HAPPY | ✔

DANIEL: 05.0 PLANS OF MICE AND MEN

"Ignore it!"

"I can't. This is the third time in a row. It must be important."

"Uhhh," she began digging between the cushions as I groaned, "You know what's important. This, right here. This is important."

She studiously ignored my wining and continued ruffling about. Feeling disgruntled, I squeezing her closer, my petulant complaints muffled into the palm she'd slapped over my lips.

"Shhh," she hushed, and answered, "Hello?"

Quality time had evolved into even more goofy stunts that had had us erupting into side-splitting laughter.

Somewhere between our reenactment of Dirty Dancing's final act and kisses too hot to describe, we'd migrated from the living room couch to the floor. And I had managed the best view a man could ask for. Joyce's thighs were split over my hips, her French coffee stockings littered with holes that had been absent minutes before. Her cleavage just about spilled out from the silvery silk of her top, two of the uppermost buttons missing in action. I found it amusing just how easily I was inclined to ruin her clothing when things got even the teensiest bit heated between us.

For people who knew dämn well how the night'd end, we had both been strangely content to suffer through this teenage desperation. Our bodies rubbing together to create such friction, our insides threatened to explode.

Kissing, just kissing- amazing. The fact that my pants had remained both zipped and buttoned was nothing short of miraculous.

Closing my eyes and easing my head back onto the carpet, I attempted a catnap until we could get back to business.

"What is it? Yeah, sorry-" I felt her hand leave my mouth and imagined her running it through the hair I had mussed or futilely attempting to straighten her blouse into some semblance of propriety, maybe even fingering the holes I'd ripped into her stockings.

"Yeah, yeah but I told CeCe... yeah but I didn't think she meant later as in later," her voice became hushed, "Oh come on, you know where I am. Yes, I'm with him." I could almost hear her blush.

A foreign sound came out of her throat, something strange, almost akin to a squeak. It was her scramble to get off me that had the sirens blaring that something was amiss. I clamped down hard so she couldn't move an inch and sat up, my eyes snapping open. Like this, our heads were only centimetres apart, close enough for me to finally hear the other side of this distressing conversation.

"JJ, babe, you know I'm happy for you, but is this how it's gonna be now? You run off to a dïck appointment and I'm left to deal with the rest of these höes on my own?"

That was... crass. I told myself not to think too hard on it, because if I did, I knew I would have begun to wonder if that was all I was. Someone she ran to only for a jolly good time and little else. Afterall I'd told the woman how I felt. I'd said the words, out loud, and she had not said them back. I shouldn't overanalyze this- us. I wouldn't.

"Em! I-"

"You know, unlike the rest, I barely get to see you as it is. I thought tonight was our night."

"Yeah, but I barely get to spend time with him either. Plus, I was never told-"

"Yes, you were! Maybe if you'd check your phone inbetween sessions of tonsil hockey, I wouldn't have wasted the time making the trip over to yours to pick your äss up!"

She cringed, knowing I could hear every single word, but didn't bother to reattempt an escape.

"Wh-" She didn't even manage to get the word out, because "Em" had already hung up.