You First: A Joe Goldberg Prequel (You, #0)(82)

You again: I’m actually kinda starving and I do love their spinach omelet.

Me: Oh yeah? You gonna wrap soon? I can wait if you want.

I sooned you, and I get silence. Is that bad? Do you want me? It’s 1:12 a.m., and my heart races like Aretha Franklin is inside of me howling, hoping. You said you want me to see your Giuliani poster and I want to tear it off your wall and what the fuck am I doing? Hunched over this laptop when you specifically told me that you want space. You need to learn your lesson—I’m a fucking catch—and for once in our relationship, I have to be the teacher.

I close my new Dell laptop. Let you drown in the soon.

I don’t go to the Twenty-third Street diner, but I do eat six Fruit Roll-Ups. I think I sleep. Maybe?

In the morning, I don’t need to ask Dick for per-fucking-mission. I earned the right to call you, and you know it. You pick up on the first ring.

“Joe! I thought you got kidnapped or something.”

“Ha.” That is payback for your fucking ha. “What’s up?”

“Are you by chance hungry again? I have a little time.”

I am always hungry, but it’s too soon to reward you. “Not just yet.”

“Ah.”

“Ah?”

“Well, I mean, if you don’t want to see me, you don’t want to see me.”

“Vail…”

“Seriously, Joe, it’s fine.” WHY DO YOU SAY IT’S FINE WHEN IT ISN’T FUCKING FINE. You grunt. “I mean, I’m cool.”

“Vail, I’m sorry…. Fuck it. I miss you…” Who let the dogs out? Me. Me. “And I don’t mean that in the needy clingy way but…Where do you want to eat?”

“Shit,” you say. “Work is calling. I’ll let you know when I’m free, okay?”

After you hang up on me, I call in sick to hell. I can’t go to the Virgin Fucking Megastore. I am in my empty loft shaking our snow globe likes it’s a Magic 8 Ball when Dick orders me to report to Sweet and Vicious.

He takes one look at me and orders two J?ger bombs. “Fuck. That. Slut.”

“I didn’t even say anything about her. And she’s not a…Never mind.”

“You don’t have to say it. You look like hell…again. And fuck you too, Goldskin. I warned you. This is what happens when you give a girl a mixtape.”

I hate J?germeister even more than I hate Jim Henson and I hate Sweet and Vicious, but there is nothing that I hate more than me. Two bombs in, he tells me to forget it, you. “Girls like Vail…Do you get it now? She’s a head case, kid. And honestly, I’m psyched for you. You put your foot down. Any girl who puts you in the doghouse isn’t fucking worth it…You’re free.”

“But I don’t want to be free…. Do I call? Even if I just ask for Dubs’s number?”

He’s aloof. Things never change. He’s rating the six girls eyeing him and he knows things, how to make women want him just by sitting at a bar with his laptop in a bag like he’s a big shot. I didn’t bring my laptop. What’s the point of it when I can’t IM with you?

And then he deigns to speak to me. “You should go to the cops.”

I stare at him. The cops?

“Bro, come on…. Technically, it’s statutory rape. For all you know…You should get tested.”

He gets loud like that to make the girls around us think I’m the young dumb one, but he fusses with his brother’s dog tags and it’s hard to feel anything but pity. “She’s clean, Dick. Trust me.”

“When a chick blows you off, she’s probably blowing someone else, Jailbait. Make her pay. Picture it. She’s at work…. The cops show up, that hottie detective from SVU, and they ask questions and she’s banging a minor and…Where is your self-respect, kid?” He elbows me, pulls me so he can whisper. “She gets jammed up, you get over it and you and me hit up some high school dances or some shit.”

I don’t choke him out with his dog tags because he says he’s “just kidding,” but this isn’t fun for me, Vail. I miss you.

He groans. On to the next order of business, a manila folder stuffed with headshots and résumés. “So many actors…so little talent.”

“Are you finally making your movie?”

“Nah. I’m just being the fucking hero. Helping this kid cast his short, but the actors…Someday I gotta learn to say no to people. This kinda thing is below my pay grade….” HE IS A BARISTA, VAIL, A BARISTA! But I’m lucky. If you don’t have a big brother, you can’t lose a big brother and turn into a dick. “This kid is casting off Craigslist because…Whatever. My brother, may he rest in peace…I get it from him. Some kid comes to me for help and ya know…I’m Mr. Yes Man.”

None of that was true and none of it was for me. He says that kinda shit for the girls at the bar, some of whom probably believe that he’s a big shot. It’s kinda funny and kinda sad and kinda…

I throw a twenty on the bar. I can’t get outta there fast enough. Dick shouts, “Don’t call her, Goldberg! She belongs in jail!”

I pump my fist and fly out the door and how did I not think of this sooner, Vail? You know how to get what you want. Once upon a time you went on Craigslist to look for NYC Bookstore Babe. Craig delivers. Always. The man can help a person get anything from a devoted boyfriend to a rape fantasy three-way to…I don’t want to jinx it, Vail.