Betsy liked to talk. It didn’t take Logan long to figure that out. At least, she wasn’t arrogant. She talked about whatever came to mind. She only talked about herself when the story related in some way. Now, she was talking about her twin brother”some guy named Brian, that she kept referring to as a “blonde freak” because he had none of her “brooding dark” looks.
Ororo didn’t like to talk, or at least, she didn’t like talking with him around. Or maybe Betsy was doing enough talking for the three of them. It was probably a combination of all three. Instead, she would shoot him furtive, narrow-eyed glances in the rearview mirror as if he’d done something wrong. She was the one who invited him. If you called what happened in his grandmother’s living room an acceptable invitation.
If anyone should be angry, it should be him. He let a bunch of pushy women talk him into something he didn’t really wanted to do. Who actually cared about ballroom dancing? Not anyone he knew. It wasn’t like it was football or basketball or hockey”things he could get excited about.
He didn’t want to wear a stupid suit, but it was a formal event. Anything that required him to wear a suit was usually on his list of places he’d never go and things he’d never do. That included weddings, churches, funerals, and now, ballroom dancing events. But there were always exceptions. Maybe he wouldn’t mind this so much”as long as Ororo kept wearing those shorts.
The only time she’d stop glaring at him is when she made a death dive for her cell phone while swerving across the road. Women and their goddamned driving. He nearly had a heart attack every time he heard her phone start going off. Through his fright, he had managed to decode her ring tones and who put him at the most risk for death.
“She Loves Me like a Rock” was her grandmother and caused quite a mini-uproar in the car. “Lady Marmalade””her dance partner, Betsy explained”called every third minute it seemed. On a scale of one to five, one being “you probably won’t die this time” and five being “thank God you remembered to wear clean underwear cause you’re gonna die,” “Lady Marmalade” was a ten. His brain broke when he tried to figure out why she associated a grown ass man with that song.
“Dear Prudence” called twice”that was her other roommate he figured out after listening to Ororo promise she didn’t borrow those black heels and no, she hadn’t ate all the Lucky Charms. Ororo usually answered her calls after groaning for five minutes. “Dope Boy Fresh” called once, and Ororo only answered it after she and Betsy laughed like hell. And Ororo never answered when “Pretty Piece of Flesh” called, which was whenever “Lady Marmalade” wasn’t obsessing.
“You’re going to answer that, right, love?” Betsy finally asked while Ororo’s phone let everyone know that the other person on the other end was a pretty piece of flesh and they were all weak, weak, weak, weak slaves. And he didn’t even know the guy.
“Didn’t plan on it,” she said with a shrug, and he silently thanked whatever higher power there was for that. His stomach was starting to lurch, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he was going to be able to keep that sandwich down.
“You can’t avoid him forever,” Betsy said in a sing-songy voice. Logan hoped they didn’t start talking about other men like he wasn’t around. He sometimes wondered what was going on inside women’s brain, but sometimes, he felt he was better off not knowing.
“Oh look, McDonald’s,” Ororo said, conveniently avoiding that conversation by making a sharp turn into the McDonald’s parking lot. He was going to be sick. This coming from a man who regularly rode his motorcycle at speeds that were considered illegal in all states.
“What are you doing?” Betsy asked her, grabbing Ororo’s arm. “Jean-Paul will kill you if you eat this crap now, and he’ll kill me for letting you eat it.”
“I just want some fries,” Ororo said in her own defense. “He doesn’t have to know everything.”
“Let’s be serious, love. You don’t know how to stop at fries, and Jean-Paul has a second sense about these things.”
“I ain’t gettin’ out,” Logan interjected, as the two women opened their doors to exit the car. Ororo turned around in her seat and glared at him. She was kinda cute when she was angry. Should he tell her? Nah. He’d had a girlfriend who was pseudo-feminist. Every time he told her she was cute when she got angry with him, she accused him of trivializing her feelings. That didn’t last long at all”not that anyone thought it would.
