Lover's Rock Leap

chapter 5

"What the hell's going on with you, Ren?" Salem asked, kicking the side of his boot. They stood out on the back porch overlooking some of the junk in their backyard. White plastic chairs, abandoned maintenance appliances no longer operative, weathered cardboard boxes, milk crates. Salem and Warren leaned against different sides of the railing, beers in hand while Lena sat along the top step, her legs stretched out before her, Charlie beside her with his legs draped over hers, sharing a can of soda. Warren and Salem passed around a thinly rolled joint, relighting it when the wind blew it out.

Warren stared down the neck of his bottle, shaking his head when Salem offered him the joint. "Can I talk to them for a minute?" he asked, blinking several times to bring everything back into focus.

When he looked up at Salem, she took another drag, narrowing her eyes on Charlie and Lena when it clicked. "If it's just about a girl, and you want couple advice, I don't need to hear it anyway." she muttered, putting the joint out on the porch railing before heading back inside.

Warren set his bottle down on the porch railing, dropping his head in his hands. "Something happened." he sighed.

Lena nodded, her hands wrapped over Charlie's over their can of soda. "Well, we put that one together." she said, "But what is it, what happened?" Lena's sense of humor was similar to Charlie's, despite the drastic difference in appearance and style, they were cut from the same cloth.

Warren sat down on the porch, his back against the railing, running his hands over his jaw. "I slept with someone." He blurted out.

Charlie's eyes widened. "What? When? Today?" he asked, and Warren nodded silently, his hand clamped over his mouth the second it came out. "Between coming home and you going out to pick up toilet paper, you fucked someone?" He pressed.

Lena squeezed his hands, her fingertips tracing the rings on his fingers. "The kids are just inside, babe." She murmured, looking past him to Warren. "How did you manage to meet, shmooze, and sleep with someone in an hour and a half? Were you just trolling Lover's Rock Leap?"

Warren explained everything that had happened from walking to clear his head, to ending up in the back of Nadine's car. He explained stopping to fix the flat, the tow ride from Liam, opening the garage, seeing Norma off, to ending up under a woman he'd just met. He debated on telling them about covering the tow for her, but it just came out in his spew of word vomit.

"That's sweet, paying for her tow." Charlie commented, taking a swig of his soda.

"Well, then why didn't you tell her about it? It feels unnecessarily sneaky." Lena added.

Charlie turned to face her. "What if I paid for your tow?" He asked.

"You meet me on the side of the road, call for a truck, pay for the tow, and personally work on my car? If I found out, I'd probably think you were keeping things hush hush to murder me or something." She explained.

Charlie opened his mouth, pausing. "No, because Norma was there, and the woman got a receipt and paid for the service and lug nuts."

"Yeah, but when you have a buddy willing to tow something for you when it's dark out, and your boss willing to let you open the garage? It's suspicious, what's going on? Are they willing to bury these records too?" She continued.

Warren ran his fingers through his hair. "Guys, I just did it to be nice. Can we get back to the issue at hand here?"

Charlie nodded. "Right, right. Did you use protection?"

The color drained from Warren's face. "No. I didn't." He mumbled.

Charlie punched Warren in the shoulder twice, scooting away from him. "What the hell is wrong with you man? You could've contracted an STI—you were just sharing a joint with your sister, you could've just given her chlamydia."

Warren pulled at the sides of his hair. "I don't know. I don't even understand how it happened. I never thought I'd ever just hook up with someone. I don't know. It felt so spontaneous and...impulsive."

"Synonyms." Charlie pointed out.

"She looked really nice, and professional. She was like, upper class." Warren reasoned. "She asked me if I was seeing anybody, and that's not even remotely where I thought that was going. I mean I'd thought she'd try and set me up with someone before hooking up in the parking lot of Vince's."

"Y'know who else dressed really nice and professional?" Lena began.

"Julia Roberts." She said in overlapping unison with Charlie.

"Julia Roberts was an actual sex worker." Charlie said, "Now, she was making money and relatively safe, she seemed to use protection."

"Because she was quirky and street smart and got Mr. Hamster himself to loosen up, but let's be honest, he was bankrolling her, and she was a little bit of a gold digger." Lena explained.

"And she had every right to use him for his money." Charlie cut in.

"He was employing her as his beck and call-girl." Lena added.

Warren dropped his head in his hands. "Guys, I can't listen to you break down Pretty Woman again." He said, "I mean, did you get tested right after you slept together?"

Lena reached over Charlie, slapping the front of Warren's chest. "Asshole. I don't fuck any of the customers at Indigo Lounge. And we used a condom the first time we slept together because we're not stupid and we don't want to get pregnant."

"I might have to kick your ass for that comment." Charlie admitted, looking down at Warren.

"How is that any different than you guys implying Nadine has STIs." He asked.

Charlie narrowed his eyes. "How is you calling my girlfriend a slut different than us pointing out the concerns of fucking a stranger without a condom?"

Warren sighed, leaning his head back against the railing. "I know, I know. I'll go to the clinic tomorrow on my lunch." he said quickly. "I was just feeling attacked because you were both ganging up on me. Do you think she could really be pregnant?"

"Well, optimistically, assuming your pee hasn't burned yet," Lena started. "If she meets all the criteria, assigned female at birth, no form of contraceptive, child baring age, and still gets her period...that aside, how was it?"

"It was a woman in a pencil skirt that threw me into her backseat and didn't care about using protection, how do you think?" He deadpanned.

Lena nodded in agreement. "Fair. I can't see it happening, but in your Dear Penthouse recollection, I get the appeal."

Charlie laughed. "Would you rather she had set you up with a friend?" he asked. Warren creased his brows in confusion. "You said you thought that's where she might've been going, setting you up with a friend." He clarified. Warren just rolled his eyes in response. "Okay, would you rather she'd asked you out? Or was...instant gratification better?" Charlie continued.

He wasn't sure how to respond. He took a long moment to think about it. He didn't think he wanted a relationship, but it was different, seeing the prospects of something so tangible in Nadine. It wasn't love, but something chemical in close proximity, the electricity that rattled his bones in accidental contact, the intoxicating quality in perfume when it's got him by the throat, the curiosity in finding something else out about this new person injected into his life. Something other than the idea of gonorrhea.

Warren climbed to his feet, retrieving his beer from the railing above them. He downed the rest of its contents, looking down at Charlie and Lena so smitten. "I don't know." He admitted.

***