerator and grab the growler. As I pour us each another glass, I go back to the topic at hand.

  “The bro punches, both metaphorical and literal, are a habit, I think. I’ve been surrounded by bros my whole life. First, my actual brothers and then all the many science bros. I’m just used to being one of the guys, I guess.”

  “Gotcha.”

  I sit back down beside him. Being positioned next to him at the table makes me feel as if we’re one of those cozy couples who opt to cuddle on the same side of the booth at the restaurant instead of sitting across from each other like normal people. Not that we’re cuddling. Not that I would mind that. But yeah, no, we’re not.

  We get back into our assembly line flow. Suddenly, his body jolts and scares the shit out of me.

  “Whoa!”

  “What?!”

  His beer almost spills, but he catches it at the last second.

  “Who are those naked pregnant people in that photo?”

  “That one there?”

  “Yeah!” he says like it should be quite obvious.

  “If you must know, jumpy, that’s my mom, my dad, and… well, me. In the belly. My mom’s belly, that is. My dad’s belly is exclusively beer-infused.”

  “That’s an awfully intimate photo to have of one’s parents, isn’t it?”

  “I guess.”

  “You guess? Your father is fondling your mother’s breasts with his forearms!”

  “I think fondling may be overstating it. He was covering her. If you could see my mom’s nipples, the photo would be weird.”

  “Right. The nipples are what would make it weird.”

  I think that is the first bit of sarcasm I’ve heard from this fella.

  “Is Mr. Nice Guy Ralph being prudey and judgy?”

  “I actually don’t love the Mr. Nice Guy label. And I’m not judging per se or being… prudey, I just—”

  “My parents are super in love. Always have been. This photo hung pretty prominently in our family room growing up, so I guess I’m used to it. Now that I have my own apartment, my dad wanted me to hang it on my own wall, so whenever I see it, I always remember that I was created from love.”

  “Oh. That’s… sweet.”

  “You don’t t
hink it’s sweet. Look at your face!”

  “No, all kidding aside. It is. Truly. You’re lucky.”

  We sip and stuff and seal for a few moments of comfortable silence.

  “So, I’m guessing no semi-nude photos of parental figures on your walls growing up?”

  “Uh, no. I don’t think my parents have even been photographed together since the late 90s.”

  “Divorced?”

  “Big time. Could we, uh… Could we talk about something else, though?”

  “Oh. Sure. Of course.”

  Wow, I think this is the first time I’ve seen this guy look even remotely uncomfortable in his own skin. His body gets super fidgety all of a sudden, then he rises to his feet and starts moving around the room. I realize I should be coming up with a new topic as he requested, but he takes care of it for me—or for himself, I suppose—when he spots my composition book on a side table and flips it open.

  “Who is… Tracy Triassic?”

  “Yo!” I freak. “Snoopy! Shut that!”

  “Whoa, sorry!”

  Leaping to my feet, I grab the book from his hands.

  “You never open someone’s personal notebook!”

  “You don’t?”

  “No, dude, you don’t!”

  “Noted. Sorry!”

  “It’s… fine. I guess,” I say as I toss the notebook into my bedroom and shut the door. Man, my heart is pounding.

  “I gather you’re not going to tell me who Tracy Triassic is?”

  “You gather correctly.”

  “Alright. Fair enough.”

  He continues to wander around the room like he’s trying to learn everything he can about me from apartment context clues. He zeroes in on a framed picture in my hutch.

  “A dancer, huh?”

  “Used to be, yeah. “

  “Me too.”

  “You too, what?”

  “I used to be a dancer. For almost eight years.”

  “No shit! You?”

  “Yeah, me.”

  “I did tap, jazz, ballet, and lyrical!”

  “Me too. Minus the lyrical.”

  “Let me guess, you were the one little boy dancer in a sea of tutus?”

  “Every school has one, don’t they?”

  “They do.”

  “You are looking at the token boy at Miss Jana’s School of Dance for seven seasons.”