I was able to avoid my brother and his questions for nearly an entire day. He was mildly hung over, and spent the entire day sleeping along with Tony and Jaime who were also at the bar with us. I took this time to clean the house, do laundry, eat, and even watch an entire movie without being bothered. I thought about Eleftheria all day and spent most of my time in between tasks staring at my phone, contemplating the idea of texting her.

I stared at my phone again after getting ready for the barbeque my family was going to have later that night. My hair was still wet from my shower and a droplet would occasionally blur out her name as it collided with my phone screen. I wanted to text her. Hell, I wanted to see her again. But a part of me still knew that it couldn’t work out.

“Just text her.”

I looked up from my phone with a jump. Mike was leaning in the doorway to my room with a lopsided grin across his face. His arms were crossed over his chest. I didn’t even hear him open the door.

“Huh?” I replied, trying to play the dumb card.

Mike laughed a bit as he made his way over to my bed. He stood in front of where I was sitting before holding out his hands. Each of his hands was balled up into fists, waiting to drop something into my hands. I held one of my hands out, waiting for whatever he was going to give me in confusion.

“Which one do you want first?” he asked, slightly pulling his fists closer to him.

I looked between the two hands, still completely confused. “I really don’t feel like playing games, Mike,” I said.

“Humor me. Left or right?” he asked with a smile.

“Fine, left.”

I held my hand under his left fist. He opened it and down dropped a torn open package. There were only a few letters left of the word “TROJAN” that was once on the front of the blue wrapper. I tried to hide the embarrassment from filling my cheeks. I was so certain that I had made sure we didn’t leave anything behind.

“Why are you giving this to me?” I asked, trying to play the dumb card once again.

But of course, Mike knew me all too well. He gave me a knowing look and said, “Vic, nobody uses Trojan ENZs anymore except for someone who might have some leftover condoms from years ago.”

He gave me another knowing look. I rolled my eyes and walked over to the trashcan in the corner of my room to throw the wrapper away.

“Don’t you want to know what’s behind door number two?” Mike asked as he walked after me with his right fist sticking out.

“Hm, I wonder if it could possibility be my right to privacy? “ I replied with sarcasm.

Mike gave me a sarcastic “HA-HA” before releasing his fist. It took a moment for the impact of what he was giving me to hit my hand. At first I didn’t see anything, but when I moved my hand in the light, I saw a flicker of gold reflecting into my eyes. I looked in the crease of my index and middle finger and saw a gold nose stud.

I grabbed it between my thumb and index and held it up. “Oh!” I said, a bit too excited. “I was looking for this.” I tried to explain, but there was no use.

“Why didn’t you tell me, bro?” Mike asked as he collapsed onto my bed. He picked up my phone and looked at the screen. “…the fuck? Is that her name?”

I snatched my phone out of his hands while still carefully holding Theria’s nose stud in my left hand. “It’s not that big of a deal,” I explained. I walked over to my dresser and set her nose stud down on the cleanest part of the surface. “Don’t touch my phone.”

“Um, yeah, it is a big deal. You haven’t been with a girl in forever.”

I groaned and sat on the bed next to Mike. “It doesn’t matter. It was just a one night stand.” I looked back at my phone and thought about texting her again but just couldn’t do it. Not even a simple ‘hey’ or ‘hey it’s Vic’. My fingers froze.

“Doesn’t look like it. Dude, she gave you her number. You must have done something right because she wants more.” Mike sat up and stared down at my phone with me. “Invite her over tonight.”

I shot up to look at Mike. “Are you insane? To meet the family after a one night stand? I don’t think so.”

“Whatever, dude,” Mike finally said and threw his hands up in defeat. “Do what you want.”

“Thanks, I was going to anyway, but it’s nice to know I have your approval now.”

He got up off of my bed and headed back toward the door. Before he could leave he lightly tapped the doorway with his fist a few times before turning back around. He looked like he had something that he wanted to say, but instead of letting it out he bit his bottom lip and shook his head and walked away.

What was so hard about texting or calling her? It’s not like we did anything more than have sex. I mentally punched myself for acting like such a teenage girl. Maybe Mike was right.

The phone was ringing before I could really register what I had done. When the third ring hit, I was certain that she wasn’t going to pick up. She would probably ignore the call from an unrecognized number.

The line picked up and right away Eleftheria’s voice rang through my ears. “I thought you’d never call,” she said.

“When can I pick you up?” I asked.

Eleftheria let out a casual laugh, as if she was expecting me to ask that. “If only you would have called a few hours earlier. I already made plans with my friends.”

