Dave Loves Alexis

Chapter 6 - Alexis’s Conscience

On Monday in the evening, Dave drove to Alexis’ apartment and picked her up, as they had decided beforehand it would look more convincing if they came to her therapy session in the same vehicle. Alexis was nervous; Dave seemed more sure. He told her again he thought they were ready.

They arrived at the office parking lot, got out, and walked to the building. Dave, without consciously thinking about it, reached the door first, opened it, but then waited for her to go in first; all of which made her laugh. He was such a geeky Dudley-Do-Right at times.

They checked in with the receptionist and took a seat in the waiting room. They were on time, but Dr. Magil was running late. Alexis shot looks at the clock overhead while bouncing her leg up and down from her toe.

Dave reached over and took her hand, “Relax Doll, it’s going to be fine.”

She laughed at his stupid pet name and cheesy handhold, but she was surprised when he didn’t let go. His hand was sandpapery and warm. She had never been much of a hand holder, but his hand felt natural. She was surprised by how much she liked it, even if it was just for show.

Eventually his hand grew a little moist. “Your hand’s getting sweaty,” she said.

He rolled his eyes and said, “Happens every time I get around a pretty girl.”

“Aww,” she said, then she cringed at herself. Somehow Dave was able to elicit these moronic awws from herself.

But he snapped her out of this when he said, “No, not you! The receptionist!”

Alexis was laughing (as the receptionist was absolutely ancient) when Dr. Magill opened his door. She tried to cut off her laughter, but Dr. Magil heard it and he raised an eyebrow at her. He motioned for them to come in. Dave held her hand until they reached the door, then released it so they could pass through. Dave surprised her when he took a seat on the love seat couch.

Alexis stood there a moment, and then she, rather demurely, sat down on the couch too. She felt very feminine and warm inside. ‘Focus girl,’ she thought.

Dr. Magil took a seat in front of them. Dave and Dr. Magil introduced themselves and shook hands. Dave said, “I’d apologize for the sweaty palm, but it’s actually Alexis’s fault.” Alexis again tried to suppress a laugh, but failed.

Again Dr. Magil raised an eyebrow. He waited for them to start, but they were waiting for him to begin. He thought for a bit and said, “Honestly, this is somewhat of a different situation for me as a psychiatrist. Usually with couples’ sessions, we would be addressing the challenges in the relationship. I suppose we could start there. Do you have anything you two would like to talk about relationship wise?”

Alexis’s girlie feelings instantly left her. With you?” she asked. “Hell no.”

Dr. Magil raised an eyebrow. “So there are no issues or problems between the two of you that you’d like to discuss?”

Alexis quickly said, “Well of course we have problems. We argue. But that’s not the purpose of this meeting and we don’t want to talk about those now.”

“That’s understandable, Alexis. But maybe Dave would like to discuss some issues,” said Dr. Magil.

‘Fuck,’ thought Alexis.

Dave looked at her. He smiled. He said, “We do have our conflicts. But so far we’ve been pretty good at figuring things out on our own. I promise though, if there comes a time when we don’t, you’ll be the first to know and we’ll come back for a couples session.”

‘Damn,’ thought Alexis. ‘That was pretty good.’

Dr. Magil said nothing for a bit, so Dave added, “Actually there is one thing that’s been bothering me a little. If we happen to run into somebody while we’re out and about, and so we have to justify why we are together, she always answers for both of us, and she always emphasizes we are just hanging out. It’s kind of emasculating…”

Alexis laughed at this, she couldn’t help it. She quickly added, “I didn’t know that. I’ll try not to do that so often.”

Dave said, “It doesn’t bother me so much I can’t live with it.” He thought, then added, “We both know you wear the pants in the relationship, babe.”

Alexis laughed and thought, ‘He is really friggin’ good at this.’ Even Dr. Magil chuckled.

Dr. Magil said, “All right. Well, let’s proceed with the burning issue at hand. Dave, I don’t know if Alexis told you but the primary reason you’re here is to confirm that you are her boyfriend, and have been so for a while now.”

Dave nodded his head and said, “Yes, she told me.”

Dr. Magill pulled out his notebook and began to take notes. He said, “Did she tell you why it’s important for me, as her therapist, to know that she has been in a romantic relationship with you?”

Alexis's nervousness and anger were growing. Dave said, “No, she didn’t.”

