The Lying Hours Read online

  Me: In one week?

  JB: No. For dinner one night.

  Me: WHAT??? WHO EATS 12 TACOS

  JB: Me?

  Me: What kind were they?

  JB: Uh, steak. You know, the shredded beef. I skip the cheese and load up on lettuce and tomato.

  Me: Ahhh, to make the taco healthier. Good plan **wink**

  JB: Are you being sarcastic?

  Me: Yes? Not on purpose?

  Me: I had pizza for dinner if that makes you feel better, and I’m waiting for my roomie to come home with chips and salsa to wash it all down with. She’s taking forever.

  Me: The sooner she gets back, the sooner I can go sit on the couch and OMG you probably think that’s all I do—watch TV. IT’S NOT. I swear I do other things. LOL

  JB: Do you jog or run or anything like that?

  Me: Actually, yes. I run—mostly walk—a few times a week. I have to or I’ll never fit into my leggings, haha.

  JB: Maybe we could run together sometime.

  Me: I don’t know if I’d be able to keep up. I’m a light jogger. Mostly I stare at birds and dodge anyone on roller blades.

  Me: And stop to pet dogs.

  JB: Oh god.

  Me: What? Not a dog person?

  JB: I am, I just…you stop to pet every dog?

  Me: Yeah? You don’t?!

  JB: Uh, NO. It would take forever to run a mile!

  Me: **grumbles under breath** I know, tell me about it…

  Me: They like the bacon I keep in my pockets!

  JB: You are killing me.

  Me: I’m kidding about the bacon BTW

  JB: I figured, but you never know…

  Me: LOL that’s true.

  I hear the front door of our apartment open and close then the deadbolt being slid into place.

  Hannah is back with the snacks.

  My mouth waters.

  Me: Um. My roommate is back, I’m going to go say hey.

  JB: And eat?

  Me: Yes, and eat, LOL

  JB: Cool.

  JB: So…Wednesday?

  Me: Sure. Shoot me the details?

  JB: Do you want me to text them to you?

  What? No way! I like talking to this guy, but he could still end up being a creep in real life.

  Me: No, here is fine. Does 7 work for you?

  JB: Works for me.

  Me: Great.

  JB: Do you have a place in mind, or…

  Me: No, you choose. I’m pretty easygoing since it’s just drinks.

  JB: Do you know where McGuillicudy’s is?

  He wants to meet me at an Irish burger bar? One with sticky floors and crappy food? Maybe that was a typo and he wants to meet somewhere else.

  Me: That bar on Main?

  JB: That’s the one. 7 on Wednesday?

  Me: Uh. Sure.

  JB: Sweet.

  “Skylar, you still here?” Hannah’s knuckles rap on my bedroom door, her knee slowly pushing it open. “Oh good, you’re not in here diddling yourself. I’d hate to walk in on that.”

  I roll my eyes and set my cell phone down. “When have I ever done that?”

  “You should. Not that I want to see it, I’m just saying—you should.”

  “Why are we discussing this?”

  My roommate shrugs, a brown paper bag propped on one hip. “I brought you treats.”

  “You gonna hang out with me? Friends don’t let friends snack alone.”

  “Yeah, I bought myself ice cream, so…”

  “What kind?”

  “Cookies and cream.”

  Gross. That’s my least favorite and she knows it. “Did you buy that so I wouldn’t eat it?”

  “Yes.” She laughs.

  “You bitch!”

  Hannah laughs again, adjusting the weight of the bag. “I’m changing into pajamas. Couch in five.”

  “Good, because I have something to tell you,” I say cryptically, wiggling my eyebrows.

  I almost never have news to share, and her perfectly manicured brows go up, interested.

  “Is that so?”

  “Yup. Now go away so I can change, too.”

  “I’m going, I’m going…” The door closes behind her and I make short work of removing my jeans and sweater, swapping the outfit out for pajama pants and a baggy Iowa sweatshirt.

  Sex appeal has never been my thing; there’s no telling if I’ll ever master the art.