“And why the hell not?” she literally hissed at him, and he bristled in response. He hated when people talked to him like that.
“Look how I’m dressed. Who goes ta McDonald’s inna suit?” he snapped at her. He thought he’d used his best “back off, bitch” tone with her, but she barely blinked. Her face only scrunched up more, making her look more like her grandmother.
“Um, apparently, you do. So unless you want to broil your ass in the car, I suggest you get out,” she said.
“No. Make me.” He knew he was acting like a big child now, but he was putting his foot down. He wasn’t about to go inside a fast food joint looking like a reject from mortician school.
“Fine,” she said, sliding out of the driver’s seat and slamming the door. Betsy shrugged at him apologetically and exited the car as well. She stood by the car uncertainly for a moment before taking off behind Ororo. He listened to the brief exchange in mild interest.
“Ororo, you can’t leave him in the car,” Betsy said, heels clacking with every word she spoke.
“And why can’t I?” Ororo asked haughtily.
“You promised Gram you’d be nice to him for one,” Betsy said. That’s right. She promised to play nice. So, she could retract the claws.
“I know, but she doesn’t really expect me to be nice to him,” Ororo said with an air of decisiveness.
“Ororo!”
“Okay, okay!” Ororo said, stomping back to the car. Ororo flung open the door, hard enough to rock the car. He maintained an even expression as she stuck her head through the door. Her eyes were already narrowed. “Get out of the car,” she said through her teeth in a voice funnily similar to one his grandmother might use.
“But I said””
“Get out of the car NOW!” she said about eighteen octaves too loud. Wow, that was the kind of voice made for breaking glass. She gave him a look that said: “If you dare defy me, I’m gonna chop you in the throat.” He didn’t want to be chopped in the throat”not in his good suit, especially if she went for a knife hand strike. Her nails, alone, were sharp enough to puncture his throat.
She moved back, allowing him a generous gaze of her legs before he got out, tugging on his tie. “Just so ya know, I ain’t gettin’ out ‘cause ya demanded it. I’m gettin’ out ‘cause it was hot,” he said.
“Hmph,” she said, rolling her eyes at him before charging ahead of them, but she stopped short at the door when “Lady Marmalade” called.
“He knows we’re here. Quick, run back to the car,” Betsy said half-jokingly.
“I’ve got to take this. Just order for me, okay. Large fries, heavy on the salt,” she said.
“Yuck, Ororo,” Betsy said as Ororo all but pushed them through the door.
“Jean-Paul, now what makes you think I’m eating junk?” she tittered into the phone as the glass door closed behind them. He stood in line with Betsy feeling like a complete idiot in his Sunday’s best.
“I’d like an order of heart attack drenched heavy in the high blood pressure inducer.” Betsy said when they got to the counter. The girl raised her perfectly plucked eyebrow at Betsy in annoyance.
“Fries with extra salt,” Logan quickly said when the girl behind the counter rolled her eyes and popped her gum at Betsy.
“That’s what I said,” Betsy said with a snort as the girl totaled up the order.
“Why doesn’t she like me?” Logan asked when they sat down in a booth with a bag of “death by 40,” as Betsy called it. Ororo was still outside pacing with the phone glued to her ear. He watched wear a line in the pavement, waving her hands animatedly.
“I’m sure it’s not you. Ororo’s usually pretty nice. This dancing thing has got her all stressed,” Betsy said, thinking it best not to mention that Ororo got cranky when she didn’t get her allotted weekly stipend of sex. According to Ororo, it had been two weeks after all.
“How long has she been doin’ that?” he asked, genuinely interested.
“What, dancing?” Betsy asked, and he nodded. “As long as I can remember. That’s all she’s ever wanted to do is dance. She couldn’t even concentrate in classes when we were in uni because she was always dancing.”
“She any good?”
“You tell me after we watch the competition,” she said with a sly smile. “What do you do?”
