Chapter Twenty-Five

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Chapter Twenty-Five

TPOV

Things sort of fell back into routine, but...not.  

I think we both felt it—this sort of odd or awkward air that pervaded things.  Like we were comfortable with each other, but things hadn’t really resolved completely, and we were still both protecting ourselves a little bit.  She was protecting against another mistake of rushed sexuality, and I was protecting against letting one happen, while still defensively reigning in any ideas of intention I had.  

It was oddly domestic.  

And clichéd, joke kind of material that resembled a sexless marriage.  

School was over for the semester, summer was going to start, and…well, it wasn’t like I spent a lot of time at school anyway, but without even a semi-regular class schedule, I had a lot more free time, and she spent a lot more time sleeping over at my apartment.  I wasn’t sure that was because the first place we slept after was my place, or if she was avoiding Jordan; I never really asked.  But it was a helluva lot longer trip to my apartment than it was to hers after work.  And I hated that she was travelling so far at night that I actually suggested we stay at her place several times only to have her wave me off.  There were a lot of mornings that completely lacked sleep because I waited up for her to finish with her shift, and wanted the assurance that she made it back to me ok.  

The first few days after, we danced around each other a lot, trying not to force the other into some situation where we’d be compelled to touch.  When we weren’t working, and we shared space, I actively reminded myself not to touch her, not to make her uncomfortable.  We continued to change separately, and everything was almost platonically affectionate.  I kissed her goodbye or goodnight quickly, no lingering lips or tongue-tracing over her teeth.  I held her at night or she stepped into my arms to be held, but there was nothing tense or sexual about it.  Her hand would rest on my chest at night, or I ushered her into a room with my hand on the small of her back.  And I mean, that was fine; it was great; that level of intimacy was something a lot of couples didn’t have.  It was also really fucking frustrating.  Because intimacy without being intimate when I was basically a walking hard-on of attraction to this girl was annoying.  I didn’t want to rush her; and I wouldn’t.  But there were some days where I just ached to pull her closer, to grind my hips into her, to kiss her harder and longer, with more behind it, to reach over and take her goddamn hand and put it right over my dick.  It bothered me endlessly that when she went back to work, and she was stripping again, that random hands-grabby assholes got to see her naked, and I couldn’t even be in the room when she changed.  It seemed so fucking antithetical.  And illogical.  

As the weeks went on, my caution with boundaries began to seem sort of pointless, and slowly deteriorated.  I was used to touching her; it came naturally.  It was actually harder to remember not to touch her.  And I could tell the same applied to her.  We got increasingly tired of pulling back hands in affectionate gestures, of trying to pass off leaning in to kiss as something else.  We still didn’t bust out the sex lexicon, and there was sadly no nudity, but I wasn’t as concerned with random touches, they just became normal again.  And I was grateful for that.  

I think we tried to just do normal things.  Resume dating only with the one missing facet.  

It wasn’t at all that I wasn’t satisfied.  Or happy with her.  It was just hard to put the present back in the box once you unwrapped it and enjoyed it.  The desire was there.  The memories were there.  So it was sort of odd to pine for something that you couldn’t really have.  Look, but don’t touch.  Touch, but don’t taste.  Taste, but don’t enjoy it.  

It was very contradictory, and completely conflicting.  To lie next to her, to have her pressed all up against me, to feel her body through a simple layer of clothing, to have her, and not have her really at the same time.  Not that I didn’t have her, it just… Ugh.  It just fucking sucked.  Still.  Some more.  Like an imaginary divide that wasn’t really there, but obviously was, that we both tried to ignore, and neither of us could, but we did our best to look the other way and just try to function anyway so things weren’t so fucking awkward and sensitive and weird.  

I don’t think it was any less frustrating for her.  Because I think she wanted to try things.  I think she wanted to initiate.  I knew she thought about the same shit I did.  We caught each other giving the lingering looks and the lustful stares; that shit doesn’t just go away.  But she was hesitant and I wouldn’t push.  