  Unlike Hannah, who’s sitting in the living room, already lounging in a matching, pretty pink satin top and bottom combo, hair in an adorably messy top knot and looking perfect.

  I drag my eyes down my body begrudgingly, the plaid flannel bottoms I stole from my brother dragging across the carpet. Which, by the way, he totally bitched about once he realized I’d taken them.

  Pfft, like he doesn’t have ten more pairs. That’s all the dude wears to bed, isn’t it?

  I plop my unsexy self down next to my goddess of a roommate and nudge her with my knee, popping a chip into my mouth from the open bag she’s holding out in front of me like a feed bag. A bowl of cookies and cream ice cream is propped in her other hand. Like I’m going to eat it. As if.

  I pop another chip into my mouth.

  One or two crumbs fall from my mouth before I get any words out. “So, as I was saying—I have a life update.”

  Hannah rubs our shoulders together. “It’s about time! Is this about a guy? Did you do the thing?”

  “The LoveU app? Yeah, I did the thing I said I wasn’t going to do.”

  “Andddd…?”

  “And there’s this guy—”

  Hannah immediately interrupts. “Already? Let me see him.”

  My hand goes up, hoping she’ll cool her jets. “Can you just be patient?

  “You’re going to show him to me, right? I need to see right now.”

  I haven’t even gotten six words of the story out. “As I was saying, we’ve been talking for a few days. He’s a junior here and he’s on the wres—”

  “He goes to school here? Did you recognize him right away?” Hannah has ice cream in her mouth, and I can see it melted on her tongue, white and slimy. It’s grossing me out.

  “Oh my god, stop interrupting!” She is seriously so obnoxious. Didn’t her mother teach her any manners?

  “I can’t help how excited I am.” Now she’s bouncing on the couch cushions like a little kid. “Sorry not sorry.”

  I grimace. “No one says sorry not sorry out loud. That’s a hashtag.”

  Hannah also overuses the acronyms LOL and OMG when speaking, along with the term low-key, which drives me insane.

  “I can say it out loud if I want to, bossy pants. Stop trying to distract me by scolding. Finish what you were going to say before I interrupted.”

  That makes me giggle, despite irritation.

  She is pretty stinkin’ adorable.

  I settle in, repositioning myself so I’m sitting cross-legged, bag of chips in my lap and salsa strategically positioned within reach. If I’m going to tell her all the details, I must be comfortable.

  I start from the beginning. Again.

  “So even though I said I would never do it, I downloaded the stupid dating app. I made up some bullshit profile bio because I didn’t know what to say, added a few basic pictures—”

  “You didn’t crop me out of any, did you?”

  I shrug, guilty.

  “Number one rule of online dating: do not use cropped photos.”

  What? I’ve never heard of that rule.

  “Why?” I pop a chip and chew, seriously wanting to know the answer.

  “Because. A guy might think you’re cropping out an old boyfriend or something.”

  “Then he’s an idiot.”

  “Who?”

  “Any guy whose brain goes to that place.” I add an eye roll to emphasize just how lame this fictional person is. “Anyway, as I was saying…”

  Hannah gives her hand a flippant wave, her ice cream spoon airily wafting about. “Ple
ase proceed.”

  “At first I had a ton of guys swiping on me. My inbox had, like, thirty guys in it. Not a single one was decent.”

  “I can imagine.” Hannah shudders, shoveling dessert into her face.

  “But then…” I pause dramatically. “Then JB swiped on me.”

  “BJ?” My friend wrinkles her pert little nose.

  “No. JB.”

  “B J stands for blowjob.”

  Jesus. Could she not? “That’s not at all what his name is.”

  “But that’s probably what I’m going to call him.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “Too late. He’ll forever be known as Blowjob.”

  “Why are you like this?”

  “Don’t date someone with the initials BJ and I won’t make jokes about it.”

  “We haven’t been out on a date, and that’s not the order of his initials.” At this point, there is nothing I can do. My friend is a beast, and I know she’s going to run with this information as far as she can. Not only that, there is no doubt in my mind she’s going to tell Jessica and Bethany, and they’re going to start calling the poor guy Blowjob, too.