“Personal trainer. I own a gym”Howlett’s Gym.”
“Oh, that’s you. I remember. There was a big write up in the paper about your gym. You’re the one who’s getting like a million dollars a session for your martial arts classes.”
“Yeah, something like that,” he chuckled.
You whip a couple of whining celebs into shape with a “take-no-shit” fitness program, and you were an instant star. During his first two years, he barely broke even. He hadn’t planned to do the personal trainer thing, but a friend of a friend of a friend of one his patrons mentioned him, and he found himself playing Mr. PT for some actress who needed to lose sixty pounds faster than he could blink.
She was offering him good money”more than he’d made in two years with his gym. She became a regular, then her friends started coming to him when she walked down the red carpet with a body worth noting. Business started to flourish. Now, he had A-list clients, wannabe A-list clients, and everyone in between. Many of his clients complained that he was too tough on them, but they kept coming back because he got results.
“You looked a lot taller in the paper,” she said with a friendly smile.
He looked out the window again, noting that Ororo wasn’t in view. She’d probably walked right into traffic with that phone stuck to her ear. “Yer lookin’ at it all wrong. Yer just tall,” he said. They made idle chat for a few more minutes before Ororo waved them out of the place, and it was back to more of her bad driving while she tried to eat the fries.
“Could you be any more of a pig in front of our guest? Not everyone has to witness the horror of your appetite. Can’t you pretend to be prim and proper just for three seconds?” Betsy teased.
“I’d break rule number one if I did that. Thou shalt not front on thy stomach.” She stuffed another handful of fries in her mouth, causing her cheeks to puff out slightly. Well, he couldn’t be mad at her. At least, she didn’t chew with her mouth open, and if they ever went out for dinner, he wouldn’t have to worry about whether or not she hated the restaurant as she picked over her salad. If they went out for dinner? Where had that come from?
Betsy pushed a CD into the player, listening to them for three seconds before deciding it wasn’t the right one. “Oh! Oh! I like this song.” Betsy said, turning up the radio. Heavy bass filled the car, followed by a gravelly female voice who was talking about all the people who pissed her off.
“All the people that won’t be missed, you’ve made my shitlist!” Betsy was throwing her head back and forth becoming just a blur of purple and black hair. God… anything but chick rock… It wasn’t enough that he had to put on a suit”he had to listen to this, too? Ororo couldn’t be enjoying this, but when he turned his eyes toward her, he was almost surprised when he saw her mouthing along with the words. He mentally tried to figure the odds of either one of them caring if he threw himself from the car.
Betsy stopped going into spastics long enough to put an invisible mic to her mouth. “When I get mad, and I get pissed!” Betsy screeched as loudly as the woman on the radio. She quickly “passed the mic” in time for Ororo to chime with a “Shitlist!” He’d have to remember not to piss these two off. They seemed a bit serious about all this. Besides, they were women, and women knew how to hold a grudge.
“I get a pen and write out a list of all you assholes who won’t be missed, you’ve made my shitlist!” they both said in unison.
He’d have to remember to thank his grandmother for this one. He was starting to believe the old lady had it out for him. This was his punishment for not giving her a house full of great-grandkids. He told her it wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t stay with a woman long enough to actually try the “marriage and kids” thing. It wasn’t like he wasn’t trying… Okay, he wasn’t, but she didn’t know that.
Tori Amos had just finished her male-bashing session when they finally arrived at the dance hall. He was going to kiss the ground when he got out. Never again, he promised himself, trying to forget the nightmare of a car ride. When he pulled the latch, the door wouldn’t open. He pulled the handle again. The child safety lock was in place. She thought she was so fucking funny.
He checked the other door. It was a no go. He wasn’t about to crawl into the front seat just to get out of the car. That was embarrassing, and there were way too many witnesses. He knocked on the window, and she turned around with a smug smile. “Very funny. Could ya open the door?” he said.
