Let's Waste Time

Chapter Nine

The next morning I woke up tangled in my own sheets. I groaned and lifted my head to look at the clock on my bedside table. The drawer was still open, revealing a hastily ripped open box of condoms. I dropped my head back on my pillow. It was Wednesday, so I had to work. I was already late signing in since I’d crashed before setting my alarm clock and then slept like the dead. I was pretty sure I found a better remedy for my insomnia problem.

Eventually, I pulled myself out of my bed and shuffled to the bathroom. My hair was a disaster. It was sticking up in random places, and I had a zit on my chin. My thighs were aching. I felt dehydrated and noodly all at the same time.

I wasn’t in any rush to get to work, but I decided to forego Starbucks so I could get online faster. My friends were having a D&D game later that night, so I wanted to rush through the day as quickly as possible. It was always pretty entertaining to watch them play. They bickered a lot.

After work, I took a bus to the comic book shop my friend Al worked in. When I got there, the owner of the store was standing behind the front counter. He wasn’t very nerdy. Actually he always referred to us as his nerds. But he had a few of his own kids and they’d all been pretty huge comic book fans, one even went off and made his own webcomic, so he opened the store to support them.

“Hey, Marley,” he said when I pushed open the door and stepped inside from the cold.

“Hey. The nerds here yet?” I replied.

“They’re in the back. Ready to start the campaign of the century,” he responded in a mock voice. I laughed.

“Sweet. I’ll be back there.”

“See ya.”

The back of the shop was kind of like a storeroom that also doubled as a hangout place. There were a lot of boxes and extra things that couldn’t be kept in the front. But there was a really uncomfortable brown couch and three plastic tables with chairs. One of the tables was occupied by my friends with their D&D game. The other occupied table had two kids playing Magic. I sat down with my three best friends in the only empty seat at their table.

“Hey, guys,” I said, pulling my beanie off and trying to get comfortable. They all looked up at me and stayed silent for a moment, staring. Then, all at once, their eyebrows rose simultaneously.

The one across from me was the only one of them I’d known since high school. His name was Todd. We became friends when he was being bullied, and I helped him devise a plan to dump eggs on the bully at the homecoming football game. He was sitting across the table in a Tron shirt and turtle shell glasses. He had long, shoulder length, brown hair that was parted in the middle.

I met Albert after graduation when he’d tried to ask me out, and I turned him down. I ended up dragging him to hang out with Todd and me anyway and he just sort of stayed with us and never left. He had short brown hair and glasses with a higher prescription than mine, so his eyes always looked distorted and small behind the glass.

And Doug, we met a few weeks after Albert. He was the only one in our group born with twenty-twenty vision. His hair was always greasy no matter what he did. And he had a baby face. He he also didn’t shower very much, and it was the number one reason why we never dated. Not to mention his dream girl was a tough choice between Arwen and Princess Leah and we were probably much better off as friends. I loved the little nerds.

“What?” I asked them. “Do I have something on my face?” They were all still looking at me.

“More like your neck,” Doug said.

“What? Where?” I ran my hands over my neck but didn’t feel anything.

“You have a hickey,” Albert said. A smile rose on Todd’s face, and I ignored it.

“It’s not a hickey. I have a rash.” Todd began to shake his head slowly.

“I know what it is, and it isn’t a rash,” he said. I glared at him and his stupid knowing smile.

“What is it then, if you’re so f*****g smart?” I asked him.

“You got laid.” My expression must have been obvious. I froze, and my eyes went wide.

“How the f**k would you know? A bruise doesn’t mean I got laid?” I retorted. His smile widened.

“So now it’s a bruise?”

“She does look more relaxed than usual,” Doug added. I shot him a dirty look too.

“I know because I know YOU. And if I remember correctly, Trent is still in LA, and you’ve never looked like this after spending the night with him.” I crossed my arms over my chest defensively. I had looked in the mirror a few times since that morning, and I never noticed the hickey. If it was even really there. But then I remembered the night before after Chris had flipped me onto my back and vampired my collarbone, and I’d responded by digging my nails into his back.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. They all smiled.

“So who was it?” Albert asked as he turned his attention back to his character sheet.

“I just got a good night’s sleep. And I must be allergic to something. Or maybe I punched myself in my sleep.”

“We’ve seen you after a good sleep, and you didn’t look like this.”

“You guys are ganging up on me!”

“So?” I stared them down as the store owner walked back into the room to get a comic from a filing cabinet.

“What’s going on?” he asked casually.

“Marley got laid last night,” Doug told him. My mouth dropped in shock, and I let out a dramatic gasp.

“No s**t? Huh—thought you looked different.”

“I did no such thing!” I retorted.

“You’ve always been a terrible liar,” Albert said. The owner, Larry, shuffled back out to the front to deal with his customers and apparently didn’t care about our nerd s*x talk.

“You guys are assholes.”

“So who was he?” Todd asked.

“Remember that neighbor guy I told you about? The one that comes over on Tuesdays to watch movies with me?” They all smiled again and paused again.

“Yeah,” Todd prodded.

“Well, he came over again last night with pizza and beer. Only we took our time getting around to the pizza and beer.” They all started laughing as if this was the most hysterical thing they’d ever heard me say. “Why is that so f*****g funny?”

“We were taking bets on how long it would take for you guys to go at it,” Todd informed me. They were reaching into their pockets to distribute money among them.

“You were taking bets? That’s so unfair! We can be friends without having s*x. You three are all prime examples of that!”

“Yeah, but we’ve all tried to get down your pants at one point or another. Except for Todd because he had the hots for your brother,” Albert said.

“Yeah, but I denied you, Al. And I denied you, Doug. Todd would have had a chance if he hadn’t been so hung up on my brother.” He grimaced, and I stuck my tongue out at him.

“We didn’t think you’d deny this guy.”

“Why not? I do have the ability to control myself.”

“But he’s hot, right?” Todd asked. “I mean, I only saw him that one time I went to get the mail I sent to your house. But damn, he was pretty fine.”

“He is pretty hot. In a traditional, athletic, sort of way.”

“So are you guys going to have a thing now, or what?”

“No. No thing. Not now. Not ever,” I said.

“But you slept with him,” he reminded me.

“Yeah, but he has a girlfriend, and I have—Trent. We’re not interested in that type of relationship.” I picked up Doug’s notes and looked them over.

“So you’re just going to be f**k buddies or something?” I shrugged.

“I guess. I mean, if it happens again. We talked about it. We don’t like each other like that. We just want to spend some time together on occasion. His girlfriend lives in Oakland, and they have an open relationship. Trent hardly ever gets to come out here these days.”

“If you wanted s*x you could have come to one of us,” Albert said. I glared at him again.

“I actually value your friendship. Besides, I doubt you’d know what to do with it anyway.”

“I’ve had s*x!”

“Like once. In high school. With your cousin. That doesn’t count.”

“She wasn’t my cousin. She’s my cousin’s cousin. That’s different.”

“Oh forgive me. Your cousin’s cousin. You guys are still assholes. Can we not talk about my s*x life anymore? Let’s get started. I came to watch this damn game.” I handed the notes back over. They rolled their eyes and got to work.