Alexis said, “Dr. Magil, I really hope you’re not thinking about breaking the sacrosanct, age-old patient-therapist confidentiality agreement.”

Dr. Magill leaned back a little in his chair and raised his eyes from his notebook to look at her. “No, I’m not,” he said. “But I think you should. This should have been something that you’ve already shared by this time in your relationship.”

“Well, I wholeheartedly disagree,” said Alexis. “And if and when I do decide to tell him, it won’t be in front of you. So very sorry, Dr. Charlie.”

As Dr. Magill wrote in his notebook, he asked, “Are you OK with that, Dave?”

“I am. Alexis has been opening up to me more and more as time has gone on, so I suppose when she thinks the time is right, she will. Besides that, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about her, and come to accept, is there’s no making her do something she doesn’t want to do,” Dave said.

Dr. Magil nodded his head and Alexis thought she could just see a little ‘I hear you, brother’ smile on his face for a second as he wrote in his notebook. Sometimes she felt the urge to slap Dr. Magil. She felt that urge right now. Plus Dave was now pissing her off too, with his bonding with Dr. Magil over her supposed difficult personality.

Dr. Magil finished writing his thoughts. He looked up at the two of them. “OK, so I suppose I’ll just ask you some questions to validate your claim.” He paused for a moment, as if expecting some protest from Alexis, but he got none. “How did you two meet?” he asked.

‘Awesome,’ she thought, ‘we’ve covered this already’. Dave looked at her, either one of them could have fielded that question. Alexis felt she should tell it, so she spoke. She told Dr. Magil that they had met at the gym. It was pretty much the same story of how they had actually met at the gym, except she said the event had happened six months ago and she omitted the part of how she was going to ask him for a favor.

When she was done Dr. Magil asked Dave if this was all true. Dave said, “Yes, with the exception that she’s making it sound like I was after her. She was all over me and made eyes at me right from the start.”

Dr. Magil chuckled and Alexis said, “Ha, ha, very funny.” She was getting pissed off at the two of them even more.

Dr. Magil said, “I’d like to look at your driver’s license, Dave.”

Alexis was about to protest, but Dave said, “Sure,” as he gave her an ‘it’s ok’ nod. Dave was pretty sure Dr. Magil was just making sure his name was actually Dave.

Dave handed his license to Dr. Magil. Dr. Magil looked at it. “Alexis, do you know when Dave’s birthday is?”

Under different circumstances such a question from him would have sent her ape shit mad, but he was playing right into their preparations. She told him.

Dr. Magil looked a little surprised. “Do you know what day Alexis was born?” he asked Dave. Dave told him.

Dr. Magil flipped to the front of Alexis’s folder. Again he looked surprised. She was gleeful, Dr. Magil was going right to where they hoped he would.

Dr. Magil sat back and looked at them. She could tell that now he looked at them as if he was beginning to consider that her claim of having a boyfriend for the last six months wasn’t a fabrication, and might actually be the truth.

Dr. Magil set her folder down and he leaned back in his chair. After a pause he said, “OK, so since questions about what may be challenging or problematic you in your relationship are out of bounds, why don’t the two of you tell me what is good about your relationship.”

‘Uh-oh,’ she thought. ‘We are getting off script here.’

Dave looked at her, trying to gauge who should go first. She shrugged at him little as if to say, ‘It’s your call.’

Dave was quiet for a bit, and then he smiled. He said, “I think the thing I like most about her is how funny she is. She’s very witty and quick, and she cracks the funniest off the cuff jokes. I’ve never met anyone who gets me laughing more than her, which is new to me because honestly, I find most of the other women to be pretty dull and boring, and not funny or amusing at all.”

Dr. Magil chuckled at this, and Alexis couldn’t believe that these two idiots were now bonding in a sexist way. She blurted out, “That’s wonderful Dave, but no worries there. You can still hang onto that outdated, chauvinistic notion. You see, my super, big, secret is that I used to be a man. A stinky, stupid, sexist man. I used to be a horse’s ass of a man, just like you two are, and that’s why I’m such a fucking hoot.”

Dave laughed heartily at this, and he pointed to Alexis while looking at Dr. Magil with a ‘see what I mean’ look on his face. Dr. Magill laughed too. Indeed, Alexis had never seen Dr. Magil laugh so much. He actually seemed to be enjoying himself. She shook her head in disgust at the two of them. It was hard for her to hold her tongue and not tell them off some more.

