This Spells Love(10)

“I murdered him,” I sob. “I did. He was just crawling along minding his own business, and I snuffed the life right out of him.”

“It was just a spider, Gems.”

He doesn’t understand. That spider did nothing wrong. He was just hanging out, trying to put one hairy leg in front of the other, and he got his life demolished. “Yeah, but he probably had a wife.” A terrible thought occurs to me. “Oh my god, what if he had, like, little baby spiders?”

Dax takes the glass from my hand again. “Gems, I think you’re really drunk.”

“I know.” I look down at my naked legs. “Where are my pants?”

Dax takes me by the shoulder and steers me toward my swirly staircase. “You left them at Livi’s. We tried, but you insisted you never wanted to wear pants again.”

Then I remember. “Oh yeah, right, pants are the worst.”

Dax’s hand is on my back as I stumble up the steps. When I look back, I laugh at the sight of his intentionally turned head, doing its best to avoid my underpanted ass. When we reach my room, I swan-dive onto my bed, rolling over to the side. I watch him watching me.

“You should take yours off too, join the movement, Dax.” I kick my liberated legs to illustrate my point.

Dax stands by the stairs, looking uncomfortable. “I don’t think that would be a very good idea.”

I wiggle until I’m sitting up on my elbows. “Why the hell not?”

“Because…” He hesitates. “It just wouldn’t.”

I flip onto my back. “Suit yourself, no-pants party for one.”

I attempt what can most accurately be described as a waterless backstroke until my words seep through the tequila and sink in.

Oh god….

Oh god….

“Oh god.”

I roll my head back toward Dax. “I’m going to die alone, aren’t I?”

He comes to the end of my bed and sits down. “What are you talking about?”

This breakup with Stuart is an omen.

“I am going to be having a one-person no-pants party for the rest of my life.”

The tears return. Rolling and tumbling down my cheeks as I envision a lifetime of tiny closets and Lean Cuisine dinners for one.

“What if Stuart was my person? My one shot at a decent relationship and I fucked it up! Like I hit my peak, and now it’s all downhill.”

Dax reaches out his thumb and wipes a tear from my cheek. “Stuart was not your person.”

“How do you know that?”

“I know.” His voice is so firm. Assured. “Stuart was not the guy.”

“You have to say that because you’re my best friend.”

“No.” He looks up at me with a look I cannot decipher. “It’s because I’m your best friend that I shouldn’t say that.”

Something is off between us. It’s like there’s some invisible tension, and it’s weird and thick like honey. It makes it hard to think. So I default to feeling. Giving in to that big ball of ache that formed in my gut when Stuart gently explained that he’d fallen out of love. The tears multiply. Long gone are the cute movie-screen trickles, replaced with big black mascara-filled drops.

“Hey, hey, hey. Don’t cry.” The pad of Dax’s thumb catches a falling tear, wiping it away.

“I’m trying my best over here, but tequila makes me really, really sad. Can you, like, tell me a joke or something?”

Dax thinks for a moment. “What about a story? It’s about the night we first met.”

I am about to remind him that the night we met is the same night that I met Stuart. The very person I’m not supposed to be thinking about right now. But Dax nudges me with his hip until I move over enough so he can fit his full ass on my bed, and by the time I remember to tell him to stop—he’s already started.

“I was having a pretty shitty day. I was still living in my mom’s basement, and she was making it clear that she wanted to move up north and having her adult son still living at home was cramping her style. And I was still looking for someone to invest in my business so I could finally get it off the ground. And I got dragged out to a birthday party for a guy I didn’t even like. I was miserable. And about ready to head home when I saw this girl at the bar, and somehow I knew that if I talked to her, she’d change my life.

“So…” he continues. “I did. And turned out she was one of the funniest people I’ve ever met.”

“You are talking about me, right?”

He picks up my spare pillow and knocks me with it. “Yes. I’m talking about you. You made an impression.”

His comment is followed by a moment of silence that stretches into two, prompting me to end it.

“Then we became friends and you learned the error of your ways?”

He opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something, then stops and instead brushes a sweaty strand from my forehead and tucks it behind my ear. “I can say that after four years hanging out with you, Gems, there’s no doubt in my mind that you’re the real deal. If there’s a flaw in you, I can’t find it.”

Dax doesn’t do empty compliments. If anything, his love language is affection in the form of well-meaning teasing. So this story, this moment, feels different. “Thank you for saying that.” I reach up and scratch his chin. “Who knew that under all these scruffles was a closet sweetheart.”