“What’s that?” she said, leaning her ear toward the window. “I didn’t hear you. Why don’t you open the door?”
Was she trying to piss him off? If she was, it was working. “I said, I’m goin’ ta put my fist through yer fuckin’ window if ya don’t lemme out,” he said. She raised her eyebrows at him. Was that a challenge? Guess not. She opened the door, and he bit back the impulse to yell at her. “Yer an ass.”
“You’re the one to talk,” she shot back at him.
“Hey, no fighting, children,” Betsy said, acting as a buffer.
He watched posh socialites enter the building instead of arguing. He even spotted a couple of his clients who looked at him like he’d grown a third eye after waving at him tentatively. It was that stupid suit. It was turning him into a spectacle.
Betsy wished Ororo luck before they parted ways in the sea of people. Betsy led him through the crowd to a table on the edge of the dance floor. The area where the patrons were seated was dim. Each table had a small, decorative candle lighting it. Carafes of waiting wine”Riesling, not bad”waited on each table. Lights meant to encourage blindness lit the dance floor.
This should be interesting, he told himself.
She popped three Hint mints when she walked backstage. She made her way around the hustle and bustle of the backstage. Half-naked men and women raced here and there looking for last minute accessories, stretching out fatigued limbs, trying beat last night’s binge-fest with pitch-black coffee. One woman was screaming at her partner because her dress didn’t match her eyes like it was supposed to and she’d rather go on the floor naked than wear such an ugly dress, which escalated into an argument about that not mattering since everyone in New York had already seen her nude. Ouch.
She found Jean-Paul holed away in a small room, practicing his breathing techniques. It supposedly helped him to relax. She didn’t think anything really helped Jean-Paul to relax. He didn’t even open his eyes when she entered, didn’t even acknowledge that she was in the room. He didn’t like her to interrupt him when he was in relaxing. He took two final breaths before opening his eyes and staring at her.
“Your breath smells like saturated lard,” he said before she could even mumble hello. His dark eyes pierced through her, daring her to tell him he was wrong.
“Does not,” she said, trying to make her performance believable, walking over to him and parking herself in his lap. She gave him a good whiff of her breath.
“Lard and breath mints, yummy,” he said, fanning her away.
She stood from his lap and walked back toward the door. “It was just some fries.”
“Tell me that when you’re three-hundred pounds, alone, and spend all your days watching daytime television,” Jean-Paul muttered.
“You wish me all the best in life, but look, we have more important things to discuss.” Ororo grabbed Jean-Paul’s arm and dragged him out of the room and over to the curtain veiling them from the audience. She pushed them back a crack and pointed in the direction of Betsy and Logan. “What do you think of him?”
Jean-Paul had a sixth sense when it came to people. She never went into a relationship until she asked Jean-Paul about the person in question. Sure, she wasn’t getting into a relationship with Logan, but she didn’t want to blame herself if he ended up stomping Betsy’s heart to pieces. She would agree that Jean-Paul was a tad on the cynical side (“It’s only because I’m willing to believe in the bad in people,” he’d once told her), but that was a good thing because he didn’t hem and haw when she needed to hear things about the men she was dating.
True, she sometimes ignored his good wisdom. It wasn’t because she didn’t trust his advice. She just had some disposition that had to experience it firsthand. Some women would be cautious if a friend told them to look out, but she liked to go ahead and get all the bullshit over and done with. She was some kind of glutton for hard life lessons. It all worked out in the end, though.
Jean-Paul was the one who had a one-on-one with her and told her that he didn’t think she should get married to T’Challa. “Man-whore,” was the final verdict he handed down. She hadn’t listened, of course. She’d been so jaded, so in love. At least, that’s what she thought. Then, when that fell through, he didn’t gloat or give her the “I-told-you-so” speech. Instead, he took her the Vegas where she had too much fun getting over T’Challa. And she finally found out why some things were better left in Vegas.
