A MISSILE CRASH-LANDS on my chest. Instinctively, I roll, cradling my laptop. Everything’s backed up but replacing hardware is inconvenient and I’ve already done so once this week. For a brief second I’m airborne and then I fall, my shoulders hitting the floor hard as the rest of me slides off my sofa. The laptop slides to a gentle landing beside me. Fuck me, but I should invest in carpet. Maybe one of those shaggy rugs or a faux sheepskin.
I haven’t slept in a bed since moving into my Santa Cruz place as I prefer to work until I pass out. The couch is the only piece of furniture in the big empty living space. It came with the house and has three legs; the missing fourth has been replaced by a stack of books. The Realtor described my style as postmodern. My housekeeper has declared it “easy to clean.” I crack an eye, but the only thing on eye level is a Roomba slowly gliding over the floor. The black wood shows every piece of lint and dust. It drives me nuts, hence the Roomba army. There’s a scratch in the floor by my nose that I need to get fixed.
Sun pours in the floor-to-ceiling glass windows. I don’t own curtains. If you want to watch, watch. The sofa creaks a warning and I tense as the missile hammers my rib cage. I grab it with my free hand. Danger. Did I hook up last night after rescuing Maple and forget? Because that’s a female hand. I let go fast while my brain catches up with the rest of me and I pry my eyes open.
Lola crouches over me.
No.
Scratch that.
She’s straddling me.
“You suck,” she bellows.
Given her lack of an inside voice, I decide she’s talking about the way I abandoned her last night to go after Maple and not about any kind of sexual activity, but... I’m not sure. Houston, we have a problem. It’s not that she knows the passcode for my alarm system—using the first fourteen places of pi was predictable—but that we’re touching in ways a guy should never, ever touch his best friend’s girl.
Oblivious to my dilemma, she glares down at me. “Maple deserves more than a hookup.”
“What?” Despite my multiple PhDs, I sound less than intelligent but I require three hours of sleep to be functional and I’m now operating on less based on the angle of the sun on my floor. Rescuing Maple took the better part of the night.
“Do not mess with my friend.” Lola punctuates her words with additional and vigorous rib poking. I turn my head to check my laptop while trying not to move because grinding my morning wood against Dev’s girlfriend—even accidentally—would be disastrous.
“Can we discuss this over breakfast?” It’s not unusual for me to stay up all night, but this is the first time Lola’s paid me a solo call. Usually she’s attached by some body part to Dev and I’m busy trying not to perv on them.
Lola bounces, I grunt, and she must figure out what my problem is because now it’s her turn to freeze.
“Right,” she says, staring out the window. Pink flushes her face. “This is awkward.”
“Generally speaking, women don’t attack me or try to ravish me,” I offer. “In fact, I can remember zero instances. So I’m assuming I’m misinterpreting this situation and you’re not trying to get me killed by Dev or offering yourself up as a substitute for Maple. Which is a very friendly overture but one I’m going to have to pass on.”
Lola groans and pounds her head into my shoulder. I think. Honestly, I’m not sure what she’s doing, but she’ll have to do it by herself. Dev is a big motherfucker and I know exactly how hard he can hit. She climbs off me, however, which is progress.
I stand up cautiously, considering next steps. It seems likely that everything will become clearer after I caffeinate, so I head into the kitchen. Rather like my relationships, I have a policy of getting in and getting out of my kitchen. The room channels a Siberian snowstorm, all white subway tile, white marble and big-ass stainless steel appliances. You practically need a parka or snowshoes to fight off the pristine chill. I pull the fridge door open and check the contents. I need to place a grocery order. For all my dollars, I appear to own no more than a can of Coke, a bowl of Mini Moo’s and an unidentifiable white take-out container.
Fake milk it is.
I get busy with the Mr. Coffee, shoving an espresso pod in and cranking on the buttons.
“Why are we talking about Maple?” I hope I’m not smiling like a jackass.
Maybe I am, because Lola holds up her hand. “Your app shared her naked nudie dancing with most of San Francisco.”
She folds down a finger.
I think she might be really mad at me.
“She confronted you.” Another finger.
“Instead of simply taking down her video, you made offers that included a job, stock options and sexual intercourse.”
There’s a brief pause. I suspect Lola is waiting for me to confirm or deny, but I settle for a noncommittal shrug.
“You sent her roses.”
Finger, finger, finger.
“You rode your big, sexy white horse to the rescue.”
“Am I the knight in that analogy? Or a cowboy? Because I drove my Porsche to that club and I’m confused.”
Lola stabs her middle finger in my direction. Point made. “Poetic license. Either way, you don’t seem to be keeping away from her and you need to rethink that decision, big guy.”
“I didn’t realize that she was off-limits.” The coffeemaker finishes filling my lucky mug with tarry black goodness.
“You are the hookup king.” Lola peers in the cup and shudders. “That is so gross.”