Dr. Magil composed himself and asked (in what Alexis thought was more for his personal amusement rather than his professional interest), “OK, so what else do you like about her?”

Dave said, “Well, let’s see.” He thought for a time and said, “She has brightened up my life since I met her. Like I said, she’s just so funny and she gets me laughing, which puts me at complete ease around her. Honestly, any day that we’ve had plans to meet, it’s been something that I’ve looked forward to all day long. For the last few years my life and my job had become such slogs before I met her. Now, I don’t mind either at all. She’s really smart, and she can be downright insightful at times, which has actually helped me with problems at work. And...I don’t know, I just enjoy seeing her. It’s a relief to spend time with her after work. I guess what I’m saying is I really enjoy her company. I enjoy her company a lot.”

Alexis’s anger at Dave melted away instantly. Dave said all this so convincingly, she wondered if this was actually true. It made her feel weird, in a good way. It had been a very long time since anyone had praised her, for anything.

Dr. Magil nodded his head. “Good. OK, Alexis, what do you find affirming about Dave.”

Alexis, who was still mad at Dr. Magil, said, “Well, first of all he doesn’t go around saying ridiculously pompous things like “find affirming” around me.” Given the context of the situation Dave was uncomfortable by her verbal jabs to Dr. Magil’s authority, but Dr. Magil, who knew Alexis better, wasn’t put off by them.

“Alright,” he said. “Why do you like, or even love, Dave?”

‘Damn it’ Alexis thought. The way he rephrased his question actually made it harder for her to answer. She was freezing up. She looked at Dave. He was looking at her like he knew her pain and he smiled a little at her in sympathy. And with that sympathetic smile she had it. She thought back to Walt from the gym and she thought about why he was here with her, in this absurd situation, right now.

“He’s a good man,” she said. “He helps other people out, even to the point that it might burn him. He’s empathetic, and he brings out the good in people.”

“Does he bring out the good in you?” Dr. Magil asked.

Dr. Magil’s question stabbed her with guilt. She shook her head, thinking about how Dave was here now, pretending to be her boyfriend. He wasn’t bringing out the good in her. The opposite was the case. She had dragged him down into her underworld of deception and lies that she had been shelling out for most of her life. She felt ashamed and hated herself for it. She finally said, “What little good there is in me, he does.”

Dave wrinkled his brow and looked at her as he shook his head. “That’s not true at all. There’s a lot of good in you. And you don’t need me to bring it out of you, either,” he said. He said it with conviction, without hesitation, and directly to her, as if Dr. Magil was not present. He said it as if her words had caused him distress because of their untruth.

She nodded her head a little and said, “If you say so,” Then she smiled a little at Dave’s attempt to build her up, but she wasn’t feeling it at all. She was starting to freak out. She was sick of how her lies had piled up from all the years and led her to this moment now, where she was still doing the same old wrong thing. Her stomach felt incredibly icky inside and she thought she might vomit. She was cracking and she hated herself for it. Plus Dave had done such a surprisingly, amazing job with snowing Dr. Magil, she thought they were about three seconds away from pulling this shit off. But her conscience was getting a firm hold on her and she didn’t want to go down this stupid road any further. She started to silently cry.

Dr. Magil saw her tears first, and then Dave did. She could see the shock, followed by the look of concern on Dave’s face. He turned to her and asked, “What’s wrong?”

She lowered her eyes as she couldn’t look at him. She tried to fight back the tears, but the sloppy drops kept falling, making big wet spots on her jeans. “I can’t do this, Dave. I’m sorry. I’m going to come clean here. I’m really sorry you wasted your time with all this. Are you OK with that?” she asked

He said quietly but decisively, “Yeah...yeah, I am.”

She started crying audibly and said to Dr. Magil, “Dave, isn’t my boyfriend. He isn’t my boyfriend at all.” She got a hold on herself somewhat, then said, “Dave, I don’t want to do this in front of you. Would you please leave?”

He said softly, “Of course.” He stood and walked to the door. “I’ll be waiting for you in the car,” he said to her. Then he left the room, closing the door behind him.


About a half an hour later Alexis made her way out of the building’s door and toward Dave’s car. He thought she looked dazed and drained. She opened his car door and got in. “Thanks, for waiting. I wasn’t even sure you’d be here when I got outside.”

He said, “Well I was thinking about leaving, but some pretty good tunes came on the radio, so I decided to wait you out.” He put his car into gear and started driving to her apartment. “So what happened?” he asked.

