“You have to be cheating!” London shouts at me from the other side of the blanket.
I collect the milk carton pieces, also known as POGs, that landed face up. “That doesn’t sound like good sportsman like dictation.”
“Conduct,” she corrects on a huff. “It’s un-sportsman like conduct , Hot Stuff.”
My mistaken nomenclature should make me feel embarrassed, but it doesn’t. Unlike when I’m forcing myself to sit through a football game with my brothers as some sort of reminder that I am a member of the family, there is no pain attached for not knowing the right terms. No memories of being mocked or teased. Instead London giggles, gives me a chaste kiss, and tells me the actual term. Over the past few weeks, it’s gotten so bad I’ve contemplated studying for when she returns back to town and starts telling me about her work. The only reason I haven’t is because she constantly reassures me she doesn’t need me to be anyone other than me. It’s an unusual and remarkable feeling. However, I haven’t completely accepted it as the whole truth just yet.
After restacking the pile of milk carton caps, I cockily state, “It’s all in the wrist.”
“No, free throw shots are all in the wrist . A perfect spira l down the middle of the field is all in the wrist . A BMX bar spin is all in the wrist .” She motions her hand at the now neat pile. “This is just shitty luck.”
I bend my legs to allow my arms to rest over them. “ Very un-sportsman like.”
London childishly mocks me and tosses the slammer piece at the pile. Unfortunately for her not a single piece lands face up. “I hate this game!”
Between chuckles, I ask, “Then why do you play it?”
“Because I like you ,” she absentmindedly reminds me. Our eyes lock, and she saunters away from the heavy commitment that stating such things seems to make. “Primarily naked.”
During our time of being together without officially tacking on labels she’s deemed shouldn’t be important, I’ve taken note of the way she has a tendency to back away from ‘normal’ couple behaviors. We don’t typically make dates in advance. She simply arrives into town and we just do whatever is available that we want to. Sometimes it’s dinner at a new restaurant. Last week it was a carriage ride around downtown. Today it’s eating cold pizza, naked in the middle of my living room with our phones silenced, and my favorite television show on in the background. She refuses to have us fall into a “comfortable cycle” or “society specified social expectations”. I took her explanation for not wanting to define our relationship with “out of date” terminology to heart. She had a few valid points. People should be able to emotionally invest themselves without worrying every minute of every day what it means and where it “has to go” more than where they want it to. Problem is for me, I want it to go down the stereotypical path of love, marriage, and kids someday. London on the other hand has never been “linked” to another male as long as she has been to me, and I think that’s what has her constantly in the flight position. The only thing she’s truly tied herself to, outside of her family and eccentric spiritual beliefs, is her job. I think the thought of connecting to anything else on a more permanent level without her permission secretly terrifies her. I think as much as she trusts the universe or the Sun Goddess or whatever it is she has her faith in for the time being, she’s still skeptical about giving herself over to the notion of love . Sometimes I wish there was a candle I could light or Saturn prayer I could give her to prove I have no intention of ever hurting her…or letting her go if she doesn’t force me to.
I give her a warm smile. “Wanna quit?”
There’s no hesitation in her nodding.
With another laugh, I begin collecting the pieces to put back in the old white box for safe keeping.
London pulls a piece of Canadian bacon off my slice of pizza. “How often do you play this game?”
“Haven’t played it in years.”
“Years?” She quickly questions. “Not decades, but years ?”
Continuing to properly organize the pieces in their holder, I nod. “Yeah. Every once in a while when Pop would swing by my old apartment, he’d crack open a beer and we’d play like we did when I was a kid.”
“Wait. You didn’t play this game with your brothers?”
I shake my head admiring the round cardboard disks that have managed to remain pristine for years. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Wasn’t their type of game.”
Her greasy hand lands on top of mine, lifting my attention upward.
“My brothers were typical boys. They loved to roll around in the mud and kick up dirt and chase the animals around. The dirtier they were the happier they were. They liked to play games where they had to catch worms or tried to catch frogs. They liked to toss around the football or chase the kickball and play with pretty much any other ball they could get their hands on.”
“And you didn’t like to get dirty.”
“No. Which isn’t ideal when you’re raised in a family of farmers and ranchers and it is what’s expected of you.” I teeter on the indecision to continue until her hand slides so our pinkies can lock together. Our nonverbal expression of trust reassures me it’s alright to go on. “I have the world’s most amazing, most understanding parents. Pop didn’t punish me for not wanting to help feed the horses or hogs. He let me stay in the house with Mama. Learn to cook.”
