Friends Don't Fall in Love(27)
But when I finally open my eyes, wrung-out and half dreamy … the room is dark and still. My body is left unfurled on my navy couch, the moonlight slanting through the windows and my phone discarded on the floor.
I’m completely alone and he was only words.
* * *
The following morning I wake up in my bed, grumpy and a little dehydrated. For the dehydration, I guzzle a tall glass of tap water before popping a pod of caffeine in the Keurig. For the grumpiness, I text my best friends on my walk to my favorite rock-climbing gym.
LORELAI: How do I make someone want to have sex with me?
MAREN: Is this rhetorical?
SHELBY: No, I bet this is Craig Boseman.
LORELAI: I’m positive he almost kissed me on a street corner last night. There was definitely leaning. Maybe even nipple brushing.
SHELBY: eyeballs emoji
MAREN: NOT NIPPLE BRUSHING!
LORELAI: Ha-ha, laugh it up, Beauty Queen.
SHELBY: So lean … more. Seal the deal, Jones.
MAREN: He wrote another poem last night.
LORELAI: OH I KNOW
MAREN: smirk I’ll just bet you do.
SHELBY: Does he know you know he writes those? (whew that’s convoluted) LORELAI: NO. And I don’t know if I can tell him.
LORELAI: It might make him feel weird that I know.
MAREN: Weirder than you knowing makes YOU feel?
LORELAI: Doesn’t make me feel weird. Unless weird is a euphemism for “excessively turned on.”
SHELBY: I’m with Mare. He posts on Instagram. It’s not like he’s writing it in a locked diary or something.
SHELBY: Are you sure you’re not reading into things because you’re actually looking for a repeat of history?
SHELBY: Because it sounds like you might be.
MAREN: No judgment, obviously.
SHELBY: Absolutely not.
LORELAI: Ugh.
LORELAI: See, it worked last time because it scratched multiple itches (ie: Fuck off Drake and also that whole “wonder what it’d be like to have sex with Huck?” thing) LORELAI: with the benefit of getting on a plane the next morning and never having to face him again …
MAREN: No strings attached.
LORELAI: Exactly. The cleanest of breaks.
SHELBY: But now you work together and see each other all the time and also you’re very single, so rebound sex isn’t a thing.
LORELAI: Right. So this would be a fuckbuddies sitch and I saw that movie.
LORELAI: Twice.
LORELAI: It’s super messy. And I don’t want things between Huck and me to ever be messy.
SHELBY: Well, you could, you know, date him. Like for real.
MAREN: Ope!
LORELAI: hyperventilates Not happening.
MAREN: The way I see it, you have two options: Find another fuck buddy to call after Craig’s poetry gets you all hot and bothered or invest in more batteries for your vibrator.
LORELAI: Are those my only choices? Surely we’re forgetting something.
SHELBY: Yeah, you’re forgetting that you could just DATE HIM. You get the orgasms, you get the friend, you get the feelings. It’s win, win, win.
LORELAI: I also get the insecurity, the jealousy, the battling careers, the abandonment issues, the commitment phobia …
LORELAI: Y’all, I can’t go there.
MAREN: RIP your nipples, I guess.
SHELBY: sigh “Hey, Alexa, add ‘send rechargeable batteries to Lorelai’ to my to-do list.”
* * *
Full disclosure: I’m not a stranger to sexting. Back in Michigan, before my last album and before returning to Nashville and before … whatever this is, Drake used to sext me on occasion. And if those occasions lined up with a night I was feeling especially horny or lonely or maybe just empowered because I knew if he was texting me, he wasn’t hooking up with someone else … well, I’d respond. I knew damn well nothing was ever going to come of it. It’s true I thought I really loved him once upon a time, but it turns out I was young and influenced and I don’t know. What I thought was love just faded? Turns out, being left at the metaphorical altar really just squeezed out all the love I had inside of me.
Besides, Drake’s an opportunist. He’s too self-absorbed to put actual effort into loving someone, but if the right situation presents itself, he’ll be the first to jump on it and ride the easy wave.
Which is exactly why the minute, and I mean the very minute, he tried to play the “Baby, I still love you, what are you wearing right now?” card, I quit that shit cold turkey. I might be an idiot who stayed with the guy way longer than I should have, but I needed to learn my lesson only once.
Anyway, I don’t want that with Craig, not the long-distance sexting and not the epically terrible one-sided relationship. As hot as his poetry gets me, there’s a reason the account is anonymous. It’s the same reason he played bass in the shadows instead of up front and center, despite his enormous talent. And the same reason I like him so damn much. I can’t just send him a text saying, “Fingered myself to your poem last night. Want to meet up?”
(Also, meet up where? On our balcony? In our driveway? Want to meet me downstairs in my apartment that you own?) Just. Ugh.
By the time I’ve run all my favorite routes up my favorite wall a half a dozen times, I’m feeling an intense burn in my shoulders that’s gonna follow me into tomorrow and I’ve come up with a plan. It’s not quite so elaborate as “anonymous erotic poetry account,” but it’s close.