Double Time ✓

34 | downbeat

With chopsticks I wrap a delicate strip of pork around a chunk of mushroom and deposit the whole thing in my mouth, chewing angrily. "Course Bay makes me miserable," she infuriates me, "she's a coward. She can talk shit to my face but she can't say goodbye to her own section. They look up to her, and she just vanished. She doesn't want to think of herself as a good person, and she prevents anyone else from doing the same."

Quen presses his mouth into a thin line, and I know they're friends, but I barrel on, "I already tried to win her over once. She said no. Before that, I tried all winter to see her. She said no. Are you really advising me to keep pushing her?"

"No, but—"

Earlier this semester, I made the mistake of going to the Foxhole on a Friday to drink with some friends. Maybe I thought we would talk or fight. Whenever I came into the Foxhole, I used to pester Bay, she'd try to get me kicked out on unreasonable grounds, and we'd end the night equally under each other's skin.

But that time she'd said evenly, "Hi there. What can I get you?"

I leaned over the counter and cocked an eyebrow. "What, now you're pretending you don't know me?"

"Not at all," Bay remarked. No ire. No blazing glare. No get off my territory, Vierra. "I'm just trying to do my job." She looked right through me with those piercing brown eyes—as if I didn't know what it felt like to be buried inside her, as if I haven't memorized all the melodies that she gasped into my ear. It ripped the hole inside me even larger.

Now I don't see her around the Music Department, I made sure never to go back to the Foxhole, but by some cruel twist of fate, Bay has a Geometric Algebra lecture in the same room and directly preceding my Object-Oriented Programming II lecture. I'll be waiting by the doors of the lecture hall, and she'll file out, shining like a blade, with her classmates and exhibit complete avoidance. No eye contact, no snide remarks, even skirting around me if we have to pass each other in the narrow corridor.

It hurts to be ignored.

Another couple enters through the restaurant doors, and lets in a gust of cold air. "If I get her back, she'll find some way to sabotage things or push me away until she can be completely alone. The way she wants to be."

Quen sighs, "Okay. Bay doesn't want to be approached, fine. I just thought this was like the other times."

I watch him suspiciously, as he starts draping more cuts of meat into the bubbling broth in the center of the table. His expression is innocent as ever. "What other times?"

"You guys have a big fight, and Bay goes on her retreat, and you say you hate her, but you don't start smiling until you guys are back to normal," he rattles off, as if it's common knowledge, which it most certainly is not.

"Shut your lying face," I blurt, my cheeks flushing red. Do I act like that around her? I don't, right?

Quen barks a laugh. "No-one gets under your skin like Bay does, and I think she probably feels the same about you. But why should you, the miserable single one, take advice from me, the one in a committed relationship?"

"Fuck off, yours was such a fluke," I retort. If it wasn't for me, Quen would have never made any moves on Krista or even tried to clear the friendzone he put himself in.

"So?" He's smiling proudly. "Still counts."

Quen and I are not exactly love gurus, evidently, but my wingmanning efforts were integral in pushing him and Krista together. In December, a bunch of band people went clubbing town, and I took the initiative to get everyone to abandon Quen at Topaz so Krista (who works there) would have to come to his rescue, all on his lonesome. The same week, Quen became a boyfriend. I'm their fucking Cupid.

My debt from Pittsburgh is repaid. You're welcome.

When the waitress from before comes to clear away some empty platters, he compliments something—food, service, I'm not sure what—that makes her smile and click her teeth and wave it away. Clearing his throat, Quen says, "I'm sorry for dredging shit up over dinner. I'm just looking out for you."

"Yeah, yeah," I grumble, feigning displeasure.

In truth, I'm glad we came out tonight. I needed the distraction.

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a / n :

thanks for your patience while I have been AWOL! this is a busy, exciting summer for me away from the internet. DT is going to be wrapped up in time for Wattys submission, I expect in the next few weeks.

Here is a double update to make up for the kind-of long absence - so read ahead to the next chapter.

xo, aimee