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AN: C&M is an expansion from Buenos Dias. Please read and review! I love reading your comments. :)
Buzzzzzz buzzzzzz
My eyes are too tired to open as I aimlessly reach for my vibrating phone. I barely crack one eye open and answer it.
"Lo?"
"Z! Wake up!"
I pull the phone away from my ear and wince. My head is pounding and my stomach is churning uncomfortably.
"Jesus Mark, lower your voice. I have a headache," I whisper.
"Hungover you is so bossy. I saw you leave with that hot brunette last night. How was that?"
"Ughh, is there a real reason you called me at," I glanced at the clock, now fully awake, "7am on a Saturday?"
"Oh yeah, I just got to your place. We usually run together remember?"
"Sloan, I am not going running today because I'm about to go empty my stomach into the toilet right now. Let yourself in, you know where the key is," I say and drag my body into the bathroom.
After peeling myself off the cold tile floor, I wash my face and put on my robe. I head into the living room and find Mark cooking breakfast in his running clothes. I chuckle a little because without him, I would probably starve. We've had almost every class together since starting med school. I'll admit I found him to be a total ass at first, but we've gotten close over the last year. Besides, he lives two floors above me and he's practically here all the time.
"Morning, you look lovely today," he says sarcastically as he walks toward me with a full plate.
"Fuck off Mark," I groan while I plop myself onto the couch. God, I can never drink again.
Mark brings a plate, but sees that the table is full of beer bottles, a half empty bottle of Jack and a full pack of cigarettes. He clears it and sets down a plate full of eggs, hash browns, and toast with a glass of orange juice. He brings a glass of water for me and two painkillers.
"Drink that and those pills. Are you still smoking? I thought you quit," he asks with a mouth full of food.
I sit up straight and toss back the pills and water. "It's not even open and I did quit. It's just an occasional thing," I shrug. I'm starving, but I don't think my stomach could handle all that grease, so I snatch his toast.
Mark stares at me warily. He sees I'm not going to talk about it anymore, so he drops it.
"Fine. Anyway, eat up. We've got plans tonight!" he exclaims.
"Plans? Mark, seriously? No, nope. Whatever it is, I'm not doing it," I reply.
"Yes, Yang and Grey are throwing a party at their place tonight before we start our second year and everyone is going to be there," he says then takes a drink of his juice.
"Listen very carefully, I am not going to any parties because there will be women and alcohol there. The very two things that I've decided to avoid for a while," I respond then slowly get up to fill my glass of water.
"Come on Robbins, you need to move on. It's been months, okay? I mean I call her Steak Knives for a reason because that bitch was crazy. She threatened you. With knives. That's kind of a red flag there," he says with a laugh. I take my place on the couch again with my glass full.
"She was cute. Like really cute. And the sex was good. Really, really good. I know we were only together for a year, but I had known her my whole life. She was the girl I had wanted since middle school. We grew up together. I thought she had decided to stay back up north at home for college, but she got that scholarship for Baylor. I got the scholarship for UT Med, so maybe it was going to work out after all. She wasn't always like that. Heather just had a lot going on. Her mom died and it just…it broke her. It changed her into this possessive, overbearing shell of someone I used to love," I say, gloomily.
"And now she's in a fucking mental hospital. Crazy I tell ya," Mark collects the plates and starts doing the dishes. I follow him and take a seat at the breakfast bar.
"I miss her, but I'm glad she's getting help," I say, a little sad. Mark dries his hands and turns around to look at me. He shakes his head and takes a seat next to me.
"It's for the best really. Lets go to the party tonight, even just for an hour. Pleasssee, I need my wing woman," he whines.
"God Mark, you sure can be a whiny little bitch sometimes," I chuckle, "fine I'll go".
"Yes!" He gives me a little punch on my arm. "Where's Teddy?" he asks about my roommate and best friend.
"Henry's I think. She practically lives there anyways. I don't know why she hasn't moved in with him yet."
"Yeah, their love makes me gag. Are they going tonight?"
"No idea. I'll text her later and find out," I reply.
He nods then asks, "Anyways, how was that brunette last night? Was it hot?"
"Nothing happened," I reply and make my way back to the living room. Mark follows and sits on the other side of the sofa.
With his eyebrows arched, he asks, "Really? Nothing? Arizona 'makes-girls-swoon-with-one-look' Robbins went home with a girl and what? Cuddled? Talked?"
"Nothing happened because I realized I wanted to stop having meaningless sex with strangers, so I called her a cab and she went home," I respond quietly.
Mark puts the back of his hand on my forehead and releases it. "Are you feeling okay? Because the Arizona I know would never pass up pussy," I scoff at his vulgarity, but he continues, "the Arizona I know would take her to bed and show her the Robbins method. At first she'd be surprised, because…you know, but then she would realize how badly she wanted to get laid by the infamous Z Robbins. They always do. Tell me…is the – uh…package working?" he asks, curiously. When I told Mark my secret, he was a little freaked out. Mostly just curious about a lot of things. He asked a bunch of questions, and I tried to answer as best as I could. Now, we're the best of bros.
