Daron's Guitar Chronicles Volume 12

1051 A Girl Like You

A Girl Like You

I woke up on the couch of the sublet with a start, which startled Colin awake, too. I had been asleep with my head on his leg and I'd drooled a little onto his tank top. "Jeez. Sorry about that."

He stretched, reaching toward the ceiling and showing me his elongated pits, each tufted with dark hair. "Of all the body fluids you've gotten on my clothes, that's the one you apologize for?"

"Well, I'm sorry about the others, too."

"I'm not." He kissed me on the forehead and stood up. Outside, a car horn sounded. "You better get a move on if you're going to make it to Courtney's thing tonight."

It didn't look that late to me, but I checked the clock in the kitchen. Six pm already. "Shit. You're right. It looks like midafternoon out there."

"We're only a month from the solstice and we're in the northern lands," he pointed out.

"Not far enough north to start a death metal band, though." I yawned. "God. I feel like I just slept for a week."

"More like an hour, but yeah." He ruffled my hair. "You're just like a puppy."

"I'm what?"

"My ex"–he didn't say which one–"adopted a puppy at one point. She had an older dog, too, and the puppy would not sleep. Any time a car went by, or a person stood up and walked to the kitchen, whatever, this puppy would jump up and bark."

"I thought my problem was I didn't say enough, not that I wouldn't shut up."

"That's not the point. The point is the puppy wouldn't sleep. Until the big dog finally was like, enough, and basically put a paw around the puppy and lay down and basically forced it to lie down. And then the puppy, like, passed out." He made a gesture like smoothing something flat.

"I guess I can see the parallel." I blushed a little for no real reason. "You know I feel safe with you." Ironic as that might seem given how rough some of the sex was. But that's why it made sense, you know?

"I know. Now come on, or Court's going to kill both of us."

Back at the Allston house we arrived in the middle of an all out battle between Courtney and Claire. Near as I could tell it was on the subject of tonight's reception and how Claire was not invited.

"For fuck's sake, Mom, this is not like a rehearsal dinner for a wedding or some shit like that!" Court was shouting as we came in. She jabbed a finger and me and then jerked her thumb upstairs which I understood immediately meant I should get my ass dressed.

I could hear Claire's tearful reply as I hurried up the stairs: "I feel like you're ashamed to be seen with me, just when I'm supposed to be expressing how proud I am of you and your accomplishments."

Colin followed me upstairs, gave me a quick kiss at my bedroom door, and then disappeared into his own room.

I shut the door to mine to block out as much of the argument as I could. Courtney had laid out clothes for me to wear on my bed. A black button-down shirt with silver buttons and red piping and accents at the collar and cuffs, a very stylishly cut black suit jacket ("sports coat" I suppose is the term, though what it has to do with sports I have no idea), black jeans, black socks, and a pair of plain black dress shoes that I rarely wore.

Of course when I was putting them on I had the thought: I bet I'm wearing these shoes to Claire's funeral.

In the pocket of the jeans was a hair elastic, which I took to mean I should put my hair in a ponytail. I combed it gently so as not to yank on the extensions and then gathered it up. It was still damp from the shower I'd taken with Colin before our nap so it stayed smooth and slick.