  Eff my life.

  “He seems really fun. And smart—so smart.”

  “What’s his major?”

  “Business.”

  Hannah groans. “So generic. That could be anything.”

  “My major is business, you asshole.”

  For the record, so is hers.

  “Duh, I didn’t say it wasn’t. I just said it was generic.”

  Fine. She wins that round. “He’s also an athlete.”

  “Which sport?”

  “Wrestling.”

  She considers this, tilting her head to the side in thought. “I wonder if his ears are all jacked up.”

  “Why would his ears be all jacked up?”

  “They wear those head things that squish their ears, that’s why. You would think their moms put them on when they’re born—that’s how funky their ears look. No way can those ear guards jack their shit up that much after only a few years of wearing them. I bet it’s from not wearing them that makes their ears all funkadelic.”

  The way her brain works…

  She scares me sometimes.

  “I saw a few of his pictures, but I didn’t notice if his ears were wonky or not.”

  “Bet they are.”

  “Guess we’ll see,” I intone cryptically.

  “So you’re going out with him?”

  “Yes.”

  “What!” she shouts. “When?”

  “Wednesday.”

  That nose of hers wrinkles again. “Wednesday? Why not Friday? Why not Saturday?”

  “I don’t know, Hannah. He said Wednesday! And I didn’t have anything going on, so I said yes—why are you being hysterical about it?”

  “Dating rule number two: guys who want to see you during the week are trying to keep their weekend wide open for something better. Everyone knows that.”

  “Would you stop saying that?”

  “It’s a fact.”

  “Where are you getting these ‘facts’?”

  “When it comes to dating, I’m like Yoda—I just know stuff.” Her shoulders bob up and down in a shrug. “And now you know for next time. No more midweek dates. You are a weekend date kind of girl.”

  My lips twitch.

  “Right. I’ll keep that in mind.” I shoot her a look that says I won’t be keeping that in mind, but thanks anyway for the advice. “Am I allowed to continue talking?”

  “Yeah, tell me more. What does he look like?”

  I want to show her pictures, but I also don’t need her going online and stalking him before I’ve had the chance to do it myself.

  So I just tell her, “He’s gorgeous.”

  Really gorgeous, as a matter of fact. Handsome in a rugged kind of way, if his photos aren’t lying.

  “Be more specific.” Hannah pronounces the word specific like pacific, which drives me cuckoo. But I won’t get into that right now.

  “Dark blond hair—”

  She interrupts with a drawn-out, “Hmmm…”

  “Now what?”

  A diminutive shrug. “It’s just that I’ve never met a dude with blond hair I thought was attractive.”

  “JB is an attractive blond.”

  “Blowjob is an attractive blond, you mean?” She chuckles like the troll she is. “I’ll have to take your word for it since you’re obviously not going to show me his pictures.”

  “If I show you his picture, you’re going to stalk him on every social media site you can find him on.”

  “True, but it’s not like I can’t find him without your help. You’ve already told me his name and given me his hair color, and you told me he wrestles. It will take me three seconds to find him.”

  “Well wait until you’re alone in your bedroom, would ya?”

  “Fine. I’ll wait to stalk him.”

  “And don’t give me shit about it, because I haven’t gone out with him and the date could totally suck, and I’ll never hear the end of it.” There’s still time for him to cancel on me, too.

  “The date isn’t going to suck.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because you’re glowing, and you never glow.”

  Am I glowing? “Gee, thanks.”

  “I can’t lie to you, Sky. You only glow when you’re wearing tons of blush, which is a look we try to avoid. Ruddy doesn’t look good on anyone, least of all you.”

  “Gee. Thanks.”

  “My point is, you practically skipped out of your bedroom, so that must mean something, yeah?”

  She’s right.

  She knows I spend most of my time daydreaming about my future, one where I have it all. A partner and a career and—maybe someday—a child or two?

