Companion piece to make me your radio.
x
Oh. My. God.
The last thing he's going to do is have a threesome with his landlord. (Please notice that he left his kooky, completely wrong [so so very wrong about the human race, among other things] roommate with the huge swallow you whole baby blues, tart cherry mouth, and porcelain skin out of the equation.)
He swears to all holy hell that living with her is the most dangerous game of chicken he's played in thirty one years.
x
"I didn't want to work for somebody else my whole life," he tells the sad eyed intern because he knows how much his girlfriend sucks. She wears a suit and yells a whole bunch and that leaves him with her unpaid assistant on Valentine's Day with a bottle of semi-expensive champagne, a box of caramels, and a stuffed teddy. He really likes Julia. But not so much today. Because even though her lips smile at him, her eyes don't.
x
There's something kind of nice about being around a bunch of naïve twelve year olds that know nothing. He knows too much, and it blows. "Love is a myth."
Julia leaves. But he still has Jess. She gets him a plant even though she gets that he is going to drown it or fry it in the sun or knock it off the railing puncturing the pot into a bajillion pieces. He pours the rest of his beer in and shrugs.
X
They spend the evening in cocktail hour, eulogizing him, making him feel on top of the world. Turns out all he needed to feel motivated was to get this close to losing everything. It feels like a cliché. He hates it. Schimdt won't stop bashing on him for letting himself go, Winston won't stop holding on so tight like the end is coming tomorrow, Cece just kind of stands around pretending that this is another Friday night, and Jess. Well, she is all sweet cupcakes and glitter sparkles until she smacks some reality in him that kind of feels like the Pacific Ocean.
And for once he plunges. It's stupid doing something without knowing the outcome; he doesn't do it. Ever. That's kind of the last thing he can remember before huge baby blues and a blurry smear of cherry lips, smooth porcelain skin and the slightest touch of sea salt before it all goes inky black.
In the morning with the sun heating his back, the breeze from the Pacific riffling the tail of his shirt, he finds out his fate is secure for the time being. They back him up, all four of 'em, the wreckless mess that they are with sleep etched in their eyelids and grime in between their fingernails. But they're his backup. He smiles a bit wider on their way back to the loft. Idiots.
x
This kind of stuff never happened when they were just three dudes. Excuse him, a three dude family. With a lady now.
x
When he realizes that the fancyman likes Jess, like like likes her, he kind of laughs because they live in a loft with two other thirty something directionless morons, and fix all the appliances with a baseball bat, but still call themselves grown -ups. He works at a bar, swilling drinks, slicing limes, and dipping cherries in seltzers and sodas. Jess is a teacher of children, but the woman will not admit defeat. Even in like Korea esque situations.
If he's the socioeconomic wretch, then she's his queen. Or so he thinks until she flops into the koi pond and Russell is fishing in her skirt. That's fine though, that's fine. She deserves it more than any of them.
x
Truthfully, he fucking loves, loves, Saved by the Bell. He always wanted to be Zack and have an educated and awesome Kelly. This twenty year old chick wants a Zack, but she sure as hell ain't Kelly. Thirty does suck, he thinks when Jess slams a red solo cup down his Zuckerburg douche bag hoodie, but does it suck as much as thinking he's going to be getting somewhere with a ditz that thinks he has all his shit together?
Probably not. That's why he helps Jess and the fancyman because the girl is better than him or Winston or Schimdt. Her thirty doesn't have to suck.
x
He may or may not be drinking before noon cause she cracks him like a lock in under thirty seconds with the (oh, wow, disgusting, but sadly, props) news about Schmidt and Cece. Also, he has got to stop nailing college chicks. They're like, super crazy.
Plus, no one was EVER supposed to know that he maybe (alright, alright more than maybe) thinks of Jess when he, well, ya know.
x
Nick knows exactly how many days she's been gone. How he knows? There hasn't been coffee in seven days. There hasn't been singing in the shower in seven days. There hasn't been Patrick Swayze movies on the TV or glitter on the kitchen table or colored pencils in with the forks in seven days. Not that he's counting or anything.
And when she comes back, she isn't alone. This is their world. Not that guy's. And he doesn't fit in.
x
Seriously, fighting at the dinner table. What are they, twelve? Shit, life sure was easier then. And he'd already have a girlfriend if he was twelve. One his friends wouldn't make fun of forever.
Holy. Crap. Eighteen. Schmidt hands him a beer and pats his shoulder, "At least she was eighteen."
"Shut uppppppppp."
x
She is flat out screaming at him, raven locks of hair flying out in dangerous directions, thrashing upon her smooth porcelain skin, smeared cherry lips wrecked with obscenities, and her two feet planted firmly on the ground, fingers angrily pointing and gesticulating wildly. He's a right mess too: eyes popped wide open, mouth perpetually open with insults soaring out, another waiting on the back burner. And then, boom, silence.
We're just both going to pretend like that didn't happen, he thinks sliding to the floor, back up against the wood of his door, running a hand through his hair. "Everything okay?" Caroline asks him from his bed, navy flannel shirt falling easily along the coast of her body.
It is later that he realizes that for the first time in a long time, that he's been that invested. In anything.
x
The notion of blacksliding doesn't register or exist in his mind until he wakes up one morning and strolls in the living room and sees the goddamn music teacher with the stupid suit and bowl haircut sitting on his sofa.
It breathes a soft whisper into his ear when he agrees to move in with Caroline at her eggshell white apartment complex.
But it shouts, screams, and yells gospel music style when Jess tells him not to settle because this shouldn't be that difficult.
x
The longer she stands there, the less he wants to leave. And he still gets in the truck and goes as far away as he can think, Winston and Schmidt cursing him under the din of the wind.
With the sun setting beneath California hills, and his two best buds and his two best girls and a couple of six packs, he selfishly remembers how good this is. What it feels like to not settle, to be miserable in their little loft, their little home. He wants them [her] to need him because he needs them [her].
And so he goes home, but not to the apartment complex of eggshell white, but to them. To her.