“I told him everything,” she said. “I told him you weren’t my boyfriend, and about how I only met you a couple of weeks ago and how you agreed to help me. I even confessed how we studied in order to try and pull it off. I’m so sorry that I put you through all that, completely wasting your time only to have me puss out and blow it all up.”

“It’s OK,” said Dave. “I’m just sorry you’re going to have another year of therapy to deal with. What did Dr. Magil say?”

“So here’s the weird thing,” she said. “He said while he’s going to recommend more therapy for me, he said he’s going to cut back on what he was originally going to request. He’s going to recommend to my probation officer that he only needs to see me for six more months and only twice a month.”

“Alexis, that’s great!” said Dave. “That will take up a lot less of your time. Why in the world did he decide that?”

She answered, “He said a lot of things. Let’s see. He said that while our original deception was quite alarming, he said that me ultimately not being able to go through with it, and owning up to it, was a growth step. A “breakthrough in trust and truthfulness” is how I think he put it. He said that he wasn’t unsympathetic to the fact that my therapy sessions were causing me problems with my time and finances either. He said while he wasn’t necessarily super comfortable with his decision, he was willing to take this chance for me so long as I continued to be honest with him, and if I promise to make all of my future meetings. It didn’t hurt that he had gotten my latest drug test results just before we met with him either. They were clean, just like the last four have been. I piled on with that theme and gave him my grades from last semester from school. I got a B in probability and statistics and an A minus in psychology. He took credit for the good psych grade and he told me I probably should think about taking an ethics class in the future. Ha, ha. Anyway, he thought all that was good and factored that into his decision too.”

“Hey, that’s great,” Dave said as he tried to cheer her up. “It might not have happened like we wanted, but it’s all real good.” Nevertheless, Alexis seemed subdued and wan to him, despite that what he was hearing sounded like a bunch of good news.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I just had a complete emotional breakdown. I feel pretty fucked up. Maybe more therapy is exactly what I need. Jesus Christ, I am one fucked up mess.”

“Well, if you change your mind, I’m sure you can always go back to seeing him more often,” Dave said as they pulled into her apartment building’s driveway and he parked the car.

She seemed to wake herself a little from her daze. She turned toward Dave and said, “Thank you so much for helping me. I really appreciate it. I can’t think of anyone who would have spent so much of his time to help me out. I have no idea how I’ll ever repay you. Hopefully someday I’ll be able to do something to help you in return. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “I’d invite you in, but I’m feeling really awful and I think I need to be alone, OK?”

He nodded his head, “Alright,” he said. “Just do me a favor and text me before you hit the hay, OK?”

She nodded her head and left his car. Dave pulled away and headed home. Her mind was running with different, wild thoughts. She was thinking that she had wanted to invite him in and she was really liking how good he was making her feel. Dave was fun and nice and normal, in a good way. She was beginning to crave time with him. And she thought back to the last thing Dr. Magil had said to her at the end of the session, something that she didn’t tell Dave. Dr. Magil had told her that the last reason he was willing to lower her number of future sessions was that she did have a boyfriend. She repeated that Dave wasn’t her boyfriend. Dr. Magil chuckled, shook his head at her and said, “He did all that planning and prepping with you. He lied for you, and by your own account that is not something he would normally do for someone, right? By the way, everything you’ve said about him since he left has been very complimentary. I have to say it is refreshing to hear you talk about somebody, anybody, in favorable terms, particularly about their character. As such, I think you do have a boyfriend, Alexis, and he’s outside waiting for you, right now. I’ll see you next Monday at six.”

She thought about this and she thought about Dave. She knew this was something that needed to be squashed and pronto. She was going to have to stop seeing him and she was going to have to stop thinking about him. That evening, however, she failed miserably, and her thoughts were of him right up to the moment that she texted him three hours later. She texted him that she was feeling much better and he didn’t need to worry about her at all. Both were lies.


They exchanged texts and calls during the next few days. Dave was always the first to text or call and she tried to answer in a way that was respectful, polite and gracious, but not encouraging, as if she really wasn’t that interested in him. But that was not how she was feeling. When she was cleaning houses she often found herself thinking of him. At the BurgerShank she messed up a bunch of orders one day because she couldn’t get him out of her mind. When her boss reprimanded her for her mistakes, she lashed out at him by saying, “It isn’t any fucking big deal. Those spoiled customers can take three seconds out of their extremely busy lives to pick those onions off of their cheeseburgers, or live with the fact they didn’t get the extra pickles, for Christ’s sake. They’re fucking five dollar cheeseburgers and they should be grateful for whatever they get.” Needless to say her boss did not give her a raise and a promotion on the spot.

