Two weeks after the party at Stig’s, after the cover of “Helplessly Hoping” did, in fact, go viral, with everyone wondering what Nick’s next album would sound like, and the excitement ramping up for its release, I was getting ready to go on a date, back, again, to living with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I had thought we’d turned a corner, but I had been dead wrong.
“Why do you get to go out alone, and I can’t?” Nick asked, in my room for no fathomable reason, standing in the doorway of my bathroom, watching me as I brushed my teeth.
I spit into the sink. “You can go wherever you like, events, parties, whatever,” I reiterated, as I had for what felt like the billionth time, bending over to suck down water, rinse, and spit again. “I just have to go with you.”
“Like I want that,” he said, watching me, his eyes, whether he realized it or not, looking me up and down. “I don’t want an old man following along behind me,” he said caustically.
We were back to him taking jabs at me because, three nights before, he announced that he needed to get laid, and I said he didn’t need my permission to do so. My mistake came when I brought up the last date with the guy he’d invited over.
“That was your fault it didn’t work out.”
“I dunno, I seem to recall that Words With Friends was the bigger draw than hittin’ the sheets with that guy.”
He growled in frustration. “Listen, I’m not talking about having someone over. I want to go to their place.”
“Really? You think it’s still gonna be hot with me sitting in their living room?”
“What?”
“Well, you know I’ll be tagging along wherever you go. When you invited whatever-his-name-was to the house, that was great because I could make myself scarce, but if we go to their home…I mean, I can take my Kindle, I guess.”
His explosion had been loud and apocalyptic. The argument—discussion, fight, negotiation—had been raging on ever since.
“You can have him, or her, come here.”
“It’s none of your business who it is,” he barked at me.
“Well, it was a guy the last time, but I’m giving you the option to––”
“I can’t have you––”
“As I was saying,” I continued, refusing to get mad, no matter what he baited me with. “You can have someone over, or you can go to their place, but if you go anywhere, I have to go with you, and that’ll probably kill the mood.”
“You think?” he almost yelled.
My tone wasn’t helping. I was using my Bob Ross voice, which tended to drive people right up the wall. “What if this whoever has drugs at their place?” I asked calmly.
“So what, I’m not going to do any!”
Slow nod then, like I completely understood, being both placating and patronizing at the same time.
He shouted, and it was loud in the small space of my bathroom. “How about a little fucking faith for once?” he railed, balling his fists up and stalking to the door and back.
“I have faith in you,” I assured him. “But what if he roofies you?”
“I don’t have friends who—”
“Oh, this imaginary person is a friend, then?”
“No, not like—God!”
“I don’t understand why this hypothetical whoever can’t just come over here.”
“Because you’ll probably strip search them!”
“No. I would never do that,” I assured him. “I’d have one of the guys do it like I did the last time. And we didn’t strip him down, we just made him turn all his pockets inside out.”
“You––”
“I didn’t even get out my glove.”
He threw up his hands as I chuckled.
“You’re a giant cockblock!”
I nodded, rolling up my sleeves and fixing my collar. The pale blue shirt and gray pants, along with the gray loafers, looked better than I thought they would.
“And I don’t want random hookups in my home.”
I turned to face him, leaning on the counter, crossing my arms and scowling at him. “That’s very telling, don’t you think?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh, I dunno,” I said, rolling my eyes, walking by him, out into my bedroom and over to the chest of drawers. Grabbing my wallet, I crossed to the doorway and turned off the light on my way out.
“I just don’t want people thinking that I live with my uncle or something,” he snapped, jogging to catch up with me as I headed down the hall.
I snorted. “I don’t know that we look that much alike,” I replied casually.
“We don’t look a—do you even get when you’re being insulted?”
“Apparently not,” I goaded him, making the left to the kitchen to grab my phone, that I’d left there earlier when I was talking to my mother.
“Could those pants be any tighter?” he remarked, leaning on the counter, resembling a pissed-off fourth grader.
I laughed at him and then grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and left.