“Since when do you partake?”
“Well, she ain’t looking, so…”
We headed out the back door of the bar and split a bowl while perched up on the stairs to the roof. From that angle, no one below could really see what we were doing – not that anyone would have cared.
Richard leaned against the metal rail and blew smoke into the air.
“Feels good,” he said right before he started coughing.
I hid my snicker behind the pipe as I held the lighter to the pot and inhaled. It burned in my throat and lungs in that familiar and comfortable way as I held in the smoke. Richard tried to imitate the action but ended up coughing again.
“Are you sure this is fun?” he asked.
“You just need to get used to it,” I told him. “It’s not like smoking a cigarette.”
“I don’t smoke cigarettes.”
“Oh yeah.” The more I thought about it, the more I thought him being out here toking up with me was a little odd, and there had to be a reason for it. I was about to ask him when he answered the question first.
“Dani wants to have a baby,” Richard blurted out. “I don’t know if I’m ready for that shit, but she’s afraid her biological clock is ticking or some such shit.”
“You always wanted kids,” I reminded him.
“Yeah,” he said, “but now? I don’t know. It’s a lot of responsibility, and I still feel like a kid myself most of the time.”
“Me too,” I agreed.
It was true, too. It’s not like I was ever going to have to go to school or get a job. I could if I wanted to, but doing what? Major in criminal justice and become a defense attorney for my Dad’s associates? Take philosophy classes and teach?
Say “You want fries with that?”
I didn’t know what not being a kid meant.
“How old are you?” Richard asked.
“Twenty-five,” I replied.
“I’ll be twenty-seven in July,” he said. “It seems like that’s old enough to be a father, but I don’t feel it.”
“When I was sixteen, twenty-five seemed ancient,” I said.
Richard thought this was hilarious for some reason. His laughter made me laugh, and we decided we had probably had enough and headed down the stairs carefully.
“Where have you been?” Danielle asked.
“Nowhere,” Richard said like an idiot. He totally refused to make eye contact with her but glared at me instead. It was pretty obvious that I was about to get chewed out, so I turned quickly to order a new round of drinks.
The bartended took my order, and I watched him measure out the liquor and everything into three glasses. My fingers thrummed on the counter in time to the music, which was still nice and techo-heavy. I started head bobbing to the beat a little.
Then I turned my head.
It’s such a small thing, really – just turning your head to one side and looking down the row of beer taps. The simplest of movements that only take some negligible number of muscles that I don’t know shit about, but that minute motion, that little twitch, that slight shift – it changed everything.
It was her eyes.
Lots of guys are leg men, or ass men, and most of them are tit men. I like tits as much as any straight guy, and I love a nice pair of legs, but all guys – every last one of them – we’re all eye men. When you find a woman with really unique, beautiful eyes, you are totally lost.
Hers were like rainbows.