But when she sat in her British Literature class the next day and realized that she hadn’t heard a word her professor had been droning on about for the last fifteen minutes because she had been occupying herself with the extremely important task of daydreaming about Dave like she was some puppy-love smitten, obsessed, seventh grader, she knew she was doomed.

But her tepid, noncommittal responses to his overtures were working. The next day he didn’t call or text her at all. Her self disgust was at a near high when she realized she wished he had.

The day after that he did text her though. It read, “This will be my last feeble attempt for some of your delightful company. What do you say to some tennis tomorrow, then we get a bite to eat after?”

She stared at the text. She could be done, she could be out. All she had to do was say ‘no’ in some diplomatic fashion. Somehow she knew that this was, indeed, his last try at her. All she had to do was text him back some lame excuse.

But she couldn’t. What he had suggested was exactly what she wanted to do. It sounded fun as hell. She did want to play tennis with him (she hadn’t played a lick since high school), she did want to eat with him afterwards. She did want to see him. She just knew it would be exactly the perfect diversion she needed from all the rest of the shitty things she had to do in her shitty life. She didn’t want to fight it any longer. She texted back, “You know I played in high school. If we do, I'll completely kick your ass.”

“Sure, Serena, sure.” he texted back a moment later. “Just let me know what time tomorrow that you are available to completely kick my ass.”

She typed, “How’s 6:00 sound?”

“Awesome, I’ll pick you up,” he texted back. “It’s a date. That’s what I’m going to brag to all the guys, anyway.”

She smiled and went to her closet and dug out her tennis rackets. They were dusty. She used to love playing so much. She was excited she was going to play again and she was excited that someone wanted to play with her. And she was really, really excited that that person was Dave.


Chapter 7 - The Date

When Dave showed up at ten of six at her apartment the next day he was riding his rumbly, growling motorcycle. He had his racket slung over his back. Alexis shot him a strange look as she descended her steps to meet him in the parking lot.

He dialed his bike down, but didn’t turn it off. “Hey, are you all ready?” he asked.

“You don’t actually think we’re going to the courts on that thing, do you?” she said pointing to his bike.

“Sure I do. This is what crazy kids like us are supposed to do. Just hop on behind me and grab onto me tight. It’ll be fun. Especially the grabbing on tight part.”

She did not move or say anything.

Dave said, “You know you have to. This is all part of my plan, you know. To impress you with my manliness and reel you in with my fun loving spirit. It’s a short ride to the courts, Alexis. It’s a beautiful day for a ride.” He looked around, drinking in the sun, the trees and the birds. “It’s gorgeous.” He looked back at her and then he drunk her in. “Well, not as gorgeous as you, but nearly so.” He looked at her some more. “You can’t blame the day for not being as gorgeous as you though. I mean you can’t put extremely flattering shorts on a day,” he said, ogling her long legs.

“Christ, you are a pig. And I thought you were different,” she said, although she was now actually considering getting on.

Dave said nothing. He just sat there for a moment. Then he revved his bike just a bit and let it settle into idle again. He shot a look at her, then he tipped his head behind him to indicate where he wanted her to be.

“Oh, alright,” she said disgustedly. He handed her a helmet and she put it on. She put both of their rackets over her shoulder and by the time she climbed up behind him he was singing (more like butchering), “If I only had one helmet I would give it to you, give it to you. Cruising down Broadway, girl, what a wonderful view, wonderful view...”

“Your singing’s brutal,” she said.

“Grab onto my waist,” he said to her. She did. “All the way around and tighter than that,” he corrected. She put her arms all the way around his torso and held him hard.

“Good,” he said. He wiggled his body a little with pleasure. “Hmmm, me likey,” he said.

“Just go,” she said. “I don’t want the rubbernecking neighbors to see.”

Dave started toward the courts. He went slow and safe, which she knew he was doing for her benefit. She liked the breeze and the sun. It felt good. And she liked the feel of his body against hers. Damn, the boy might not be able to sing on key, but he sure had some rock hard abs. She leaned and settled into him more about halfway there, and that felt really friggin’ good too. A few minutes later they arrived at the courts, and she was a little disappointed when she had to let go of him and get off.


