The Only Medicine

Of course, I get to Starbucks and Mike isn’t even there. For some reason, I’d thought he would have come here straight after talking to me at the gym, but apparently not. I feel a bit silly for rushing through my shower. I order a soy chai latte and sit down at a table in the corner. After a while Mike strolls in.

“You’ll never believe what’s happened,” he says after he orders, sitting down opposite me.

“What?”

He stretches back in his seat. “I dunno. Maybe I’ll just tell you later.”

I smirk at him and flip him the bird.

“Okay, but seriously,” he says, leaning forward again and drumming the table. “What’s happened with Vic?

I sigh. “I really feel like you should wait for Vic to tell you—“

“—hey, come on—“

“—but I’m going to tell you anyway.” I take a sip of my chai. “Because you won’t shut up about it.”

He rolls his eyes and gets up to collect his beverage. I can’t really tell what he’s ordered, but it looks like an iced coffee or something. The ice cubes rattle in the plastic cup as he places it on the table.

“Okay …” I sigh and think of where to start. “So you know how Vic thought he slept with Cara the other weekend and spewed in her bed?”

“Yeah?”

I lower my voice. “Um, well, she called him this morning to tell him that she’s pregnant—"

“—what the fuck!—“

“—but it’s not Vic’s.”

“What the fuck?”

“It’s not Vic’s. They didn’t even sleep together; he was so drunk that he didn’t remember what actually happened.” I sigh. “And he’s really distraught about it, because he started getting feelings for her again.”

Mike leans back again, gobsmacked. “Oh man. Poor Vic.”

“Yeah.”

“That explains the empty bottle of ouzo.”

“Yeah.”

“What a bitch.”

“Hey, we can’t blame her. She’s got a boyfriend. Vic’s the one that broke into her house and threw up in her bed,” I insist. “We’ve just got to help him through this.”

Mike chews the straw of his drink thoughtfully. “Fuckin’ hell.”

“And Vic doesn’t know that you know, so you have to act surprised or something when he tells you,” I say. “If he tells you.”

“Come on, we’re brothers—we tell each other everything.” He slurps his iced coffee and I narrow my eyes at him. “Well, you know. Not everything.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

We fall into silence and I find myself immediately wondering if Vic is still asleep, and how he’s feeling, and whether this is going to be an ongoing thing—him getting drunk at midday. There’s not much I can do except be there for him and help him make good choices. Be a good friend while simultaneously being a terrible, terrible friend. I flick my eyes up to glance at Mike and see that he’s watching me with an amused expression.

“What’s up?” I ask, my cheeks flushing.

“Your septum ring’s crooked.”

I scrunch my face up at him, but reach up and adjust the ring anyway. “Better?”

“Much better. You should keep your face like that.”

“Too bad you can’t do anything to fix your face,” I quip.

“You could sit on it,” he suggests, not breaking eye contact.

I bite my lip and he grins around the straw in his mouth and leans back in his chair. Dammit, why is he playing with me?

“I could do more than just sit on your face,” I murmur, “depending on how your little visit went today.”

He continues grinning at me. I roll my eyes.

“Whatever. I’m going home.” I make to get out of my chair.

“Wait,” he says, reaching for my arm. “Are you staying over tonight?”

I smirk at him. “No. I’m gonna go home and see my mom. I’ll see you and Vic tomorrow for band practice.” If he’s not hungover, I add to myself.

He gets to his feet just as I do. “I’ll drive you home.”

I shrug. It’s a game and I’m not going to be the one to break first. Ugh, but I want to. We walk out of the coffeehouse together, maintaining our distance.

“Where did you park?” I ask.

“A bit further down the road.”

He strolls beside me, his hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket. The street is pretty quiet for early Saturday evening. I’m reminded of the time we walked home from Jaime’s party and ended up at the park; I have to fight the urge to reach across and grab his hand.

What am I doing? If we do this, if we decide to keep hooking up behind Vic’s back, then we’ll never be able to walk down the street hand in hand. Not that I’m big on public displays of affection, but there’s a big difference between being able to and choosing not to, and not being able to at all. We reach the car and I hop in as soon as he unlocks it, suddenly cold. It’s parked around the corner in a relatively secluded street.

“Can you turn the heat on?” I ask as Mike gets in the other side. I sit on my hands to warm them up.

“Are you cold?” he asks, his eyes meeting mine. Just a look and I can’t take it anymore and we reach for each other at the same time. His hand clutches at the belt loop of my jeans and my knee bangs painfully on the gear stick as I lunge over. He pulls me to him and I let out a gasp and he groans and, oh god, why has this taken so long? His mouth closes over mine and his lips are simultaneously warm and cold. He adjusts himself so that I’m straddling him and my ass accidentally hits the horn, and the seat collapses backwards with a pop, but we don’t care.

“Mia,” he whispers after a while, breaking the kiss. “Mia, I didn’t bring anything.”

“Agh, fuck,” I groan, kissing down his throat. His stubble feels rough and amazing. I sit up, panting. His hands hold me by the ribs, caressing, but not straying any higher or lower. The windows of the car are completely steamed up—anyone walking past the car can probably guess at what’s happening inside.

“I don’t want anything else,” he mumbles.

“What do you mean?” I ask, running my palms down his arms.

“I just want to fuck you.”

It sends a wave of desire through me and I can’t help but gently rock my hips against him. “Ugh, me too. Vic doesn’t keep anything in the glove box?”

“I’m not going to fuck you in the middle of this public street,” he chuckles disbelievingly, running a hand through his long dark hair. “It’s not even dark.”

“You were ready to fuck me in the middle of Starbucks a couple of hours ago.” I hop off and sit back on the passenger side. He sits back up.

“We could go back to your house,” he says.

“Can’t. My mom’s home.”

“We could go back to my house.”

“Uh, and say what to your parents and Vic?”

“I guess you’re right.” He sighs and grabs the handle to lift the seat back up, but nothing happens. “Oh, shit.” He tries again. “We broke it.”

“Oh, fuck,” I giggle. “How are you going to explain that to Vic?”

He shrugs and sighs again. “Oh well. I’ll just say it happened when I sat down.”

“Yes, all 180lbs of you broke the seat when you sat down,” I laugh.

He shakes his head as he starts the car. “Well, I can’t exactly tell him the truth, can I?”

We’re silent on the drive to my house and all I can think about is Mike’s hands all over me; my mind keeps slipping back to a couple of weeks ago, when he kissed me and we had sex for the first time. Even now, my brain jumbles up everything that happened—were we together for a minute or an hour? I try to remember exactly how many times our skin touched.

“You all right?” he asks, breaking me from my reverie.

“Just thinking about how everyone’s a cockblocker right now.”

He chuckles. “Well, I’ll definitely make it worth the wait.”

“Don’t say things like that to me,” I whine. “I’m trying to cool down right now.”

“Oh, you think it’s hard for you?” He gestures down at himself. “I’m trying to think of how I’m going to hide this from everyone when I get home.”

“It is one of the perks of having a vagina,” I admit. We pull up outside my house, but not up the driveway.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” he says hopefully.

“Yeah, band practice. I’ll be over around lunch time.”

He leans over and kisses me softly goodbye, and it takes all my willpower to not jump over to his side of the car again.

Notes