It felt like progress and regression at the same time some days.  One morning she sort of tackled me in the kitchen and I had her up on the counter, kneading her ass and shifting to get the friction we both needed before I really thought about it.  It was a dangerous line to ride when I was supposed to be responsible.  It took her a lot longer before she started pulling back, and it wasn’t like she just shoved me away, either.  She just slowed us down and apologetically left me half hard, her hand lingering on my face long enough that I knew she wanted to keep going, but wasn’t there yet.  

As I moved back far enough for her to sneak around me, it was hard not to make it feel like rejection, even if I knew that’s not what it was.  

“C’mon, we’re going grocery shopping,” she said, perfect deflection executed.  

The art of deflection, by Allison Clark.  So, being the awesome boyfriend I am, I sucked it up like a man and totally pushed the cart around the store.  

“Why exactly are we grocery shopping now?”

“Because we can’t keep eating out all the fucking time.  And you never have anything in your apartment that can be made into a meal.”  She dropped something in the cart.

“What is that?”

“Bok Choy.”

“What the fuck is that?”

She paused, and dropped some carrots in the cart.  What, were we turning into vegetarians?  I couldn’t live on roughage.  “I don’t know what the fuck it is, either.  You throw it on the stove and throw in some other veggies and it makes stir fry, and it’s Chinese.”

“And you expect that I’m going to be able to make this when you’re not around?”

She rolled her eyes and cocked a hip at me. “Did I say I was going to let you make it?  It’s more like if you have the fucking food in the house, then I can cook it, right?”

“Right.”

She gestured. “Well, there ya go.”

I followed her down the aisle while she picked out some other shit that I wasn’t gonna ask about.  “The only good part of this plan so far is that Aidan will never touch that shit.  Otherwise it probably won’t matter how much food I bring in the place, he’ll fucking eat it.”

“Well put a lock on the goddamn refrigerator then.”

“He’ll probably chew through it to get to the beer.”

She ignored me.  

“Are you really gonna make food at my apartment?”

“Are you really gonna spend this entire trip being annoying?  Go get some rice.  Jesus.  This is why women don’t bring men and children grocery shopping.”  She stalked off for parts unknown, probably to find some other foodstuff that I could not identify, while I dutifully searched for rice.  

Why were there 27-bajillion different kinds of rice?  Shouldn’t there just have been rice?  Life would be easier if there weren’t half an aisle of varieties.  This was probably a test.  To see if I could navigate the tumultuous waters of rice-dom because it was somehow intrinsically tied to our sex life and how it was to be defined.  Like if picked the wrong fucking rice, I’d never have sex again.  Rice came boxed, bagged, instant, ground, popped, puffed, floured, noodled, raw, wild, brown, white, black, fried, processed, long-grain, medium-grain, short-grain, converted, risotto-ed, glutinous, Mexican, Spanish, and Jesus Fucking Christ could be made into wine, cake, vinegar, milk, flakes, paper and tea.

I mean…we were just gonna fucking eat it.  Instant in a box or regular in a bag?  That had to be the decision here.  50/50 shot.  

The box said Minute Rice—rice that was ready in a minute—this was totally up my alley, and it had microwave directions.  Which probably meant that was a failing grade for what I was instructed to get.  So…the bag of just regular rice then.  Regular rice seemed practical.

“Fucking hell, I’ve been looking all over the store for you.  You’ve been here the whole time?”

I was still standing facing the rice, but I had a bag in my hand, that meant I’d actually gotten the rice, technically.  I turned my head towards her.  “Uh…yeah?”  I gestured. “This whole fucking aisle is filled with rice.  You didn’t say what kind of rice.  So I was trying to figure out what kind I was supposed to get.”  I handed her the bag.  “That it?”

She smirked and her head dropped while she looked at the bag.  “Yeah, this is fine.”

“Fine or it’s the right rice?”

Her lip was behind her teeth when she looked up at me again.  “It’s obvious if I send you to the store you’re going to need very specific instructions if we plan on eating that week, much less on a day.”

I ran a hand through my hair.  “Is it right?”

