J

Damn you, Lalisa Manoban.

I just couldn't stop staring at Kai's teeth. When I wasn't busy pointing out affordable well-designed Swedish lighting fixtures and armchairs that would look good in his living room, I was riveted by his incisors and canines.

Were they indeed disproportionately small for his mouth?

Yes.

Did it make him less attractive?

No.

Did it make me think of Lisa instead of him?

Fuck you, Lisa.

"Is there something in my teeth?" Kai had smiling eyes as he parted his lips, the tip of his tongue barely protruding.

"Oh—no—I wasn't looking at your teeth!"

"Oh," he said quietly, biting his lower lip.

So now he thought I was staring at his lips and that I wanted to kiss him.

Did I want to kiss him?

I didn't not want to kiss him.

Did I want to kiss Lisa more, though?

Fuck you, Lisa.

I managed to get my very slow head back in the game. The game of the day was decorating Kai's apartment—not kissing him. He got me an Ikea hot dog and soft serve ice cream to eat in the car on the way back. I helped him set things up in his living room. He was even more flirtatious, now that he had seen how possessive Lisa was of me, it seemed.

Why are they so weird?

I did like that Lisa was acting a bit jealous about Kai, though. A little. No, a lot. It felt really good. But it didn't mean anything. It was just Lisa being a best girl friend and roommate. Making out with her didn't really mean anything either, it was just the margaritas being margaritas. Things got confusing sometimes, but by that Sunday afternoon, I did understand this.

I also understood that Kai wasn't even remotely jealous when a couple of guys asked me my opinion about a rug while staring at my boobs, that he didn't care at all that I was hungover, and that when he slammed on the brakes when we were on the 134 freeway, he was too busy swearing at the car in front of us to stick his arm out in front of me. All this was perfectly fine for a potential starter boyfriend.

So why couldn't I stop comparing his biceps to Lisa's while helping him put together a Billy bookcase? Why couldn't I stop talking about Lisa to Kai? Why couldn't I stop thinking about how amazing it felt to have Lisa's hands on my hips when I should have been engrossed in arranging little potted plants and pillar candles on top of her neatly-stacked script piles?

When Kai dropped me off at home, we said we'd see each other tomorrow at work, and he leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. He looked at me like he was about to go in for more, but his phone rang, and he had to answer it because it was one of the producers of our film. He thanked me again for the day, said he owed me dinner, then turned his attention to the work call before I was out of the car. It was a relief. I did not want to have to compare kisses. Yet.

Lisa was in her bedroom, in the office nook, listening to Mozart's 40th symphony and typing like a maniac on her laptop.

I realized that I had forgotten to text her that Kai would drive me home, but she was so absorbed in her work that it probably didn't matter.

"I'm back," I said, from the hallway.

"Oh hey," she said, while typing.

I knew better than to try to further the conversation while she was in work-mode. When she listened to Mozart, she meant business.

As I turned away from her door, she asked: "You eat dinner?" She still didn't look up at me.

"No, did you?"

"Yeah. I ordered extra takeout from Winsome."

"For me?"

"Yeah. Chicken salad. You going to bed early?"

Love you. Damn you. "Yep. Gotta get up at four-thirty."

"'Kay, I'll put on my headphones."

I hovered in the doorway and waited for a pause in her typing.

She finally looked over at me, blinking.

"Hey."

"I just wanted to wish you good luck. For your naturalization ceremony on Tuesday. I don't know if I'll see you before then—I'll be gone early and home late all week."

"Oh, right."

"You'll be in town all week, though, right?"

"Yeah yeah. I'll be around."

"Good."

She looked like she was anchored to the floor, her feet flat, hands on her hips, contemplating something. Probably regretting everything she'd said to me that morning. Whatever. I didn't even care what she was thinking right then. I walked towards her and wrapped my arms around her neck.

"So good luck."

I pulled away before she even realized I was hugging her, and I was out the door.

"Thank you," I heard her say quietly, as I shut the door behind myself.

I was wearing a sleep shirt and climbing into bed when she knocked on my door, asking if we could talk for a minute.

She looked all wound-up. I was not used to seeing her like this. She sounded wound-up sometimes when I called her if she was in the middle of something at work, but she's Ms. Chill pretty much any other time. She stared at me for a few seconds, like she was ready to launch into some big monologue that never came. She crossed her arms in front of her chest.

I waited.

I was waiting for her to tell me that she had reconsidered and that we should proceed with dissolving the marriage, as originally planned.

I was preparing to act relieved.

She continued to not say anything, while pacing back and forth.

"What?!"

"Okay, I'm just going to say it."

"Okay."

"I don't think you should date that Kai guy. Or anyone else. I don't think you're ready yet."

"Oh…And?"

She froze. "And that's it. I don't think that guy's right for you…"

I gave her a look. And?

"And I just thought I should come right out and tell you that instead of dancing around the issue."

"Okay, great. Thanks. For not dancing around the issue."

She nodded her head once, like that was the end of the conversation, but she didn't move.

"Anything else?"

She licked her lips, rubbed them together, rolled onto her tip-toes then back to her heels. She looked down at the ground, scratched her chin with her thumb, messed up her hair, cleared her throat. "That's it. Just had to get it off my chest."

"So you've gotten everything off your chest now?"

"Yup. Feels good. How do you feel?"

"Fantastic. My chest feels amazing."

After a beat, wherein her eyes flicked down to my chest, she said quickly: "Cool. Good talk. Good night, then."

I felt the corners of my mouth pull up into a big fake toothy smile. "Good talk. Nighty night."

She crossed her arms in front of her chest again. "Was there something you wanted to say?"

I had so many thoughts swirling around in my brain that I couldn't pick out one of them and put words to it, so I did the only thing I could do. I picked up my pillow and threw it at her.

She caught the pillow with ease and clung to it. "I shouldn't have come in here. I guess I'm just nervous about…stuff. But my offer for you to continue on with our current arrangement still stands."

"And my answer is still no."

She looked incredulous.

No. She looked sad.

I felt horrible.

"Lisa, it's just that—"

"No, it's fine. We probably shouldn't talk anymore tonight. You have to get up early."

"Yeah."

"Good night." She left and shut the door.

That's just like her. She comes in here and says something totally annoying and I'm still the one left feeling guilty about being an asshole.

Was it wrong of me to want to torture and confuse her, just a little? Did she deserve to be punished for being so gosh darned shirtless eighty percent of the time I saw her? Was it, in fact, a good and sensible idea for me to shower before going to bed so I could get fifteen more minutes of sleep in the morning? And was it possible that I would forget to bring a change of clothes with me to the bathroom, which meant I would have to return to my bedroom wrapped in a towel, even though that had happened exactly zero times before when Lisa was home?

Yes.

To all of the above.

A thousand times, it was about fucking time, why the hell not, oh hell yes.