I frowned a bit. I should have just called her right when I woke up. “Oh, well I’ll let you go then. Maybe we can try to make plans for tomorrow.”

“Woah, not so fast. I can still talk on the phone for a little bit. I’m not leaving for another…” she paused for a moment. “…half hour.”

“Oh, nice. What do you want to talk about?”

“Hmm…what’s your favorite movie?”

I laughed a bit, but not because of her question, because of the answer I was about to give. “Coraline,” I admitted. “I know, I know. It’s a bit odd for a thirty year old to have an animated movie as their favorite.”

“I’ve actually never heard of it,” she chuckled a bit.

“What?” I asked a bit loudly. “Oh my god, it’s great. We’ll have to watch it.” I told her a general summary of the movie with a bit too much enthusiasm. She laughed during my whole explanation.

“You’re funny,” she finally said.

“Thanks,” I laughed, “I try.”

“Food’s done!” Mike said from my doorway.

I turned to look at him while still holding my phone to my ear. His eyebrows perked up in the matter of seconds and he came walking over to me with his mouth open. “No,” I mouthed to him. I pointed to the door and pushed him a bit.

“Is that her?” he whispered.

I rolled my eyes and tried pushing him again. Although he might have been my younger brother, he was a good foot taller than me. Getting him to move would be a waste of my energy, so once he pushed me back I gave up. He sat down on the bed and stared at me as I tried to tune back into my conversation with Eleftheria.

Luckily she was talking to her roommate in the background, so I hadn’t missed anything she had said.

“Ugh,” she said as she came back to the phone. “I have to go. My roommate’s being a bitch.”

I tried my hardest to hide the disappointment from Mike. He continued to stare at me, wide-eyed and leaning forward as if he was in suspense during a movie.

“Oh, that’s okay. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Eleftheria yelled to her roommate to tell her that she was on her way. “Yes, hopefully we’ll be able to see each other tomorrow,” she said. “Well, goodbye, Vic.”

-

I rounded the corner and went to the side of the house where the trashcans were. I shoved the trash bag full of paper plates and red solo cups into the recycling and the ones with leftover beans, steak, and tortillas into the waste bin. It was difficult to move with the weight in tacos and beans that I had eaten.

When I entered the house again I saw Mike sitting down with my mom and dad in the living room while Tony was in the kitchen rinsing off plates and utensils. I went into the kitchen next to him and began to dry the plates that he rinsed.

“Hey,” Tony whispered as I came closer to the sink.

I picked up another plate to towel dry and then put away. “Yeah?” I replied.

He looked over his shoulder and saw that Mike and my parents were fully engaged in a conversation. “We’re like brothers, right?”

I laughed a little bit. “Is that a serious question?” I looked Tony in the eye and his expression remained the same. “Dude, of course. We’re in a band together, I think that says it all. I can’t believe you seriously just asked that.”

“Well,” Tony said before he cleared his throat very quietly. “Why didn’t you tell me about the girl, then? Don’t brothers tell each other everything?”

I hunched a bit and kept my eyes on the plate in my hands. I should have known that Mike would nark me out to the rest of the guys. I bet he was telling my parents about it, too. In fact, that was probably what they were doing in the living room right beside us.

“Well, not everything,” I tried to cover up.

Tony scoffed and turned the water off. “C’mon, seriously? Why are you trying to be so secretive all the sudden?”

“I’m not,” I lied to myself.

“Whatever man, just, don’t forget that we care about you and we’re here for you to talk to.”

I put the last plate away and came back to Tony. I put a hang on his shoulder and gently squeezed it. “I know, man.”

I had to leave the kitchen before Mike found the chance to corner me and grill me about Eleftheria. I tried to make it seem like it wasn’t such a big deal, but for some reason Tony and Mike seemed more concerned than anything. I was certain that there was nothing to be concerned about though – it was just going to be a fling that would burn out once we went on tour again. Especially since I lied to her about what I really did.

Man, why did I have to lie?

My phone let out a loud Ping! From my pocket. I dug it out of my shorts and noticed the time before I looked at the message. It was already nearing two in the morning, and I wasn’t tired at all. I slowly let my eyes work their way down the screen. I was silently hoping it was Eleftheria who had texted me. I saw the first letter of her name and opened the message with excitement. An address presented itself on my phone and within seconds my shoes were on and my feet were silently creeping down the hallway. I made sure my hair was intact beneath my backwards snapback and pulled my keys out of my pocket.

I slipped through the door without anybody noticing and drove straight to the address on the screen. I walked up to the apartment number that was in the text and lifted my hand, getting ready to knock, but the door cracked open just a bit.