"For fucks sake Mark, I know I've been a player for the past few months. I'm actually surprised that women are into this…you know?...into me. But I'm done with that. And booze. And my package works just fine if I do say so myself. Now if you'll excuse me, I need a shower because I smell like whiskey," I say as I head to my room, "and I'm going back to sleep, so please see yourself out."
"I'll come back later and we'll head to the party," Mark replies and I hear the door shut.
Ughhhh. I feel like crap, but I decide to take a quick shower and get a few more hours of sleep. When I finally finish, I pull on my boxers and a white tank top and crawl into my bed. I grab my phone and shoot a quick text to Teddy. As I drift off, I try to not think about that terrifying incident involving a cute red head with knives.
Hours later, I'm awakened by the smell of pasta. I feel so much better after getting some sleep and my stomach growls. I stare at my clock and it says 3:36pm. I don't want to get up, but my bladder screams for relief. As I head back out to the living room, I grab my phone and hear Mark whistling in the kitchen. I reclaim my seat on the couch and turn on the TV to a basketball game. My phone vibrates and it's a message from Teddy.
Stayed the night at Henrys. We'll be at the party. C u tonight! - T
"You know, you have like no food in the fridge right? I went and bought you groceries. Eating frozen dinners every night isn't good for ya," Mark says from the kitchen.
"Yeah, yeah. That's why I have you right?" I say as I reply to the message. I look back up just in time to see Wade lose the ball.
"You're lucky I'm around. Food's ready. Come and get it!" Mark says. We both serve ourselves a big helping of pasta and meatballs then take our seats back on the couch.
"We're both lucky you're a great cook," I joke.
"Yeah, but you're doing the dishes this time," he replies.
"Did you ever hear from Teds?" he asks.
"Yeah, they'll be there," I say.
We both finish and I clear our plates. "It's barely 4:30, what are we going to do? The party's not until 9," Mark says.
I shrug. "We could play Call of Duty? Watch a movie?"
"Not really in the mood for a movie. I'll hook up the system, you grab the controllers," he says. Within minutes, we're playing online and I'm on a streak. Minutes turn into hours and before I realize it, it's 8:30.
"We should probably get ready. I'll meet you in the lobby in 20?" I nod and Mark heads out.
I'm a pretty simple person went it comes to my wardrobe. Usually blue jeans, one of my punk rock shirts, and my chucks. All of my jeans are a little baggy, but still stylish. They have to be when you're a woman born with a penis – a fairly sized one at that. It really used to bother me a lot. Because I was different from everyone else. But as I got older, I embraced it. I guess I've embraced it a little too much lately. Though, I've gotten comfortable with myself, I still don't want the whole world to know, so I put on my binding underpants whenever I'm in public. They do a good job for the most part, so long as I don't get too excited. I run a brush through my hair and decide to leave it down. I put a little bit of black eyeliner on and very little makeup. After grabbing a sweater, I lock up my apartment and head downstairs.
We finally get to Yang and Grey's place and it's packed. You can hear Zedd's beats bumping from outside, some people are drinking in the lawn chairs, and there's nowhere to park. After driving down the road for a bit, we find an empty space and Mark parallel parks his red Camaro. Meredith has a two-story house that belonged to her mother. Cristina and her became joined at the hip ever since school started, and they decided to room together. They needed a third roommate, Alex was interested and rest is history. Now they host a good amount of parties throughout the year.
"Wow, tons of people are here," I say as we walk to the front door.
"Yeah, I told you that everyone was gonna be here," he replies. Mark is wearing dark blue jeans, a grey shirt with a black leather jacket. We look damn good. I make an excellent wing woman, so he will definitely be getting laid tonight. He pushes the doorbell and a few seconds later, Alex answers with a beer in his hand.
"Hey, you guys made it!" Widening the door to let us in, he continues, "Beer's in the fridge, hard stuff's on the counter," then stumbles off to the living room where a game of beer pong is going on.
We don't even get past the corridor when Yang blocks our path. She's got big glass bowl in her hands full of keys. Is that a fish bowl?
"Hand them over. No one is driving tonight unless you're DD. You're welcome to crash here just stay away from my room," she says as she snatches Mark's keys and heads upstairs.
"Let's go get drinks!" Mark nods towards kitchen and I follow. I grab a soda from the fridge and Mark mixes himself a coke and Jack.
"You were serious about the no drinking thing?" he asks again with a confused look on his face.
"Yes, I was! And the no sex thing. I can do it," I say, trying to convince myself as well.
Mark laughs and takes a sip of his drink. He snakes an arm around my shoulder and guides us into the living room. "We'll see about that," he whispers. I quietly drink my soda and hope that I really can prove him wrong.