“Do I even have to look at him? In general, I think you have very bad taste in men.” Jean-Paul rolled in his eyes in her direction without looking at this new man. Ororo and her new men”he was convinced that she was going through some kind of men crisis that required her to try to date half of the eligible, straight (and sometimes not-so straight) men in New York.
“I’m serious,” she said with pleading eyes. She was laying it on thick.
He couldn’t resist that innocent-girl-lost face. He huffed at her before looking in the direction that Ororo indicated. Betsy downed a glass of wine faster than a seasoned frat boy, only shown-up by the man sitting at her elbow. “He’s kind of cute in a rough and rugged sort of way. Haven’t you done that rough and rugged thing for the month? Isn’t this metrosexual week for you? Or did I get that confused with wannabe rap star week again?” He couldn’t believe some of the men that Ororo actually brought through his door. He had to remind himself that she was going through a men crisis.
“He’s not for me,” Ororo said defensively and paused. He was cute, and maybe, if she’d met him in other circumstances, things would’ve been different. Or maybe not. She didn’t much care for the flippant attitude she was getting from Logan. “He’s for Betsy. You know she’s been keeping up good appearances despite her breakup with Warren.”
“Ah, yes, since Warren and his, direct Betsy quote, cornbread fed whore dropped the M-bomb.” Three weeks back, Betsy and her on-again-off-again boyfriend called it off forever when Betsy caught him with his secretary, Paige”some fresh-faced girl imported straight from Nowheresville. “Where did Betsy say she came from again?”
“The bowels of Hell or the bowels of Mississippi or something. I can’t remember. You know how Betsy gets when she gets angry. It’s just like when she first wakes up. You can’t understand a damn thing she’s saying.”
Jean-Paul nodded sympathetically. Betsy accent went from cute to just plain ear-grating in seconds when she was angry, but he didn’t exactly blame Betsy. Warren was going to marry Paige, and Betsy was taking it hard, though none of them could get Betsy to admit it.
“That’s a nice suit he’s wearing. Definitely not something off the rack. The fit is too impeccable. I don’t know about this wild child hair he has going on,” Jean-Paul paused to look at Ororo’s hair. Ororo pretended not to notice. “I think I’ve seen him before somewhere. He looks like he doesn’t want to be here.”
“Yeah, I think I put him on the spot when I invited him in front of Gram and his grandmother, but he’s an adult, right? He could’ve said no,” she pointed out, watching Betsy and Logan fill their cups up with more wine. The two talked a little and laughed. Then, they touched glasses before guzzling down the wine. They were going to be sloshed before the show even started. Ahh, that was her Betsy. Maybe Bets would hit it off with Logan after all.
She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that, and she thought she might actually be a little jealous at the thought. But she immediately chided herself as she tried to dredge up some happiness for Betsy. She was just afraid of losing her clubbing buddy. Betsy could turn into the next Jean, and then her life would really be depressing. She was happy that Jean was happy. She wanted Betsy to be happy in love, too. She just didn’t know how she would handle being around two women in love when her own love life left much to be desired.
“He could have, but judging by that outfit you’re wearing, he probably didn’t want to. You look like a working whore. You didn’t tell me the hooker convention was in town.” Jean-Paul plucked at her shorts and wondered what possessed her to melt herself into those things. They were so… bright.
“It’s not my fault. It was the only thing I could find that was clean until I got here. I haven’t had much time to do laundry this week thanks to certain dance dictators who shall remain nameless. You might know him. He’s the one who’s had me in the studio every day until four in the morning.” Ororo cut her eyes in his direction.
“He sounds like my kind of guy.” Jean-Paul said and Ororo snorted. “Where is that delicious piece of man you’ve been dating forever? Or rather, forever in Ororo time. I liked him. Keep him around. Not only is he gorgeous, he knows how to dress. And you already know he looks good in leather. Even Bobby doesn’t look that good in leather.”