“Is there something that’s tied to this being the right rice?”

I shrugged, getting flustered.  “I dunno!  Is there?”

She giggled. “No, I just sent you for rice.  For the stir fry.”

I let out a breath. “Well then the last fifteen minutes have been really pointless.”

She threw the rice in the cart and came around to where I’d been wringing the cart handle in panic, and rubbed my back.  “Sometimes rice is just rice, Tyler.”

~ ~ ~

One of the many reasons I didn’t shop in grocery stores—besides the screaming brats and their grubby paws—there were the angry ladies who rammed you with their fucking cart to get to the chunky peanut butter that was on sale.  God forbid you get between a woman and a sale.  Then there were the people on the phone who apparently could not rip themselves away from the riveting conversation about their stupid, boring lives, long enough to watch whose ankle they were killing when they distractedly meandered down the aisles.  The employees looked younger than Caroline, and I was certain there were some sort of child labor laws being violated, much less that they had nowhere near her level of maturity.  They were rude, unhelpful, and distracted themselves.  I don’t even know what she all threw in the cart.  I was honestly trying to stop myself from beating someone for most of the time, and after I asked what something else was for, and she snapped back at me with, “Are you making the fucking food, Tyler?”

“No,” I said quickly.

“Then you don’t need to know what it is, do you?  Shut the fuck up already.  God, you’ll eat it anyway.”

Well, then I just refused to say anything else and she only talked to have me get crap I was closer to or too high for her to reach.  I found myself really tense and annoyed by the time we got to the checkouts. 

Annoyed.  Annoyed with the lack of sex.  Annoyed with being frustrated.  Annoyed with her frustration.  Annoyed with her annoyance at me.  Annoyed at the fucking green light flashing above the checkout that surely meant we were going to be in line until next week.  Annoyed with the teenagers who kept macking loudly behind us in line.  I was legitimately sandwiched between frustration and blatant public displays of affection that I could not even try to conceal my scowl or the mood I was in.  I mean, really.  What more of an affront to my situation could there be?  The only other thing that would have topped it is if they were actually fucking on the floor. 

Then the kid in front of us started wailing like the entire world was going to end if he didn’t get a fucking Snickers bar, and his mother just continued to ignore the screeching like it wasn’t about to cause my ear drums to burst. 

My temples were throbbing, and I couldn’t tell if it was from the wailing, the frustration, the fact that my dick was really fucking pissed it wasn’t getting any play, or the goddamn stress of this fucking trip, but it felt like the blood vessels were gonna rupture any second.  I growled angrily, forcing the mother to shift so I could get to the candy, and ripped open the wrapper, handing it to the kid.  “I’ll pay for the fucking Snickers, ok?  Ok?”  And then turned to the overly affectionate teens.  “And you two—get a fucking room.  Are you serious?  There are kids here!” I gestured to the stunned child who had been stupefied to silence by either my outburst or the candy which he still had clutched, uneaten, in his hand.

Then I went back to tensely hanging onto the cart waiting for the line to move.  I think the mother was too embarrassed to say anything back to me, and the kid kept smiling at me with chocolate everywhere that I couldn’t help but smirk back.  The teens had parted like I was their fucking sex parole officer, and barely looked at each other, much less kept their faces attached. 

So I was pretty fucking happy with myself.  One dude a line over actually clapped.  And then I looked at Allison, which probably should have been my first place to look.  I couldn’t exactly read her expression.  She looked a little shocked, although by now, she should have been used to my tenuous hold on my temper.  But I couldn’t decide if she was pissed or not.  She finally shook her head and rolled her eyes at me, but I was almost positive there was a hint of a smirk there. 

The cashier was ridiculously nice to us when we finally got through the line.  And it turned out the lady paid for the Snickers, so score there.  I should have public outbursts more often.  Maybe I could get people to do, or not do, all kinds of shit. 

The trip home was quiet and almost more frustrating and awkward than everything else.  But I really couldn’t come up with anything to say.  She didn’t seem particularly willing to start topics either. 

