Call her ZADDY

Chapter 16- The mansplainer

          The next night Mick and Gabrielle were graffitiing giant stencils on the floor of Gabrielle's apartment where they'd been chatting for an hour. As they worked, Nick couldn't help but wonder why he felt so miserable.

The problem was he was so freaking bored! For the last twenty minutes Gabrielle had been blabbing about her Mexican heritage and as the seconds ticked by he felt his internal snooze button about to go off. Whatever garbage she was spewing was so monotonous. She kept using words like "colonialism" and "intersectionality". He just wanted it to stop. But Thankfully just before a yawn threatened to give way and he officially tuned her out, he picked up on a small nugget of her story involving Spanish that instantly peaked his interest.

"What was this?" he thought sitting up alert. "Something about Spanish?" Her story had suddenly gotten way more interesting.

"Oh, my God, you speak Spanish too?!" Mick exclaimed, jumping off of the floor and intentionally cutting her off.

Bypassing her eye roll, Mick allowed his imagination to run wild. He found himself all at once desperately trying to visualize her naked and saying dirty things to him in foreign tongue. But it was only wishful thinking...

God damn it, he thought feeling irritated, why did she have to be so fucking uptight? It made him angry just thinking about it. Her tight little body was such a waste.

"Gabrielle, why don't you let your freak flag fly more often,?" Mick posed bluntly.

At that Gabrielle sat up, looking confused. "My freak flag,"? What's that supposed to mean? "I'm not a lesbian if that's what you're talking about—".

"No, I'm not talking about sex!" Mick insisted. He lost his train of thought for a second, imagining her with a blonde, and then quickly got back on track.

"What I mean is that you are a-maaaz-ing!!," he exclaimed, springing towards the center of the room. All at once he felt inspired. Pacing the floor for a moment, he scratched his chin and looked ponderously towered the light, while secretly hoping his years of community theatre wouldn't go unnoticed...

———

"Just look at you!", he raved pointing down. "You graffiti!  You speak Spanish! You paint ! You tell stories!" he winked.

The wink was intentionally patronizing. In reality, Mick couldn't stand her stories, and he was pretty sure she already knew it.

"Plus, you're as cute as a button!" he added, bending down to tap the tip of her nose.

Mick heard an ironic laugh coming from below him, but decided to ignore it. He sensed she wasn't ready to hear what he had to say...but this speech was for her own good.  Turning to look into the light, he imagined Gabrielle reaching her full potential. He could envision her clear as day, striding into galleries with a nude painting in her hands while he proudly carried her brushes. The idea was thrilling. She had so much talent hidden within her fingers, she just needed the world to see it!

"Gabrielle, you should really try letting people know how cool you actually are!," Mick exclaimed.

After hearing another dry chuckle escape from his audience,  Mick looked down at her pleadingly. If only she would listen. All she needed was for someone to help broaden her horizons...

"You know most people around town assume that you are just another too tan stuck up white girl," he said, frowning,  "but you are so much better than that! You can be so much better than that if you actually tried!"

Mick paused to catch his breath, then risked sneaking a peek back down towards his audience, where Gabrielle quickly made to interject.

"Mick, I literally just told you I'm Mexican, " she sighed looking up at him dully before tiredly rubbing her temples. "I wear spf 50 everyday . I'm not tan. My father isn't even a U.S. citizen. This is my natural skin tone", she said pointing to her light  brown arms.

Frustrated that the whole Mexican thing was being brought up yet again, Mick sighed, feeling impatient. Why was everyone so stuck on race? She was missing the point. Gabrielle needed to understand how AMAZING she was! Stupid things like race didn't matter!

———

During the next several minutes Mick paraded around the room encouraging Gabrielle  with phrases like, "Try letting your hair down once in a while. Maybe try smiling at people. You're so much prettier when you smile. I know you have it in you chica! Don't be afraid to be you! Stop making everything about being "woke". Just Spread your wings and fly!"

By now he could feel the two of them vibing and would have kept going had he not heard another laugh coming from the floor. That puzzled him, and he lost his train of thought for a moment. It discouraged him that Gabrielle might not be getting this...was it possible that she simply too daft to be following?

"Fuck it," he shrugged, feeling momentarily defeated, "Who knows...you just might find you like it!"

——

        Once finished, Mick stood over her, mouth huffing and shuffling his feat. His heart was pounding. Shifting his weight from one foot to another, he waited patiently for her to say something positive about his lecture. Anything.... But as the seconds ticket by in silence He began to feel anxious. Why the fuck wasn't she thanking him? It's not as if he was expecting an applause or anything, but he would've settled for a mere "thank you". What the hell was taking her so long?

Then finally, after what felt like an eternity, Gabrielle  eventually spoke up,  muttering the word, "Wow."

That was it?

Mick's normally joyous mouth hung like a collapsed hammock as he stared back at her frowning .  All of a sudden he wondered if he may have said something to piss her off. Could she possibly have taken something he said wrong? The thought had no sooner entered his mind when, to his surprise , he heard a strange noise coming from the floor. Pausing to look down , he noticed Gabrielle's face twisting while her normally olive cheeks turned beet red. It looked like she might be chocking when out of nowhere ... she burst out in a heap of laughter on the floor. It wasn't necessarily the standing ovation he'd been hoping for.

——

After what seemed like an obscene amount of time reserved for open mockery, Mick watched Gabrielle unabashedly rolling in a pile of laughter on the floor.  She looked out of control, kicking her feet hysterically and behaving in a way he had never seen from a women. It took a minute, but he could now safely say she was making fun of him.

Mick smiled kindly before trying to help her up, but that only appeared to make things worse. As soon as she'd gather herself together enough to make eye contact, that would simply ignite the fit all over again.

Jesus, he thought. While it was sort of annoying, he had to admit there was something sort of hot about seeing her act so crazy.  Maybe Gabrielle had a little Latina spitfire in her after all , he thought with a soft smile.

While he waited for Gabrielle to get a hold of herself, Mick collected his thoughts. Despite his initial annoyance, he was surprised to find he wasn't angry. Not in the least. On the contrary. He was actually somewhat proud. Whatever way he had gotten her to this point didn't really matter. His speech had worked, hadn't it? She was at least allowing herself to have fun. So what if it was all at his expense.

"Just please promise me that you will learn to at least try to let your freak flag fly more often,"  Mick pleaded In truce.

"Ha, thanks for the pep talk...," she snickered while wiping the tears from her eyes. "Don't worry... I think you have enough freak in you for the both of us."

Thank you for reading! And yes this incident happened irl