Night had already fallen by the time they rumbled back to her apartment. Dave pulled into a parking spot and shut his motorcycle off. Alexis got off and said, “I would invite you in, but I have to get up super early to clean houses. Then I have class. Plus, I know you have to get up early too. I’m sorry.”

“I really didn’t want to come in anyway,” said Dave, obviously lying.

She laughed while flashing a smile. Then she said shyly, “Thank you for the rides, the tennis, and for dinner. I had a really great time,” she said.

“My pleasure,” he said. “Anytime you want to do something, I’m at your beck and call.”

She looked at him for a while and he looked wicked handsome to her. She said, “How about tomorrow, after we’re done with our shit?”

He smiled broadly. He blew onto his fist and rubbed it on his chest. “I’m very addictive, aren’t I? I mean in addition to being extremely athletic and all,” he said, then laughed his own joke.

“Athletic?!” she said as she laughed. “I’m fucking creamed you and I was alarmingly rusty!” But then her face got serious and she said a little sadly, “But yeah. Yeah, you are.”

His face got red, but he didn’t care. He gave her what was probably the biggest smile he’d ever given in his life. “When do you want to meet up tomorrow?”

“Can you make it six o’clock again?” she asked

“Yup,” he answered. “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. You have anything you want to do?”

“No, you can pick this time. I don’t care what we do,” he said. He thought about this, then he smiled and sang, “I don’t care where we go. I don’t care what we do. Ewwhoo. I don’t care pretty baby, just ta...”

“Ok, that’s enough, Prince,” she said, cutting him off. “I don’t want the neighbors to hear...your horrendous singing. They hate me already as it is.”

He said, “All right then, you make the call for tomorrow.”

She thought for a moment. “I want to do exactly what we did today. Except I’ll pay for dinner.”

Dave smiled and he bowed a little, “Your wish is my command.”

She smiled. She shot some looks around to see if anyone was about. It was dark outside now and the coast looked clear, so she stepped to him and gave him a kiss. A good long one. She was trying to give him something in repayment for the great time he had given to her. But to her, it just ended up being something else great he gave her. It was delicious and romantic and warmed her to the core in the best way possible.

When it was done, Dave sat on his bike just looking at her. Then he closed his eyes and cooed dreamily, “Hmmm, me likey.”

She laughed. She kissed him on his cheek, then got embarrassed, and ran up her steps to her apartment. And she was so happy, she didn’t even try to fight it. She just let her silly, stupid, giddyness wash over and into her.


Chapter 8 - Dave Doesn’t Care

It rained the next day, washing out their outdoor plans. They decided to meet at the gym and then eat afterwards. When they got to the gym, Dave’s cousin Rachel was there and she saw them. Rachel got a big smile on her face and said, “Hi” to them, but she left them alone, even though she really, really wanted to get the scoop on them. Rachel couldn’t wait to corner Dave alone sometime in the future, so she could give him the old third degree, to get all the yummy details.

After the gym and dinner they went back to Alexis' apartment. She felt bad about not letting him come up lately, but currently her place was an absolute disaster area. She told him so, but he said he didn’t care, so she embarrassingly invited him up for a while.

She wasn’t lying, it was a total mess. She had clothes all over her living room and bedroom floor. She had papers and crap all over, and her sink was overflowing with dishes.

She made space for them on her beat up couch. She asked, “Do you want to watch TV?”

“Not really,” he said, looking relaxed and comfy.

“So what do you want to do?” she asked. She wondered if he was going to put the moves on her. She had no idea what she would do if he did, but she had a strong feeling that her response would mostly consist of her not resisting in the least.

He said, “I don’t know.” He thought for a bit and said, “Why don’t we do more of what we’re doing now. Just talking to each other, like cave people used to do, before they invented TV.”

She chuckled, he was so weird with his normal-niceness. So she blah, blah, blahed about work and school or whatever while he just sat there and listened, nodding his head every so often. Once in a while he asked a question about something she had said, which just sent her off into more blah, blah, blahing. She wondered again if he was going to try something with her, but he kept a respectful distance from her and seemed content with just her company. So, she blabbed on for quite a while more. Then she noticed it was getting late, and it was time for them to call it a night.