Before dinnertime, Aidan, of all people, had gotten her to lighten up over video games while I basically sulked like a child.  It wasn’t that I wasn’t happy that she was happier, or that she was smiling more than I’d seen in a while.  I was glad for that.  But it grated on my nerves because I still wasn’t happy.  It wasn’t the sex.  It was just… I dunno.  I finally left the living room and went to read in my room, but kept getting distracted and pissed when I could them laughing and having a grand fucking time out there.  I abandoned that for the roof, just wanting quiet—or not quiet really, because there was no place in the city that was quiet—but I wanted the banal noises that New Yorkers were used to—the traffic, the sirens, the car horns, people walking and talking and yelling.  Pure silence would be weird.  I wanted the distraction from them. 

I walked right past them, right in front of the fucking TV and she had the decency to at least give a shit that I might have been leaving.  When she asked where I was going, I had to fight with myself not to say something I’d regret later—like well as no one seems to give a shit, I’m gonna walk to Brooklyn and jump off the bridge, and instead gave her a one-word answer of: “Roof.”

The whole exchange took less than five seconds; I never stopped walking and she didn’t get up from the couch, just nodding instead. 

I should have brought the guitar or something because I hadn’t even bothered to bring a book and it required too much focus.  With the guitar, at least that I could have just messed around with.  The notes, the tones, they wouldn’t have needed an order; they didn’t need a song or a pattern.  I could have just gotten lost in the motions of it, in whatever came out. 

Instead I would up thinking way too fucking much.

About Allison and why we couldn’t break out of this frustration.  Why couldn’t we have played the video games?  Why hadn’t she suggested it if she wanted to do it?  Why did it take Aidan?  What the fuck did my asshole roommate have today that I didn’t?  It seemed really ass backwards.  I was the boyfriend.  And rationally, I knew Aidan was just trying to help and he had no intention of some master plan to steal Allison out from under me with fucking Mario Brothers 3. 

Anger and frustration didn’t breed reason though.  It just multiplies paranoia.  And insecurity.  And I had enough of that to share.  Because no one asked if I wanted to join in.  No one came to the bedroom to get me from my obvious sulking.  No one said a word about me going to the roof.  No one came up to get me and it seemed my absence was welcomed.  Hell, maybe Aidan could fuck her right out of her shell—maybe a completely insensitive asshole, who couldn’t manage anything beyond the emotional range of a video game in terms of actual feelings, was just what she needed.  It’d probably be like coming home for her!  Just what she was used to! 

I knew I was being ridiculous.  I just couldn’t stop.  I admit it was completely juvenile, but I’d gotten it into my head that I was staying on the goddamn roof until someone came to get me. 

It was getting dark before that happened. 

“You fall asleep?” she asked, entirely too fucking cheerily.

I didn’t turn my head to look at her. “No.”

She was quiet for a minute before she started again, “You gonna stay up here all night?”

“Maybe.”  Wow.  I was being a total dick, and I couldn’t even contain it.

She left abruptly.  And that surprised me.  I thought she’d at least get pissed before doing that.  Maybe she had me all figured out.  I was expecting a fight; an argument at least!  I debated whether to go down or not and I decided that was best when she came back. 

Oh man, Prickville, Population: One.  She had food with her.  She handed me a plate and sat down in the chair across from me. 

Stir fry.  Rice.  Bok Choy.  Other unidentifiable vegetables.  It smelled great.  

She started eating, largely ignoring my tantrum.  It was very infuriating. 

“Where’s Aidan?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Downstairs.”

“He didn’t want to join the roof party?”

She chewed slowly and watched me.  “I didn’t ask him to.”

“Surprising.”  She wasn’t giving me much to work with here, fight wise. 

She shrugged again. “He’s eating downstairs.”

“Ah.”

“What’s up with you?” she asked, unfortunately not at all confrontationally; it was very conversational. 

I shrugged. 

“You’ve had a stick up your ass ever since we got back to the apartment.”

“I have?” I asked, a sharpness to my voice I wished I could erase.