  Daydreaming is food for the soul, my grandmother used to tell me. Don’t be stingy with your dreams, Skylar. Close your eyes and imagine…

  Closing my eyes and imagining myself somewhere else has never been the problem for me; keeping my feet planted firmly on the ground has. Staying focused instead of getting distracted has.

  When I was younger, on family road trips, I’d sit in the back seat of my parents’ car and lean my head against the window. Close my eyes and think. Write stories in my head, plot out romances—if I were to write one. I would never read—I’d get too carsick for that—so instead, I daydreamed the days away while my dad drove. Hours and hours I would sit, thinking—never sleeping.

  Daydreaming.

  Writing in journals. Notebooks.

  Notes and phrases and stories. A diary of sorts, fiction woven between the pages and in the words.

  It’s probably not a good thing, because…well, here we are.

  Mediocre grades.

  Mediocre love life.

  Hopeless romantic in a world where guys don’t call anymore. They’d rather slide into your inbox. Or send you a picture of their dick.

  To be fair, I’ve never been on the receiving end of a dick pic, which in itself is rather insulting.

  Am I not dick pic worthy?

  How rude. At least send me one so I can act disgusted, tell all my friends, and then delete it.

  Dick pic FOMO, Bethany once called it.

  “I am pretty excited.”

  “Where are you going for this Wednesday date of yours?”

  God, I don’t even want to tell her. She’s going to judge JB for his choice, and then she’s going to judge me for agreeing to it.

  “I don’t want to say,” I admit.

  Her brows go up and her mouth falls open. “Why?”

  “You’re going to get judgy.”

  “Oh honey, I’m judging you anyway. Because I’m your friend and that’s what friends do.”

  I laugh, pointing out the obvious. “Actually, that’s the opposite of what friends do.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  I do. Hannah is the least judgmental person I know, and o
ne of the sweetest. If I asked her to come along on this date, she would. If I asked her to hide in the bushes wearing camouflage, she would do it.

  If I asked her never to utter another syllable about this date again—well, she’d never do that, so it would be pointless to ask.

  “He wants to meet at McGuillicudy’s.”

  “McGuillicudy’s?” She asks like she heard me incorrectly, her inflection indicating disbelief. “The bar.”

  “Yeah.”

  “The burger joint right next to campus, where they have wild parties and dye the beer green, where some guy went down on Tamara Stewart in the hall by the bathrooms freshman year?”

  Tamara was in Hannah’s sorority before she transferred schools. “The very same.”

  “McGuillicudy’s. The bar.”

  “Is there an echo in here?”

  “You can’t be serious. Does this guy have any class?”

  Apparently not. “You said you weren’t going to judge me.”

  “No I didn’t—I said I was going to, and I am. Because he’s taking you to a dive bar.”

  “In his defense—”

  Hannah flops her ice cream spoon in my direction, almost bopping me on the nose with the end of it. “No. You and I both know that’s a shitty place to take a first date.”

  “Maybe so,” I admit reluctantly. “But we both also know the whole thing could end up going south, and why go to a decent place and waste time if we hate each other?”

  “You get two points for making a semi-decent point. However!” Her spoon rises. “How. Ever. There are way better places than an Irish pub. Literally any other place, Skylar.” My roommate takes a lick of her spoon. “So he either plans to ditch you halfway through the date, has friends planning on crashing the date, or he’s just a fucking idiot—which one do you think it is?”

  “I don’t think he’s an idiot. I think he’s a guy.”

  “Let’s not be blaming his lack of dating aptitude on his gender. He’s probably been on forty LoveU dates, and he’s taken them all to that stupid bar.”

  “JB isn’t like that.”

  “You don’t even know him.”

  “I’m getting to know him! I’m trying! You’re the one who made me download the freaking app, Hannah!”

  “I’m not the one who told you to agree to McGuillicudy’s! The place is a cheap knockoff of the liquor brand! And not even a decent one! The owner asked Jessica on a date once—do you know how old that dude is? Forty-three! He’s ancient! God, gag me.”

  Could she be any more dramatic? “Forty-three is not ancient.”