Hey Eric,
So it’s my turn to write and I really don’t know what to say. Look, in all honesty, my life is incredibly boring. Since I’m based at home and I’m my own boss, I can work pretty much whenever it suits. Depends on how many jobs I’ve got going on. I can easily go up to a week only talking to the people who deliver my takeout. I’ve got my friends and family too, of course. But you know how busy modern life is etc. Oh, and there’s Marty. He’s always good company. Besides work, it’s usually just me, online property sites (a girl needs her dreams), and TV together forever. Don’t be mad, you had to have seen this coming. TV and the internet are just too good. There was no way you could ever compete.
Regretfully,
Alex
P.S. Hope your restaurant and life in general are doing well.
Message received:
Alex,
Damn. We haven’t even actually met yet and you’ve chosen TV over me. That’s harsh. Things are going okay here. Starting to warm up a little which is great. The Dive Bar’s been busy. Can’t imagine going days not having anyone around. Your bubble must be peaceful. Seems all I do is talk to people all day long. Not sure I need TV since the business isn’t short on drama. One of the bartenders thinks he’s Romeo. Unfortunately he has the attention span of a gnat. Makes keeping good wait staff around hard. Also our cook, Nell, is going through a divorce. She and her ex are both long-time friends of mine so it sucks to see them hurting. On particularly bad days you can hear Nell using her cleaver throughout the whole restaurant. I don’t even want to think about what she’s imagining chopping.
Eric
Insistent knocking on the door. Again.
“For fuck’s sake.”
My sentiments exactly. Only, strangely enough, I hadn’t spoken. Instead, a familiar, if somewhat unexpected, masculine voice had provided the profanity. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and checked out the other side of the mattress. Large-male alert. Oh God, what if I’d had some strange reaction to the cold and flu tablets and sexually assaulted the poor innocent man last night? It had been a while since I’d seen any action.
“Hey,” said Joe, stretched out on top of the bed. He’d shucked his boots, but otherwise, all clothing remained intact.
Thank God.
“Hi” is what I attempted to say. What came out was a cross between a whisper and a wheeze. God, my throat was on fire. Raw agony. I could have cried in pain and frustration, only it would have made my headache worse. Besides appearing pitiful, of course.
The knocking continued.
“How are you feeling,?” he asked around a yawn.
“Crappy,” I whisper-wheezed, beyond caring. Fucking plague.
“Shit,” he mumbled. “You lost your voice?”
I nodded.
“Damn. Least you’re not burning up anymore.” Slowly, he sat up, stretching his neck and rolling his shoulders. Then he pushed up off the bed and went to answer the door.
The actual Eric Collins barging in made for the second surprise of the morning. Unlike his brother, he wore black slacks and a pale blue button-down, topped off with a black leather jacket. His long dark hair was tied back in a man-bun, his face freshly shaven. Besides him, Joe appeared distinctly rumpled. Resemblance-wise, you could see the shared gene pool in their high foreheads and generous lips. The slight thickness of their noses. Otherwise you’d hardly credit them with being brothers. As different as day and night.
“Morning,” said Eric, dumping his load of brown paper bags on top of the chest of drawers. “Told Nell you didn’t make it home last night and she made me bring over more food and stuff. Coffee’s in that one.”
“Thanks.” Joe dove into the designated bag, pulling out two extra-large coffee cups.
“Dad phoned, wanted to know when you’d be on the job,” he said. “Better check your cell and give him a call.”
“Will do.”
Eric turned, giving me a flirty little grin. It didn’t last long, however. “Damn. You’re really sick, aren’t you?”
Joe’s brows drew in. “I said she was.”
“Yeah, just figured it was an excuse she’d made up to stay in town and make you run around jumping through hoops, doing stuff for her. Grovel. You know, make you pay penance?” He shrugged. “Bet Boyd fifty bucks too.”
Without a word, Joe set down one of the cups and smacked his brother upside the head.
“Christ, man!” Eric patted his hair back into place. “Take it easy.”
“Apologize to Alex before I break your fucking neck.”
“Sorry, Alex,” said Eric, becoming less attractive to me by the minute.
“Idiot.” Dark eyes distinctly pissy, Joe turned my way. “You want coffee?”
To think I’d actually imagined Eric might be the man of my dreams. The real Eric had maturity issues, that much was certain. I shook my head and fought my way out from underneath the mountain of blankets he must have piled on me while I slept. Distantly, I could remember waking up at some stage shivering, ice cold, and demanding blankets. Otherwise, I still just had on the thin tank top and my favorite underwear. Bright yellow boy-legs with Little Miss Fucking Sunshine on the front. I only owned about five pairs of them. She was kind of my spirit animal. And to think, Joe had seen me in this glorious getup, sticky with sweat and sick as could be, and he’d still stayed and played nurse. Impressive.
I hadn’t lasted through all of the movie last night, what with being on death’s doorstep. Joe and I hadn’t talked much. But what we did do was laugh at the same lines, exclaim over the same fight scene, and ooh at exactly the same time during the car chase. So our tastes in films were eerily similar, as if that meant anything. I just hadn’t expected to feel quite so comfortable having him around. Early on, all I had noticed was how different he was from the guy I thought I knew. It was disconcerting to start grafting all the things we actually had in common onto this new hunk of manhood.
Anger, hate, and betrayal were harder to hold against Joe Collins than I would have liked. Let’s blame it on the drugs.
No doubt on top of my questionable underwear I also had crazy bed hair, morning breath, and every other unattractive thing you could think of. But the glory of feeling like something a cat barfed up was the complete lack of caring. And let’s face facts, in a day or two’s time, the plague would have either turned me into a zombie or subsided.
Either way, these two men could take me as I came or get the hell out of my hotel room.