The Things No One Else Sees

“What the fuck, man?” Joff hissed.

Biz was reclining on the settee with a smug smile on his face. “What?” he asked.

“What was that with Lucy?”

“She's cute. There's something about her. That hot ass in those tight jeans and the way she showed off her tits in that shirt. I tried to get her to spend the night with me, but she turned me down. Makes me want it that much more. You got her number?"

"I didn't bring her here so you could try to fuck her," Joff said. He could feel anger coursing through his body, urging him to punch Biz.

Biz leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "She said you two are just friends. Why are your panties in a bunch?”

Joff let himself fall back into the chair beside Biz. The two girls were making their way over. He’d tried to shake them, but they were persistent.

“Oh my god, are you, like, a hockey player too?” the brunette asked Biz.

Biz smiled like the Cheshire Cat. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Look, why don’t you girls go have a drink? He and I need to talk,” Joff said through his tight jaw.

“But, I wanted...” one of them started to say.

“Go.” His voice left no room for argument.

“God!” the brunette said, letting out a sigh and clomping off in her heels. She sounded like a petulant little girl.

Biz leaned back again and leveled his gaze on Joff. “Why are you chasing off pussy?”

“Lucy thinks I’m like you.”

The other man laughed. “Like me how? Like chasing tail?”

“Yeah?”

Biz shrugged. “You get your fair share, but you can’t hold a candle to the master.” He had that shit-eating grin on his face.

“So, I invited you so she’d see I wasn’t that bad.”

“I’m the bad example?”

Joff nodded, rubbing his temples. This night had gone downhill fast. Lucy hadn’t stayed long enough for him to even talk to her. His manager had text him about some stupid emergency photo shoot. Seguin had agreed to do it, but he’d punked out and now they needed someone to step in. He shouldn’t have even taken the call; it could have waited until morning.

“You’re the bad example,” he told Biz. “What did you say to her to make her leave?”

“Shit man, she left because of you. Saw you talking to those two chicks and jetted. Told me to tell you that this wasn’t her kind of place.”

Fuck. Two steps forward, three steps back. He thought he’d been getting somewhere. Apparently not.

“I did tell her I’d make her come four times tonight, though. Normally, I’d only agree to three, but she looks like she’d be responsive.” Biz said it with a straight face and then smiled.

Joff could feel his lips narrow into a thin line. “Are you fucking with me?”

Biz laughed. “I didn’t think you were chasing her, so I was working my magic.”

Thank god it didn’t work. Joff ran his hands roughly over his face. “I’ve got to go. I need to go call her. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. I meant for you to show her how I’m like a fucking angel compared to you.”

“Loops has got it baaaaaad,” Biz said in a sing-song voice.

Joff found Kessel and Bozak and told them he was heading out for the night before he slipped into his car and called her cell. It was almost ten-thirty on a school night. He was hoping she wasn’t halfway to bed.

“What do you want?” she said when she answered the phone.

“I need to explain myself. Can I come over?”

“No.”

He felt panic rising up into his chest. “Lucy, please. I just need ten minutes of your time. Ten minutes. I need to apologize for Biz.”

She was quiet. He held his breath and counted the seconds. Five, six, seven. “Ten minutes,” she said in a stern voice. “Hurry up.”

And then she hung up on him. But that was okay because he’d got what it wanted. It only took twenty minutes to get to her house. She was still in the jeans and blouse. Biz was right; it did do a good job of showing off her chest. He could look right down and see the tops of her tits like they were being served up on a platter. And he would bet good money she had no idea.

“Ten minutes,” she reminded him when she opened the door and let him inside.

He followed her, shutting the door behind himself. The living room was bathed in the soft light of the table lamp. The rest of the house was dark.

“I invited Biz and asked you to come because you think I’m like him.”

“What?”

Joff shifted on his feet and looked at her standing across the room with her arms crossed and one hip jutted out. He really wished she would let him touch her. “You think I’m like him, that I fuck around a lot.”

“Don’t you?”

“I serial date stupid girls,” he said. “I pick the dumb, hot girls who are easy. I keep them around for a couple days or a couple months and then I move on. So, I get around. GOT around. But I’m not as bad as Biz.”

Lucy narrowed her eyes, attitude coming off her in waves. He knew he was about to get ripped apart before she even opened her mouth. “Are you fucking serious, Lupul? You’re okay because you found someone who is worse? It’s like me asking you what two plus two is, you telling me five, and then saying that you’re right because that other guy said seven. Fuck you.”

He opened his mouth and then shut it. This was bad. He’d messed it all up. “Lucy, I’m sorry. I don’t know how to make you see that I’m not who you think I am. I’m not that guy. I don’t want to be that guy. I want to be...”