She nodded. “Yeah.  What’s with the mood?  The store wasn’t that bad.”

“You and Aidan have a good time?”

She smiled, completely missing (or ignoring) the tone apparently. “Yeah.  I haven’t played since that night we did.  I kinda forget about it.  It was fun.”

“Yeah, seemed like you two were having lots of fun.”

She swallowed and stared me down.  “Ugh.  What the fuck does that mean?”

“Nothing.  Just that you seemed to be pretty chummy.”

She sighed.  “Seriously?”

I shrugged, pushing.  “Didn’t seem to care that I wasn’t there.”  I seriously hated myself.  I mean, I don’t even know why the hell I was talking.  I should have just ate the fucking stir fry and been happy about it. 

I must have pushed far enough. “Oh, my God!  We’re not doing the jealousy thing here, are we?  We’re not.  No, we’re not.  Who the fuck did I cook this for?  I fucking even brought it here for your dumb ass.”

There was that, yeah.  Shit, I didn’t have a retort to that.  

She didn’t need one.  I’d pushed too far.  

“I mean, you’re up here pouting like some cunt that didn’t get his way.  I was through with controlling dickwads a long time ago, Tyler.  If that’s what you think this is now, you can kiss my fucking ass.  I’m not doing this with you.  You know who I’m with.  And you’re not going to start telling me who and who I can’t hang out with or who I can and can’t be friends with.  Are you fucking kidding me?  Who do you think you are?  Just because I can’t jump right back into sucking your cock?  I thought you were better than this.  And Aidan?  Seriously?  You think I’d just jump from one roommate to the other because he played a fucking video game with me?”

She chucked her plate at me.  Rice and vegetables went everywhere, kind of in slow motion.  The plate smacked into my chest and bounced off, clattering before settling on the ground.  The sound was rather deafening, even in the all the city noise.  

“Have fun trying to find the Bok Choy in that asshole, and grow the fuck up.”

And then she turned heel and stomped off the roof.  

And I actually sat up there for a few extra minutes, and had a few bites off of my plate, guilty because it was really fucking good and guiltier still because she wasted her entire plate.  ‘Cause I was a dumbass.  And it became glaringly obvious to me that she really didn’t need my bullshit on top of everything else.  That wasn’t going to help her get over anything faster.  

I picked up what I could and left the rest for whatever scavengers decided to grace our roof and took the stairs down two at a time.  I needed to fix this.  

Aidan was sitting on the couch enjoying his own plate of food and I scanned the visible apartment.  She couldn’t have packed that quickly and taken off.  

“Where is she?”

Aidan chewed while looking at me.  And took his sweet fucking time answering.  If she had time to pack up and go already, I was losing valuable time here.  He finally just sighed and shook his head at me, going back to his meal. “Bathroom.  Heard the shower.”

I was moving before he finished, but just stood outside the door, thinking better of my original plan of barging in and making some big speech about how much of a fucking idiot I was.  Barging would be intrusive.  And it wouldn’t help the cause with all the naked and privacy violations.  I trudged to my room instead, knowing she had to come in there after the shower, and sat on the bed, elaborate and inclusive apologies running through my head.  I had about four versions drafted in the time she was in the shower, but lost them all abruptly when the door opened and she exited in a mist of steam and fog.  

Her eyes met mine, but she was still plenty pissed and avoided eye contact after the first initial meeting.  

I valued that she called me on being a dick when I was one.  It was more honest than most people were.  And she didn’t let me get away with shit.  

I walked over to where she was hastily folding clothes and shoving them in her bag.  She didn’t look like she was leaving really, but I couldn’t be sure.  I stepped close behind her and snuck my hands around her waist, huddling her into my larger frame and she stiffened for a minute before relaxing into me.  I pressed a kiss to her temple from behind and trailed down her face to her neck.  “I’m sorry, Allison.”

She sighed, leaning into me more.  

“I’m not jealous.  Not really.  I just… It wasn’t a good day.  And I’m not trying to pressure you.  Or be controlling.  I’ll keep it under control.”