“Shh,” Eleftheria held her finger to my lips. “We have to be quiet. My roommate is sleeping,” she said in a breathless whisper.

I nodded and followed her across the living room and down the hallway. The apartment was plain and fairly clean. It hardly even looked lived in: there was only a couch in the living room and a fold-out card table with two fold-out chairs to match. It definitely looked like they lived on a budget, which would make sense since she was probably spending all of her money on school.

We slipping into her bedroom. It looked a bit more lived in: a few pictures and paintings on the wall, a calendar hanging above her desk, and a large bed in the center of the room. Some clothes were strewn around the floor and the blankets on her bed were unmade. I took a moment to look at Eleftheria. She was wearing tight jeans with a tight shirt that had ridden up just a bit so a bit of her hip tattoo was visible. She only had socks on and her hair was in its natural waves. Her makeup was minimal – and if I hadn’t been looking very closely it would look like she wasn’t wearing any at all.

She looked at me just the same as I looked at her – studying her in the well-lit room as opposed to the darkness of a van in a bar parking lot. She smiled as she looked over my features.

“So what did you do today?” she asked as she removed her eyes from me. She walked over to her bed and laid down flat on her back and stared at the ceiling.

I followed after her and lay down beside her and looked up as I folded my hands together and placed them on my stomach. “We had a family barbeque tonight. I’m still full.” She laughed a bit. “What about you?” I asked.

“My roommates forced me to go to this frat party with them. I hate frat boys,” she snorted as she thought about the party. “They think they’re so fantastic, but they’re really not.”

“Yeah,” I said as I thought back to small amount of time I spent in school. I did my best to stay away from most people, but I do remember how obnoxious most of the fraternities were.

She turned on her side and looked at me. She propped her head up with her right arm and lifted her left hand to gently place it on my chest. She used her fingers to gentle trace shapes into the fabric of my shirt. The faint feeling of her fingers tickling my skin was turning me on, but I didn’t want to be the one to initiate anything because I didn’t want to seem like one of those disgusting frat boys.

I looked up at her as she stared at her fingers as they moved across my chest. I wanted to kiss her naturally red lips and run my fingers through her long hair. I looked down her neck and down to her cleavage. It was prominent because of the way she was laying on her side and the plunge of her shirt showed it off without throwing it out there too much. She looked so innocent, and it was sexy.

I couldn’t help myself any longer. I lifted my hand to reach up and pull her face down to mine. She responded by rolling on top of me and allowing our lips to connect. Her hands made their way to the back of my neck. She played with the ends of my hair as our tongues met. She kissed better than anyone I had ever kissed – I could spend the entire night just kissing her.

She moved a bit so she was straddling me. With every movement her bed let out a loud creak beneath us.

“Fuck,” she said against my lips. “My stupid bed is too loud.”

“I don’t mind it,” I said as I pulled her down to kiss her more.

She pulled back a bit. “My roommate will hear,” she said. I understand and allowed her to pull away from my lips. She sat up while still straddling me and looked around the room, thinking about where we could retreat to.

“Are you feeling risky?” she asked with a smirk on her lips.

“Sure,” I replied, unsure of what she meant.

“Come on,” she said as she put her finger over her lips to tell me to be quiet. We tip-toed out of her room, down the hallway, through the living room, and to the sliding glass door that lead to the balcony.

She pulled me outside with her and shut the door behind her. “This risky?” she asked with a smirk.

I replied by pinning her between me and the railing and bending down to immediately connect my lips with her neck. She slightly moaned as I sucked on her skin. Her hands reached up and continued to play with my hair. She wrapped her fingers around the curls that stuck out from underneath my hat and arched her back as I continued to place kisses all along her collar bone.

She moved her head down a bit so her lips were level with my ear while I kissed my way back to her neck. “I want you,” she whispered out in a shaky tone.

I let out a small groan as my hands went straight for the button of her jeans. I pulled her pants down before struggling to get mine down, pulling a condom out of my pocket before they were to the floor. I put the condom on very quickly as she kissed my jawline. I reached underneath her and lifted her up and get up back down on the railing of the balcony. She wrapped her arms around my neck and I kept my arms wrapped around her lower back to make sure she didn’t fall.

“This is probably dangerous,” I said quietly as I looked into her eyes.

“I trust you,” she said as she looked right back into my eyes. I connected our lips and help them there as I thrust myself into her.