“Which is why you can make an orgasmic chicken fried steak and double buttered mashed potatoes.”
“Precisely.”
Made that for her the weekend of the Wyatt incident. Proved he’s not the only asshole in the city who knows a thing or two about food.
“I replaced door handles. Light bulbs. I learned to fix the little shit around our home like a leaky faucet, which is when I got dirty, but it wasn’t the same level. Back to the story, one day at school, I think I was eleven, I saw these kids playing POGs. I didn’t initially have any of my own, so I just watched because at the time they were playing for keeps. Couple days later another group was just playing to play, and I got a chance to give it a shot. I was really good.”
“ Still really good.”
I let myself grin. “Truth is, the only other thing I had ever been good at up to that point was Nintendo, which we didn’t have. I played it for the first time when Mickey Morehouse invited Blake over to hang out one Saturday afternoon. I had to go because Mama refused to let Blake go by himself. She didn’t trust Mickey’s older brother not to bother them without another older kid around. Every time he’d go over there, I’d tag along, and play Nintendo with them. Eventually, Mickey just started inviting me over to play it, and Blake moved onto other friends as he always did. From birth he’s been the easiest Shaw to love.”
And me the hardest.
“Anyway, I eventually traded some of Mama’s homemade brownies for playing pieces. Within two days I collected more pieces from games than anyone else who was playing. I was sorting them that weekend-”
“Because every object has its home and every home has its objects.”
The way she mocks my mantra to help remind her to put things away when she’s done with them makes me clear my throat.
London sweetly snickers at my changed expression.
“I was sorting them while my brothers were outside doing whatever it was they did on the weekends. I would’ve done it sooner, but I shared a room with Blake and didn’t want him to see, so I waited. Pop ended up catching me. Asked me a million questions about it and then sat down demanding we play.” The memory expands the smile. “He made a habit at least once a week to play with me. Didn’t matter how tired he was. How long or hard the week had been. Once a week, every week, he put aside that time for me and only me.” I swallow the emotions clogging my throat. “I got older and it became once every couple of months. Then eventually a couple times a year. We had stopped playing in secret by that point, but he never invited my brothers to join us.”
“He wanted you to always have something that was just yours .”
I nod my agreement. “Which is nice when you have four brothers and nothing else is.”
We shared everything from food, to books, to clean boxers when someone forgot to do their own laundry. As much as I love my brothers, it was nice to eventually get the hell away and have real independence. Space. Sometimes I wonder if maybe it was too much space and that’s why I’m treated more like a spectator than a family member.
“Why’d you two stop all together?”
“My nephews,” I answer and return to putting away the last of the pieces.
London flicks away the piece of pineapple blocking the piece of meat she wants. “He plays the game with them instead?”
“No, Messyrella. He just spends the free time he would’ve with me trying to be a good grandpa to them .” Once I secure the lid on the box I scold, “Do you have to throw food around? Could you at least put the pineapple chunks into a small pile on the side of the plate, Sunshine?”
She stares at me dead in the eyes and sends another piece flying.
Torn between wanting to throw her down and fuck her as punishment for her defiance and grabbing a wet rag to clean the hardwood before it gets sticky, I let out a heavy sigh.
“I love when you make that sound.”
The corner of my lip fights to curl upward.
“And when your forehead crinkles.” London crawls across the empty blanket space between us and into my lap. “And when your face gets all red because you’re worried the rest of the world can see us.…”
My arms slide around her waist. “Or hear us.”
“That’s half the fun of public sex, Hot Stuff.”
“I meant more so when my downstairs neighbor knocks on the door with a noise complaint.”
We’ve had the woman who lives below me come complain seven times in the past month. The out of control sex noises coincide with London’s return here from work. Originally, I thought she was just exhibiting more fears of commitment by living in her father’s guest house. However, she really isn’t usually in town more than three days a week, and that’s the high end. Her job keeps her moving, which she loves, but it makes being together, even digitally , difficult. Between time zone changes, meetings, and just daily activities we have to work harder to stay connected. The longer spans of time apart have me jerking off to the point I think I’m getting blisters. It often feels like I’m putting more effort in by trying to get us on the same schedule or at the very least one reliable moment each day. I always swear to myself I’ll gripe about it to her when we’re face to face since that’s not really an easy conversation to have from across the ocean, but then it feels so damn good to have her back in my arms, I completely forget. That’s the most exhilarating and the hardest thing about being with this woman. Everything is so instinctually based, logic ceases to typically exist.