“Bobby’s ass is nonexistent. That’s the only reason he doesn’t look that good in leather. Leather doesn’t wear right unless it has a little something to cling to,” Ororo said, turning her eyes back to Betsy and Logan.
Jean-Paul pondered this for a moment. “Point well taken. I told him to start doing more squats and lunges when he’s working out. That’ll give his butt boost.”
“Bobby’s sort of bony. Don’t you feed that boy?”
“His stomach is an endless pit. He never stops eating, and he never gains weight. He’s meaty where it counts.”
Ororo laughed loudly, causing some of the others to look at her critically. Had she no shame? This was a competition, and she had the nerve to be cheerful. “I’ll remember that.”
“Remember is all you better do.”
“Meow. Hiss. Remember what your qigong instructor told you. Breathe, just breathe. Awaken your chi. Balance your chi.” Ororo made an elaborate show of breathing deeply while raising her upturned palms to her chest. She turned her palms downward and pushed them back toward her knees.
“Haha, Ororo.” Jean-Paul said, punctuating his sentence with a withering look.
“They’re talking about you,” Betsy said nonchalantly over her glass. She blew a bit of air out the corner of her mouth, causing her bright razor-cut bangs to go flying for a second.
“Who?” he said, looking around. He didn’t know anyone in the place, save for the occasional client. And they were all getting shitfaced on the free wine not looking at him. Free wine was almost a nice incentive to come back again. They start passing out free beer, and he’d definitely become a regular.
“Ororo and Jean-Paul,” she said, nodding toward the curtains across the room. He could barely make out some guy squinting at him through the curtains. So, that was “Lady Marmalade.” Great. “She’s probably telling him that you’re my date and asking him what he thinks of you.”
“Why would she do that?” he asked, feeling a little uncomfortable that she was discussing him with another guy already. He wondered what she was telling him. She didn’t seem to like him much, and he could only imagine what she was telling the guy.
“Because she trusts Jean-Paul’s judgment. He’s rarely ever wrong about people,” Betsy said matter-of-factly.
“Do ya think he’s sayin’ somethin’ good?”
“Probably not. It’s not as much fun to heap praise on strangers. Jean-Paul’s a bit of a pessimist,” she answered. Jean-Paul did tend to dwell on the negative for a minute or two, but he’d eventually get around to saying good stuff about a person”if he thought they were good. Betsy liked Logan well enough, and she knew Jean-Paul would too once he actually met him. Didn’t matter if Ororo poisoned him or not. “Don’t take it personally, though.”
“What’s it like livin’ with two roommates?” he asked, changing the subject. He didn’t want to think about Ororo and some guy gossiping about him like a couple of old hens.
“You really want to know what it’s like living with two roomies, or do you mean you want to know what it’s like living with Ororo?” Betsy said with a mischievous gleam in her eyes.
“No, that’s not””
“It’s okay. She’s fun, if you like waking up at five in the morning while she skips around the apartment waving her arms like a meth addict and singing, ‘You give me fever.’ That’s while our other roommate is in the shower screaming, excuse me, singing about this town not being big enough for both of us, and it ain’t her who’s gonna leave. I’m a firm believer that the day doesn’t start until noon.”
Logan smiled at the thought of her skipping around his condo, preferably with nothing on but the skin God gave her, singing.
”””
“They’re looking at us.” Jean-Paul pointed out. He knew they were definitely looking at him when the guy, Logan, made a goofy face his way. Was that supposed to be fucking funny? Jean-Paul fought the urge to make a weird face back at him. How old was he again? Old enough to know better than to make funny faces at strangers. Where did Ororo find these men? Well, at least, he seemed to have a sense of humor.
“No, they’re not,” Ororo said, trying to pretend that she didn’t see Betsy and Logan looking their way. But she was starting to feel that familiar feeling of paranoia. Did he know they were talking about him? No, he couldn’t know that.
“Betsy tipped him off,” he said. “You know she did. Betsy talks too damn much.”