“I just don’t get why,” she started to turn and stopped talking, smirking instead and chuckling at me.  

“What?”

She reached up and brushed at my shirt and when I followed the motion, I had rice sticking all over.  I laughed while she picked off individual grains of rice.  

“What were you gonna say?”

She shook her head, sighing and picked a few more random grains off of my neck. “It’s just a guy thing, I think.”

“What is?”

“You just don’t normally do it.  So I suppose I can give you a pass this time because you normally talk to me all the time.”

I shook my head back in answer.  

“Guys do that—they just assume and get jealous and shit instead of just talking to me.  Or you could have said you wanted to play or something.”

I sighed back. “It’s not even that.  I don’t care who you play video games with.  It was just me.  I was just being… yeah.  I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too.”

“For what?  You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

She waved a hand at me. “Well, I’m sorry I can’t just go back to sucking your cock.  I’d like to.”

I laughed. “I’d like that, too.  But it’s ok you can’t.  And it’s my problem to keep my frustration under control.  Because it’s really not about that.  And I don’t want it to feel like you’re not making the decision.”

She nodded. “Thank you.”

“And, ya know, anytime you want to suck my cock, it’s available,” I teased.

She snorted. “So selfless.  Thanks.”

“No problem.”  I backed up. “Is there more stir fry?  ‘Cause I’ll get you some since I wound up wearing your plate.”

“Yeah, there’s more.”

“K, I’ll get you a plate.”

“Why don’t you shower first?  I don’t want to sleep with rice tonight.”

“Good plan.” I nodded.  

“I’ll heat up some for both of us.”

“Cool.”

~ ~ ~

When I got out of the shower, she was sitting on the bed with her back against the wall, busily finishing off her plate.  She smirked. “Sorry, I couldn’t wait.  I was hungry.”

I waved her off while running the towel over my head. “It’s fine.  It’s my fault you didn’t get to eat it originally.”

She watched me for a second before pointing to my plate. “Didja get all the rice outta your pants?”

I chuckled. “They’re strangely erotic against my cock.”

“S’probably because anything against your cock feels good right now.”

I was kinda surprised she was allowing joking about this subject, but I didn’t miss a beat.  I didn’t want that openness to go away.  “Well, that was pretty much always—just about anything feels good against it.”

She licked her lips and it was both infuriating and distracting because I couldn’t tell if it was on purpose or not.  “Well, I can dump this plate on you, too if you’d like to be alone with your stir fry.  Or I can make sure you have some the next time you wanna jerk off.  Maybe it’ll make your showers even more special.”

I smirked while grabbing my plate and plopping next to her on the bed.  “We’re talking an awful lot about my cock tonight.”

“It’s what you think with, right?  Only fair.”

I nearly spit out my first bite laughing.  “Not lately.  Or maybe more so,” I said, thinking.  “Hold on, lemme try.”  

She shoved at me.  “Eat your fucking stir fry.”

“I’m not sure I want to eat it now or dump it all over myself.”  I paused. “And I think the fact we’re talking so much about my cock means you really want to do something with it.  I think it’s some sort of unconscious want of yours.”  I shoveled a bite in. “Thanks for heating this up again.  It’s really good.”

“On, it was no trouble.”  She paused. “I just scraped your old stuff from the roof on the new plate.”

I stopped chewing for a second but then shrugged and started again.  “Thanks.”

She giggled. “I didn’t really.”

“I didn’t think so.  But I would have eaten it anyway.”

She nodded. “I know you would have.”

“Oh, so you were just testing me then?  Testing my devotion?  Toying with me?”

“Maybe.”

“Did I pass that better than I passed the pick-the-rice test?”

She burst out laughing. “Totally.  That wasn’t really a test though—I just wanted you to get some fucking rice.”

“I think with my cock, remember?  I need very specific instructions.  And I’ll never be able to buy rice again without having a hard-on in the middle of the aisle after the great shower the rice and I just shared.”

