Win Some, Lose Some

“Wha-wha-what?” I had to have heard him wrong.

“Did you have your dick inside of that hot chick who just waltzed out your front door?”

“N-n-no!” I stammered. “We just fell asleep!”

“With your shirt off and your hand up under hers?”

Everything clicked together. I was still, for all intents and purposes, half naked, and we had been lying all wrapped up in each other on the couch. My hand had been up her shirt though I really didn’t recall when or how that happened.

“It wasn’t like that,” I whispered.

“Dammit, Matthew!” Travis bellowed. He dropped down heavily on the easy chair and stared hard at me. “Are you telling me you were alone in the house with that beautiful girl, and nothing at all happened?”

“Yes!” I swore to him, nodding my head quickly.

“You didn’t even kiss?”

“No!”

Travis growled and stood up, grabbing the bag of Chinese carryout and heading into the kitchen. I followed, and he started pulling out little cardboard boxes of lo mein, Szechwan tofu, and rice. He slammed each one down on the table as he pulled it out of the bag, practically breaking open a little plastic packet of duck sauce.

“Travis, what’s wrong?”

“Dammit!” he said, swearing once more. “Bethany’s been gone for two weeks. How am I supposed to live vicariously if you aren’t getting any either?”

He didn’t really seem angry, but I couldn’t understand what the hell he was talking about, so I grabbed an eggroll and dove in.

“So what were you doing, then?”

Travis was about as fixated on Mayra and me as I had ever been on counting cracks in the sidewalk.

“We fell asleep,” I said again.

“What were you doing before then?”

I poked at my lo mein with the end of a chopstick. There were only a few left on the plate, and they were little pieces. If I poked them in the right directions, I could make letters. Ms and Ts were easy, but Bs were hard to make.

“Matthew!”

I jumped.

“What?”

He let out a long sigh.

“Why did Mayra come over?” he asked.

“We’re doing an ecology project together.”

Travis started coughing until rice came out of his nose. I narrowed my eyes at him as he finally stopped and looked at me, shaking his head.

“Let me guess,” he said. “The effects of cuddling on the environment?”

“No,” I said as I started cleaning up the empty containers and wiping down the table as Travis finished off the rest of the tofu, “honey bees.”

“You really aren’t helping here, dude,” Travis said. He sounded really sad, and I didn’t know why.

“What do you want me to tell you?” I asked.