I think she’s referring to my personal life and not the coffee, so I hand her the cup and Mini Moo’s and start drink number two. What does Maple drink when she gets up? Does she like her coffee milky and sweet? Dark and bitter? God. What if she doesn’t even drink coffee? She could be one of those weirdos who starts the day with hot water and lemon or a hit of matcha. Whatever that is.
“Executive summary.” Lola dumps a handful of fake creamers into her cup and then lobs the empty plastic cups at me. “Don’t mess with her.”
I redirect her missiles into the trash. “Do I look like a total dick?”
She looks around instead of answering. “This place is almost completely empty. You should buy some furniture.”
I look around, too.
I have a trash can, a fridge and a sofa.
I think she might be right. I should invest in something to fill up the space.
“They have people for that,” Lola points out. “You could support the local economy and hire out.”
“Dev hired a decorator, but I don’t want some random stranger waltzing into my place and making decisions that I have to live with.”
“Wow.” Merriment dances in Lola’s eyes. “And yet you’re totally good with random hookups?”
“Sure?” I guess it sort of is the same principle, picking out what I’ll live with based on the outside packaging. On the other hand, I’d have to pay a decorator and I’ve never paid for sex unless you count dinner and drinks. Which I haven’t because I’ve never expected a girl to sleep with me because I’ve fed her. That’s all kinds of wrong. You don’t drop a bag of canned goods off at the local food shelf and expect the recipient to put out.
“There’s nothing wrong with hookups.” Lola takes a sip of her coffee and makes a face. “Although your taste in coffee is bad. Sometimes you don’t want forever.” From the way her mouth curls, though, she’s thinking about Dev again. I’m pretty sure both of their hookup days are behind them.
“But you don’t think I should hook up with Maple.”
“Not really, no. She’s no good with short-term rentals.”
“So I’m not allowed to take her out and then get down on my knees, run my hand up her—”
Lola grabs my laptop. “Shop. Buy a room.”
I think I understand why Dev likes her so much. She’s fun. Since she’s taken and we’ve already established that I don’t do long-term anyhow, I do as she suggests and go online. I choose one of those mattresses-in-a-box for my bedroom, but after that I’m stumped. Houston, we have a problem. There are 11,298 furniture options and more filters on the website than the user interface for the space shuttle. I try a few sample searches before giving up and attacking the problem from a different angle.
“What would Maple like?”
Lola makes a face. “Maple is a hoarder.”
“More words.” I try to decide if I know what size my mattress is but I draw a blank. It’s big.
“Maple loves keepsakes. Or she’s a collector. Possibly a shopaholic.” Lola leans over and taps a few filters. My possible choices narrow to 1,456. I suppose I could just order them all and then donate the ones I don’t like, but then I spot the dreaded words: assembly required.
“She has lots of stuff?” I’m not exactly sure what Lola’s getting at, but now I sort of want to see Maple’s place. I’m also certain she’d hate mine because the only word to describe it is empty.
“She went to Bali.” Lola dumps some stuff into my cart. “When she came back, she re-created her hotel room because she’d had such an awesome time. Most people take photos or buy a T-shirt. She bought a Balinese bed. In Bali. It required a shipping container on a cargo ship to bring it back to San Francisco.”
“So?”
“She could have bought a cheaper, look-alike bed here, but she wanted the real deal. A Bali bed from Bali. Maple is an overcommitter.”
And again...so?
Lola sighs, so clearly I’m the problem here. “She’s all in when she loves something—or someone. Her bed is the biggest, most ginormous, out-of-place bed I’ve ever seen crammed into a studio. She had to drag it up the stairs one piece at a time. She didn’t quit.”
“Is that the kind of bed with posts?” I mime the sticking-up bits. “Because if so, I want one of those. Think of the promo shoots I could host for Kinkster, with tied-up people.”
Lola groans. “Never mind. Don’t share your dirty thoughts with me.”
“Right. No talking business.” I save the cart to look at later.
Lola waves toward the ocean. You can’t see it until you’re leaning over the edge of the minicliff where my house perches, but there’s a staircase to a private beach. “Are you coming down?”
“Maybe later.”
Lola sticks her tongue out at me. “Rapunzel.”
She darts out of the house so that she can have the last word, disappearing down the staircase to the beach. She’s the silver lining to a bad piece of business for Dev. When his hookup stole his software and illegally posted it on a freelancing site for five bucks, Lola bought it. Dev went rampaging after her of course, determined to exact vengeance, but then he fell in lust—and now he claims to be in love. Jack’s been off the market for years. Out of the three of us, in fact, I’m the only single guy left.
She’s right. It’s funny. I’ve always been happy hooking up before. I’ve never wanted more. And I don’t now, I tell myself. It’s just Maple I want. I kind of, sort of want to know more about the nonnaked parts of Maple, the parts she’s never, ever shown the world.