“Ya know that was pretty funny with the kid and the Snickers.  That mother was about as red as the tomatoes in her cart.  She’ll probably never say no to another Snickers in her life.”

I smirked. “I feel kinda bad about that.  But the kid wouldn’t shut up.”

“The guy that clapped was hilarious.”

“Yeah?  I just heard him, I couldn’t see him.”

“He was old.  Like way old.  It was funny.”

I chewed thoughtfully for a few seconds.  “So…that was pretty much our first fight, I think.”

“Yeah?  We haven’t had one before?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so.  Not that I can remember.  So if we did, it couldn’t have been very satisfying.”

She laughed. “So how do you think we did?  That’s a pretty long time if we’ve made it this long and not had one, right?  I mean, I guess I dunno really how that works, but do you normally wait this long before you have a fight?”

I snickered. “Well, I guess it all depends on the girl.  I’ve had a few relationships where I think it was lucky we didn’t have a fight on the first date.”

“That bad, huh?”

I nodded, affirmatively. “That bad.”

“So…is that good or bad that we don’t normally fight?”

“I’d say it’s good.  Although, we did fight in the street that night I came to the strip club.”

She shook her head. “That doesn’t count.  I wasn’t dating you then.”

“Right.  My bad.”  

“It was.”

I smirked.  “I’d say then we’re doing pretty well.  What do you think?”

She shrugged. “Guess we’ll have to see how long you and rice last.”

“Fair enough.”  I finished my plate and set it on the nightstand.  “So what do you wanna do?  It’s still early enough.  We could watch a movie or something.”

“Sure, movie sounds good.”

“What should we watch?”

“I dunno.  Whatcha got?”

I was mentally going through our list of DVDs when I remembered. “Oh, shit.  I forgot.  I got something for you.”  I jumped off the bed and over to my dresser where I left it the other day when I got it for her.  I smiled and handed them off as I plunked down next to her again.  “Here.”

She sat there for a minute, looking rather stunned, and then separated the two items and held one in each hand.  “Tyler…” she said quietly.

“What?”

She didn’t say anything and just kept staring at them.

“You said a while ago you wanted to see it…” I started, “And I thought maybe we could read the book next—after we finish Jonathan.  Or we can just start this one.  Whatever you wanna do.”

“I…can’t believe you remembered.”

Her voice was so quiet, and it sort of shocked me sometimes that she could still be this stunned when someone did something nice for her or remembered something that she told them.

I nudged her with my elbow.  “How could I not remember?  It was a really cute story.”

I hadn’t actually known how she’d take this.  It was a cute story, yes.  But it also was really sad.  Because so much of her childhood had been completely robbed, and I didn’t know if memories of good parts were even something she wanted to recollect. 

“Allison Wonderland,” I said, smiling.

“Allison Wonderland,” she repeated, nodding.  I didn’t say anything else and it took her a minute before she made a noise that I couldn’t identify.

“What?”

“God, I still wanted to be kind of pissed at you, and be all annoyed all night, and now I just can’t.  You’ve completely ruined my chances of staying mad at you.”

“Well…score.  For me, anyway.  I can try to be a dick again, if you want.”

She sighed dramatically. “No, it just won’t be the same now.”

“I’ll make some popcorn,” I said, kissing her quickly.  “You get the movie started.”

She nodded and followed a few steps later.  Aidan was still being a sloth on the couch.  “Get your ass to the other side of the couch if you want to watch a movie with us.  You’re not sitting between us,” I called as I rounded the corner to the kitchen.  I heard a distinct sound of disgust behind me and I turned as Allison passed me.  “What?”

“Asking Aidan to watch it with us?  Overachiever, much?”  She smiled and leaned back to wink at me.  “I said I couldn’t stay mad already.”

I smirked, shrugging. “Well, I mean, I’ll take all the points I can get.”

“What are we watchin’?” Aidan asked, suddenly right in the kitchen, peering over Allison’s shoulder while checking out what I was getting.  “Oooh, popcorn, good idea.  I’ll get the beer.”