“What, Lupul?” she spit out. “What do you want to be?”

“Your guy.” He said it without really thinking through the consequences of admitting so openly what he’d been chasing for weeks, maybe even for months.

Joff watched as she collapsed back onto the couch behind her. All the anger had left her body and now she was just a sad, little Lucy who he’d dragged into a bad situation that involved potential heartbreak. He wanted to go to her, but she’d be pissed at him; he knew that much very well.

“All I want is a chance. Let me prove it to you,” he said softly.

“Is that what you were doing with those two girls in the club? Proving it to me?”

“Are they here right now? I was trying to shake them the whole time. I wanted to get back to you. Do I need to remind you that I’m practically a virgin? My dick probably doesn’t even work anymore.” He made the last comment with a hint of amusement.

She looked up at him, her side-swept bangs falling over one eye, and chuckled softly. “Don’t worry; Paul seems to be covering those bases for you.”

Joff edged over to the couch and set on the furthest cushion from her. “What exactly did he say to you?”

Lucy grimaced and looked down at the floor. “I don’t think you want to know.”

“I think I do. I need to figure out if I should punch him in the nose tomorrow.”

“He told me if I went to the bathroom with him that he’d make me come without taking my jeans off, and if I brought him home with me that he’d get me off three more times.”

So he wasn’t just talking shit, Joff thought. He’d seriously said that to her. He felt his hands clench into fists. It was just Biz and his way, and he wasn’t about to get into a fight with one of his friends because of a misunderstanding, but it still pissed him off. You didn’t say shit like that to a girl like Lucy. “Four times. Wow,” Joff finally whispered.

“Well, he did say he’d have to take my pants off for the other three.”

Joff looked up and locked eyes with her. There was a beat of silence and then both of them let loose, laughter echoing off the walls of her tiny little house.

When they’d regained their breath, Lucy said, “Your ten minutes is up.”

He was always hopeful that he’d get to stay, that she’d tell him that he could spend the night with her. She never did, not even when they were sleeping across a hallway from one another.

“Do you promise not to freeze me out? I want a chance to prove I’m a good guy.”

Lucy stood up and pulled in a deep breath, her chest rising and then falling as she exhaled. “I’m not freezing you out, Lupul. If I did, then I wouldn’t get to see any great shows for free, and I wouldn’t get half-naked pictures of a hot guy.”

“Oh, you’ve got both of those all over your future. I read it in the horoscope column of the paper today.”

“Get out of here, Lupul.”

*******************************

Teenage girls did this shit, he thought. He must be crazy. But he still did it. He still extended his arm, held his phone over his body and snapped a picture. It flashed up on his screen for his approval. Good enough, Joff thought, hitting send. He settled into his bed and laid the phone on the other pillow. It was early and she was probably just waking up or getting ready to wake up. The picture he’d sent was of his face, and some of his chest as he rested in bed. The text that accompanied it wished her a good morning.

Less than five minutes later his phone vibrated. It had to be her. And it was. She’d responded with a picture of herself in bed. He could make out part of her face, faint freckles splattered across her nose and cheeks and no glasses. Her clear, dark brown eyes were looking into the camera, not at the screen. He felt like she was looking right into him. And then there was the barest hint of white lace across her chest and a spaghetti strap that cut over her shoulder. What was she wearing?

JOFF: Good morning, beautiful. Whatcha wearing?

LUCY: Nice try, Mr. Sexting.

He smiled and turned onto his side. It had been a few days since the incident at the club. He’d given her space to cool off, but he couldn’t go much longer without talking to her.

JOFF: Do you want to know what I'm wearing?

LUCY: Yes.

He grinned . Her response had been immediate. Joff could just imagine her, lying there in bed and waiting for him to send her a picture. He looked down his body at the pair of white boxer briefs. What if he had been nude? What would she have said?

JOFF: I'll show you mine if you show me yours.

He needed to get up and hit the gym, but not until she responded. His phone was resting on his chest, and he closed his eyes as he anticipated the vibration of her next message. Whether it was a picture or her chirping him for asking, he'd be satisfied. Five minutes later and he was reaching for his phone with anticipation.

It was a picture angled down her body. The white lace had been the edge of a white satin camisole. He could see a strip of her fair skin between the bottom of the cami and the pair of white panties she had on. Joff swallowed as his eyes traced the little string of fabric that cut across her hip, connecting the front and back of her underwear. He could just make out the slight protrusion of her nipples against the satin top. What he wouldn’t give to wake up to that every Monday morning. Hell, every morning.

He pulled up the camera and adjusted his half hard dick in his boxers. It was pressing against the cotton material, very visible. So Lucy was about to find out what happened when he got a look at her panties.

Notes