coming up behind me as I sat in a booth at the Denny’s restaurant one day. Her blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail, and her eyes were painted with heavy, dark makeup that made her look somewhat like a raccoon to me.
“Hey, Jana,” I said, setting my fork down. I looked at Bray and then back up at Jana, hovering beside our table, and said, “This is my girlfriend, Bray. Bray, this is Jana.”
“Nice to meet you,” Bray said with a smile at first I couldn’t be sure was genuine or just for show.
Jana’s darkly lined eyes skirted Bray, and I noticed their smiles seemed to match. I wondered if Bray could tell right off that I had slept with this girl before.
“Girlfriend, huh?” Jana said.
“Yes.” Bray straightened her back and stretched her arms across the table in front of her. “And you are?” she said with a smirk.
OK, their matching smiles were definitely just for show. Suddenly I felt like a bear cub dangling between mother bear and an intruder.
“I’m just a friend of Elias and Mitchell,” Jana said, and I felt a little relieved that was all she said. “There’s a party goin’ on Friday night on the river. Everybody’ll be there. You two should come.”
Bray looked over at me and relaxed her back against the cushioned booth seat again. She pursed her lips contemplatively.
“You want to go?” she asked me.
It felt like a dangerously loaded question that I wasn’t sure I should answer, but Bray really seemed interested.
“Oh come on,” Jana said, propping a hand on her hip. “We plan to spend the weekend out there. Bring a tent. Oh and it’s BYOB. Allan will be there, too, so you know what that means.” She glanced at me once, and Bray definitely noticed.
“We’ll be there,” Bray announced.
I just stayed quiet. Seemed like Bray had this secret duel going on with Jana and could handle herself. Besides, it felt safer to just stay quiet.
Women really do scare the shit out of me sometimes.
Jana smiled with teeth showing, and I briefly thought about my dick being in her mouth not long ago. I flinched inwardly as if Bray could read my mind or something.
“Awesome! I’ll see you then.” Jana smirked at me as she left our table.
“You definitely fucked her,” Bray said and took a bite of her mashed potatoes.
I felt my face stiffen.
She wasn’t angry or jealous, but she wasn’t going to hold back, either. This was Bray, after all, and I’d be worried if she didn’t say exactly what was on her mind.
I let out a small breath of laughter and picked my fork back up. “Yeah, though that’s all it was.”
“I know,” she said, smiled at me, and washed her food down with a drink of tea.
“How would you know that?” I was truly baffled, but didn’t doubt her for a second.
“Because that one was oozing fuck-me,” she said and took another small bite. She added with her mouth full, pointing her fork at me, “Nothing wrong with that if that’s what she wants to do. As long as she keeps her lips off you, we have no issue.”
“I think we’re good,” I said. “She’s kind of into Mitchell now, though I think it has more to do with him supplying her with drugs than with sex.”
Bray cocked an eyebrow. “Mitchell’s selling drugs?”
“Well, not exactly,” I said, lowering my voice because of the topic. “He started doing meth about a month ago. The two of them have been spending a lot of time together since…” I hesitated because I didn’t exactly want to bring up the fact that I’d slept with Jana the same day Bray came home. “Well, it’s been about two weeks now.”
“Why is this my first time seeing her?”
Bray was living with me in my apartment now. It took her five days to even let her family know she was back in Georgia. But that didn’t surprise me. I would never say it to Bray, but I knew her parents wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to bring her home to them.
“I kind of asked Mitchell to meet up with her somewhere other than my place.”
“Because of me?” Bray smiled knowingly.
“Yeah,” I admitted.
“Well, don’t worry about it,” she said, moving her hand underneath the table and rubbing it across my thigh. “I’m not going to freak out on you over old girlfriends or whatever. I never expected you to be celibate.”
Was this her way of clearing a path for me before I found out who she had slept with since we had been apart? In a way it felt like that, but at the same time, I knew she was being sincere about it, too. I can’t deny that I started wondering heavily about her sex life in that moment. Not that it would ever have made me love her less, but I still wanted to know.
“Who is Allan?” she asked.
Instinctively, I looked up and all around me to make sure no one was listening.
“He’s the drug dealer,” I whispered.
“Oh…” Bray looked at me warily. “And you know him how?”
“Everybody knows him,” I said. “But don’t get the wrong idea. I’ve only met him a few times.”
“Met as in bought from?” She grinned.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “Nothing too bad, just some weed here and there.”
“Good,” she said. “Because I don’t deal with that meth stuff. Would hate to have to haul you off to the nearest rehab.”
“Hell no,” I said. “I’m with ya on that. I’m worried about Mitchell, though. I’ve tried to steer him clear of that shit, but he won’t listen to me.”
“I hate to say this, Elias, but if he doesn’t get help now, you’ll have to kick him out of your apartment. He’ll end up blowing up your kitchen, or taking you down with him when he gets busted.” She took a quick drink and set her glass back on the table. “Lissa’s brother’s friend in South Carolina was on meth pretty bad. They busted him before he blew his house up, but he was cooking that shit in his kitchen. It scares me.”
She was right. I hadn’t thought about it before, because Mitchell was my good friend and I never considered kicking him out. But when it comes to stuff like this, there are many more reasons not to have him living with me than there are to let him stay.
And I would never want to put Bray in any danger, either.
“I’ll talk to him tonight,” I said.
“Give him a chance, though,” she said. “Don’t just send him packing. He’ll probably blame it on me if you do that.”
And that was exactly what happened.
Later that night when Mitchell came home from wherever—I think he lost his job because of his habit, so I had no idea where he was spending his time during the day anymore—I tried talking to him.
“Mitch,” I said, hitting the Power button on the television remote. “I need to talk to you about something.”
His light-brown hair was dirty, thick with oil that kept his bangs from falling around his eyes like they naturally did. He was wearing the same Georgia Bulldogs T-shirt he had on yesterday. And the day before that.
I set the remote down on the coffee table and leaned forward in the recliner.
“Yeah, what’s up?” He plopped down on the sofa, stretching his legs across the cushions and crossing his ankles.
“I