As the impact her hands jerked up and she hit my hat the bill of my hat that was backwards on my head, sending it flying over the both of us and into the bushes that were two floors beneath us. Neither of us cared or paid any attention to it. She let out shy moans as I continued to rock my hips against her. She wrapped her legs around my waist so to stabilize herself as I started to move faster.

We reached our climax together, but had to try to stay quiet since we were outside. We let out throaty, breathless moans against each other’s mouths. She connected our lips into another kiss before I pulled away from her and pulled up my pants while she did the same. I held my condom over the edge of the balcony and looked down into the bushes beneath us.

“Sorry about your hat,” she said quietly as she watched me drop the condom.

“It’s okay,” I said as we stood there for a minute, staring down into the bushes.

She let out a small yawn and rubbed her eyes. I was feeling pretty tired myself – it had to be close to four in the morning by now.

We walked into the house and she stopped awkwardly by the front door. “Um, well, I think I’m going to head to bed,” she said while she rubbed the back of her neck.

“Yeah, it’s late,” I agreed as I walked to the front door. She opened it for me and I stepped out of the apartment and turned to look at her.

“Talk to you tomorrow?” she asked without making eye contact.

I reached up and pulled her face to mine for a gentle kiss. “Talk to you tomorrow,” I confirmed.

She smiled a bit and we pulled apart. I turned around and headed for the stairs. Halfway down the first flight I turned to look back up at her. She was still standing there with the door open. I gave her a small wave and she bit her lip with a smile before turning around and shutting the door behind her.

I opened the door to my house without a single crack or sound to be heard. I shut it behind me and kicked my shoes off by the door. I went to set my keys down, and as soon as they silently made contact with the wooden table beside the door, the lights to the living room flicked on.

I blinked a bit as my eyes adjusted to the light. I looked across the room to see Mike standing there with his fingers lingering on the light switch.

“Where were you, huh?” he asked with a knowing smile.

“I went to get drinks with Casey,” I lied with a shrug.

“Bullshit,” Mike said right away. “You were with that girl again. What’s her name? Leaf fairy?”

“Eleftheria,” I corrected without thinking.

“So you were with her? I knew it!” Mike’s smile grew ten times larger as pointed a finger at me.

I let out a fake yawn and stretched my arms. “Well, goodnight!” I said while trying to escape the situation. I didn’t want to deal with Mike’s questions. What was so wrong with me meeting a girl? What so wrong with me spending some time with her? What was the big deal about having someone to hook up with? Mike could hook up with girls, Tony could hook up with girls, Jaime could hook up girls, but as soon as I hook up with one it’s like it’s the craziest thing to ever happen? It didn’t make sense.

“How was she?” he asked with a smirk and raised eyebrows. “You’ve got to at least tell me that sex is good. Because if you’re seriously trying to sneak out of the house as an adult for some lousy sex, we really need to talk…”

“It’s good,” I said quietly. I tried not to let my satisfied smile show on my face, but I couldn’t bite it back.

“Just good?” Mike said knowingly.

“Fucking hell,” I gave in and lifted my hands before dropping them quickly. “It’s great.”

“That’s my boy,” Mike said like a proud father.

I made my way over to the couch and sat down, putting my feet up on the coffee table in front of me. Mike sat down next to me and stared at my head.

“Weren’t you wearing a hat?” he asked, looking at me strangely.

I let out a laugh. “Yes, I was.”

“…okay…?”

“It fell off the balcony and into the bushes,” I said.

Mike raised an eyebrow as he tried to think about what I saying. “Balcony…?” he asked quietly to himself. “You fucked her on the balcony?!” he turned to me with wide eyes and a huge smile.

I nodded proudly and bit the inside of my bottom lip. “Yeah, had her lifted up on the railing and everything. She had her hands around my neck and accidentally wacked the hat off my head and behind us.”

“Dang, you always struck me as more of a missionary man. But on the railing of an apartment balcony? I’ve underestimated you, big time,” he laughed.

I laughed in response. “Missionary is nice, too,” I said.

“Yeah,” Mike laughed. “Sex, in general, is nice.”

“Yeah,” I agreed with a laugh. “It is.”

Mike got up and headed toward the stairs. “Hey Vic?” he asked before fully stepping up the first step.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t keep stuff from us anymore. Alright?”

I let out a hesitant nod. Did that mean that I should tell him about how I had lied to Eleftheria? I pushed the thought out of my mind, and thought that maybe if I didn’t think about it, I wouldn’t have to face it in the end.

What would it matter, anyway? We were just having casual sex. It’s not like anything more would come of it. At least, I had made sure of that with my stupid lie.

Notes

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