He had a point. “I don’t want him to see us talking about him.” Ororo pulled Jean-Paul away from the curtain.
“Why not? That’s what he expects. He expects us to talk about him because we’re Betsy’s friends, and we have to make him feel like a pariah by whispering about him behind his back. He has to pass the shun test before we make him feel like a person,” Jean-Paul said.
“So, what do you think?” Ororo asked, pressing the issue.
“Commitment-phobe. I can read it all over his face. And since you’re a commitment-phobe, too, you don’t mix well with other commitment-phobes.” Jean-Paul started inspecting his nails. Ororo opened her mouth. Then closed it again. She held up one finger as she opened her mouth again before Jean-Paul interrupted. “I know this one. Wait, don’t tell me. You’re a dying fish. Am I right?”
“He’s not… I don’t…” Why couldn’t she get him to understand that she was not interested in Logan? At all. Period. Jean-Paul could be infuriating when he wanted to be. He thought he knew so much.
“I’m not even listening to you. You’re a bad liar. He’s for Betsy,” he said in a feigned falsetto in an attempt to mimic her voice. “Yeah, right. Even if one of you did get serious about the other, one of you is going to crack under the pressure.”
“Thanks for the continuous vote of confidence,” Ororo said dryly.
“Anytime. Now, where is Keiron? You’re already checking out his replacement, and you haven’t told me what happened to him, yet.” They walked back to the dressing room together. Ororo mulled over what she should tell Jean-Paul. She knew he wouldn’t let up until she told him something.
“I am not replacing him with that man. We just have a little problem.” Ororo chewed on her bottom lip.
Jean-Paul stopped in mid-stride and grabbed Ororo’s arm. He opened his eyes wide. “He’s gay, and he slipped right under the gaydar,” he said.
“No, he’s not gay,” she said with a shake of her head. It would be a lot easier if he were. Then, maybe she wouldn’t feel so guilty about blowing him off. She hadn’t returned any of his calls.
“He’s married with ten kids. I knew there was””
“No, it’s far worse than that.”
“Worse than ten kids? What can be worse than ten kids besides an STD? Oh God, he didn’t give you””
“No! Don’t let people hear you say that. He told me he loved me,” she whispered.
Jean-Paul snorted at her. “Is that all?” he said with a shrug.
“I didn’t want him to tell me that,” she whined. She didn’t want him to be in love. He was ruining a good thing by being “in love.” Honestly, it was the last thing she expected to hear from him.
“Was it before or after sex? You can never trust what a man says after sex.”
“Before.”
“I’m missing something,” Jean-Paul said with a frown. “Most women complain they can’t find a guy who’s serious. You find one, and by the way, he’s hot as hell, and you don’t want him to be serious about you? Make me understand this.”
“It’s complicated. It’s not that I don’t like him…”
“Right,” Jean-Paul said sarcastically.
“I’m for real. If I didn’t like him, I couldn’t have sex with him.” She said this more to herself than him. She was rationalizing.
“Actually you could and you have had sex with someone you didn’t even like. Did you forget about that bouncer, Luke?”
Ororo actually had to smile about that. That lasted all of three seconds. It could’ve worked if Luke just didn’t talk. The minute that man opened his mouth, she just wanted to kick him in the teeth. “I’ll have you know that I liked his biceps, not him.”
“Yeah, you fell right into that man-trap. You’re too easy.”
“Water under the bridge. You promised not to bring that up again, anyway.”
“And I wouldn’t have if you’d stop lying to yourself.”
“I do like Keiron, though.”
“Ororo, I’m going to tell you something, and I’m only doing it because I love you.” Jean-Paul grabbed her shoulders. “What happened with you and T’Challa was fucked up, but you have to let it stop eating you up. You haven’t been able to maintain a relationship since him. Keiron is a really nice guy. I can understand if you’re really not ready for a serious relationship, but you have to start being truthful with yourself.”