“Allison Wonderland,” I said, smiling.

“Allison Wonderland?” he asked, opening the fridge.  He pulled out two beers and dove back in for a Diet Coke for her, which oddly did not piss me off like it would have earlier.  It was nice he knew what she drank.  He popped up abruptly, “Wait…is this like a porno or something?”  He waggled his eyebrows.  “Did you two make up and now you’re gonna include me in some weird sex act?”

I chucked the popcorn pack at his head and was incredibly satisfied when it hit its mark and bounced off his head before landing on the floor.  “Now you’re making the popcorn.  Gimme the drinks.”

He laughed, and passed them off to me.  “Ok.  But if it’s burned, it’s not my fault.”

“Ugh.” I shoved them back at him and grabbed the popcorn from the floor.  “Just go sit down.”

“No, seriously, what’s the deal?”

I rolled my eyes at him.  

“You can tell him,” Allison said, waving as she walked down the hall.  “I’m gonna pee before the movie.”

“When Allison was little she thought that Alice in Wonderland was really Allison Wonderland and was really excited because there are no characters named Allison and it was a Disney movie and how cool is that to share your name with a Disney character?  And Wonderland was a really awesome place to escape to.  But then she got really disappointed when she was older and realized it was really Alice and not Allison, and Wonderland’s really not that great ‘cause it’s all fucked up and ‘Off with her head!’ and shit, but she still likes the story and so I got her the movie.”

Aidan blinked at me.  A lot.  He took a deep breath. “Well that’s just not as exciting as I thought it was gonna be.  ‘Cause we’re actually watching the Tim Burton movie then?”

I laughed and Allison was chuckling as she came back into the kitchen. “Yes, Aidan.  Go sit down.”

He grumbled something about getting high and went off to the couch, leaving us in the kitchen alone.  She smiled softly at me.  “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”  I loved when she smiled at me like that, and was so genuinely appreciative of things that most people weren’t.  I mean, yeah, sure, most people were grateful, but with Allison it was different.  If nothing else because she wasn’t used to it and it always seemed to mean more.  And it made me feel like I was doing something good, and right, with her. 

She leaned over and kissed me gently before ducking her head and joining Aidan on the couch.  The way she looked at me sometimes…

I was smiling the entire time I made the popcorn.  Even while thinking about the things I left out of the story for Aidan.  I left out the major parts about her first watching the Disney movie in some shitty foster center before being placed in yet another home.  And how much Wonderland appealed to a kid that wanted to get out of the system and how much she wanted to run away and find the nearest white rabbit to follow.  And how crushing it must have been for that same kid to find out that Wonderland wasn’t at all as great as it seemed and was pretty much just another version of the real world, with the same problems, and the same evil people, and the same shitty things they did to you.  And how one of the only things she had to relate to was a cartoon character that ultimately disappointed her.  And then how sad it was that she was glad the girl in the movie was Alice instead of Allison because she didn’t want to share her name with her.  And how movies became something external that normal kids did, and she didn’t really see any other ones until I started taking her. 

But that was over now.  And I hoped that the movies and the gifts and the little things I did would overpower all of the bad shit she had before. 

The movie was a trip.  But she seemed to like it.  And all previous joking aside—she was totally right—I was thinking with my cock the entire time the movie was playing.  And I couldn't even seem to help it.  And it was almost worse because we were sort of back on track and not fighting with each other over frustration and annoyance.  Because I was happy with her.  She made me happy.  She made me stir fry.  And she deserved things like surprise movies and books and everything else.  And it just made me want her more.  And at least currently, with her snuggled into me, munching on popcorn while she got lost in Allison Wonderland, it wasn’t even the least bit frustrating.

One (Part One) (Part Two) (Part Three) | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine | Ten | Eleven | Twelve | Thirteen | Fourteen | Fifteen | Sixteen | Seventeen | Eighteen | Nineteen | Twenty | Twenty-One | Twenty-Two |  Twenty-Three  |  Twenty-Four  |  Twenty-Five  |  Twenty-Six |