London innocently shrugs. “She wouldn’t be bitching if she were having the kind of sex I’m having.”
The compliment elicits another grin.
“I think I’ll light a candle for her in the morning after yoga. Perhaps that’ll lift the blockage surrounding her aura.”
Her odd sentence simply makes me smile wider. “Perhaps.”
“What do you say in the meantime you order us Chinese food and we give her another reason to complain while we wait?”
I cup her ass receiving a soft whimper from her full lips. “I can definitely do that.”
“Can we also spend the evening watching the Hellcats play? It’s their last game of the season.”
“Of course,” I answer without reluctance.
Basketball, like all other sports does absolute shit for me, but the joy she gets while watching and seeing her passionately shout at the screen is worth it. Sometimes I wonder if her father wasn’t who he is would her love for it run so deep. I’d ask, but those aren’t the type of questions she likes to answer. However, she does love to lie her head in my lap and let me trace the #18 tattoo behind her ear. It’s her father’s retired number.
“You wanna invite Matty and Brando over to watch it too?”
She frowns. “Not in the mood to have our bodies constricted in clothing today. Can we do something with them tomorrow instead?”
“Will you remember ?”
While London likes my friends, she’s managed to flake on them the last couple of times we were all supposed to hang out. I arranged for us to meet up for drinks at a piano bar and she changed her flight last minute to meet some motorcross asshole instead. Two weeks ago we were supposed to attend a wine tasting. It was marked on the calendar. I sent her four reminders, yet she still managed to forget and ended up at hot yoga instead.
I’m not sure if she is genuinely that out of sync with the rest of world’s clock or if it is some weird London style anarchy against conforming to something she doesn’t enjoy.
“You’ll be here to remind me,” she sasses.
“We’ll do brunch with them then. Assuming they’re not busy.”
Her head dramatically falls back over the idea of being up before noon.
I chuckle and squeeze her ass again forcing her face back to mine. “Maybe the sleep deprivation will help your long-term memory.”
“Doubtful. But I did pick up a time thread when I was in Ireland. That could help with my time keeping abilities.”
It takes everything I have to swallow the sarcastic retort I’m on the verge of saying. “Do you mind if I tinker with something else while we watch the game?”
She purses her lips together and gives me a skeptical look. “Something else or someone else?”
The joke receives a hard grab of the ass. “You know you’re the only woman coming on my cock, Sunshine.”
London grins proudly but offers no such guarantee in return.
This is the most fucking frustrating part of being a couple that’s not a couple. I don’t know for a fact I’m the only man on her mind. I don’t know if I’m the only one she sends naked photos to and goes on dates with. I don’t know without an absolute doubt if she’s got both feet in this or one out. If she’s got a backup or is possibly looking for a better match while still testing the waters with me. Not knowing the answer is killing me. But demanding one, demanding she acknowledges precise precedents of “normal couple” behaviors and answers to them, could end this. And the absolute last thing I fucking want is that .
I swallow away the sadness sticking to my tongue. “I found an old Gameboy last weekend and have been trying to fix it in my spare time.”
She tilts her head at me. “I thought you just liked to fix computers.”
“Computers. Consoles. Really any piece of technology like that.” My effortless confession is preceded with a shrug. “I love to see how that shit works. I love seeing all the tiny pieces not only fit together, but how they work together. It’s been a running fascination since the day Pop taught me how to fix Mama’s sewing machine. The only thing I love almost as much as fixing them is building them.”
Shock and awe grace her blue eyes and my chest instantly swells with pride. “You know how to build computers?”
“More like assemble . Taking the time to put all the pieces together. Gutting old towers and revamping them. Bringing them back to life.”
“That sounds very Dr. Frankenstein for robots.”
Her lame joke causes me to roll my eyes.
“Mind if I watch you work during commercial breaks?”
A loving sensation floods my entire system. “Not at all….”
London graces me a gracious grin before lowering her parted lips down to mine.
Maybe she doesn’t have to declare our status with words. Maybe she doesn’t need to promise me I’m the only man she’s seeing. I mean that’s exactly what she’s doing by flying back to Highland every non-work day she has, even if it means we’re only together for a few hours. She spends every night she’s in town in my bed and has even begun to take over a bit of my closet space. Perhaps in her own way, she’s letting me know we’re much more than bed buddies by letting me pick the type of pizza we share, watching my favorite shows more often than Sports Insider, and trying to learn about the part of me no one else ever has. Huh. Are those words something I really need when her actions speak in much higher volumes?