This was exactly what she didn’t want to hear. She knew he was right, but she wasn’t ready to admit he was right. “Let’s just not talk about that right now. That’s not the kind of bad mojo I need to think about while dancing. Let’s worry about getting ready,” Ororo mumbled.
“And what we’re going to do about that hair.”
“What’s wrong with my hair?”
“Everything.”
“There’s nothing we can do about it now.”
“Yes, there is. You’re wearing a wig.”
“There is no way in hell…”
“Good thing this isn’t hell, then.”
The dancers were going through a warm-up set on the floor. Logan snickered when she saw Ororo wearing a wig that matched her hair color perfectly. Betsy said that was Jean-Paul’s doing. She was no longer wearing those shorts. Damn, but she’d traded up for a dress with a tight bodice and a frilly skirt. Eh, well, it’ll do, he decided.
“That her boyfriend?” he asked quietly. A woman at the neighboring table gave him a reprimanding look. He rewarded her with a scowl.
“Who?” Betsy asked, ripping her eyes away from Jean-Paul and Ororo.
“That guy she’s dancin’ with.” He thought “Pretty Piece of Flesh” was her boyfriend, but he wasn’t so sure watching the way the dancing pair seemed to be breathing in each other’s very essence.
Betsy graced him with a wide-eyed stare. “Jean-Paul?” Betsy snorted, looking back at the two. She almost fell out of her chair in hysterics. “Yeah, they have chemistry, but not that kind of chemistry. They share a similar passion for dance. But that’s all.”
“Ya call that nothin.”
Betsy turned her attention back to them again, and she could see where he might’ve gotten the idea that they were together. The moved like one person, each move so intuitive of the other that it bordered the sensual, but he had no worries. “They’re just dancing. You have to be able to feel the passion between them. They have to make it believable or else the dance loses it magic,” she said, quoting Ororo.
“That’s some magic all right,” he grumbled.
“Um… J.P. is as queer as pink elephants.” Betsy said bluntly. There was no other way to get around that.
She wanted him to believe that the man who was basically dry humping Ororo for the world to see was gay. What a con artist. “Right,” he said disbelievingly.
“I’m serious. There’s his boyfriend over there,” Betsy said, pointing to their left. A clean-shaven blonde man sat alone. He was raptly watching the pair on the floor. Correction, he was raptly watching Jean-Paul. Maybe she was right. “Now that,” Betsy said, pointing to a guy who looked like he stepped out a designer magazine, “is her boyfriend… sorta.” The man had just entered the room, and he made brief eye contact with them. A 70-watt smile brightened his face when he spotted Betsy.
“Whaddya mean sorta?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.
“I mean, they’re only fornicating, nothing serious,” she said with a nonchalant shrug.
He chuckled. He liked this one. So, why was he spending all his time worrying about a woman who’d basically told him to kiss her ass? “An’ does she know it’s nothin’ serious?”
“Logan, love, he’s the one who doesn’t know it isn’t serious. Quiet, he’s coming this way,” Betsy said, toning down for the first time.
He watched the guy walked toward them. Figures she’d like those pretty boy types.
“Wotcher, Keiron.” Betsy said with a mile-wide smile plastered on her face. Keiron invited himself to the empty seat at the table. “This is Ororo’s friend, Logan. Logan, Keiron.”
Oh, now he was Ororo’s friend. What was she doing? He didn’t want some guy calling him up at three in the morning about Ororo, especially if there really wasn’t anything going on. They shook hands briefly. Keiron eyed him thoughtfully.
This was going to be fun.
Author’s Notes: Yeah, went on another of my long hiatuses. I needed it. Okay, this chapter was way longer, but I chopped it all up. That doesn’t mean the next update will be soon… just sooner than it would’ve been if I hadn’t chopped this chapter all up. My Marvel muses are going through a rebellion. The casualties are great. Sorry for any mistakes. I tried to catch them. I suck at it, though.