Dave asked if she wanted to do something tomorrow. She said, “Yeah I do, but I shouldn’t. I have to work the lunch shift at the Shack, then after I have to go do laundry at the mat cause I don’t have anything left to wear. Plus on Friday I have a British Literature test, which I will most likely fail, because I haven’t done any of the work or reading.”

Dave looked around at all of her clothes that were strewn about her apartment and he nodded his head. “You want me to help you tomorrow?” he asked

“You mean with my laundry?” she asked incredulously.

“Yeah, I could come over after work, help you load everything up, take it to the laundromat with you, and help you fold and all that. You can bring your books too. I enjoyed reading Jane Austin in college,” he said, noticing her copy of Pride and Prejudice on the floor. “Bring your notes and texts, I’ll quiz you on them while we launder.”

She just stared at him for a moment and said, “Are you sure you aren’t gay?”

He laughed. Alexis thought about this. It sounded really good to her, but really lame for him. “You actually want to do that?” she asked.

Dave nodded his head. “Beats another dull workout by myself, followed by droning out in front of the idiot box.” He was quiet for a time, then a goofy grin appeared on his face and he sang, “I don’t care where we go, I don’t care what we do. Ewwwho. I don’t care, pretty baby, just take me with you.”

She laughed. “Alright.” she said. “If that will make you happy.”

“It would,” he said. Then her heart raced as he leaned toward her, then kissed her. She loved it, it was so good. The boy was winning her over very surely, and that felt so good too. She had definitely had her fair share of boyfriends in the past, but none of them had ever moved her like Dave was doing. She would have caved hard into him and invited him to spend the night, if her sheets weren't so filthy. That’s the only thing that saved her from asking him to stay there and then.


Chapter 9 - The Mat and...You Know...

Dusk was falling by the time she and Dave got back to her apartment with her clean laundry. As they unloaded her car and carried it all up her stairs like they were sherpas, Dave continued to quiz her from her notes. He was such a friggin’ efficient multi-tasker, and he was doing a good job. There was a lot to learn too because her Brit. Lit. professor was a total pain in the ass. Not only did he want titles, authors, themes, literary devices and everything else under the sun memorized for his tests, but he wanted parts of poems and text regurgitated verbatim. Nothing was more exciting to her than memorizing lines from a Keats’ poem.

When Dave had started with the questions at the laundromat, she hadn’t known squat, but he had been persistent and now she was getting most of the answers right. The material was settling in. They had only run into only one snag with the q and a. At the mat when she was taking stuff from a washer and putting it into a dryer, she noticed he had not asked her a question for some time, and was looking at her notes with a strange look on his face.

“Aww, not only did you write my last name here, but you spelled it right too,” he said.

She froze and she felt her face get all uncomfortably hot. She had completely fucking forgotten the dopey shit she had doodled in her notes that day. She had written her name ‘Alexis Johnston’ in the margin, then crossed out her last name and written ‘Marconnelli’ instead. And that was nothing humiliation wise. Right next to that she hammered an even bigger nail into her coffin when she wrote “Dave Loves Alexis” and then drew a little, moronic, heart around it.

“Ignore that,” she blurted out. “In fact, just give that paper to me right now.”

Dave went to hand that paper to her, but just as she was about to take it, he pulled it back from her. “No, it’s got important Brit. Lit. info on it - so no can do,” he said with a little smile on his face. “Actually, we haven’t covered this material yet, so I’m going to put this in my pocket, for safekeeping,” he added as he thought this paper was something he might want to hang onto until the day he died.

She was instantly pissed. “Don’t even fucking think about that,” she said coldly.

He started folding it up. “So, whatcha going to do about it?” he said with a taunting smile on his face. He wasn’t scared at all.

She immediately bolted after him. He was on the other side of one of the big folding tables there, so she couldn’t get him right away. He started running around the table too, away from her, trying to evade her. He was laughing his ass off, but now he was actually a little scared, because she was so outright livid.

And she was closing in on him. With every loop around the table she gained on him. The girl was very fleet o’ foot.

After a couple more go arounds, she got close enough to grab his t-shirt. She hit the brakes and his shirt ripped with loud “criiiccck” and he stopped too. She tackled him to the laundromat floor, and pretty hard too.

“Alright, alright,” he said, a little worried and surprised. He was afraid one of them was going to get hurt. “Here’s the paper,” he said, holding it out for her.

She snatched it out of his hand, got off of him, and ripped it up.

There was only one other person in the laundromat, a middle aged, normalish guy. He witnessed the whole scene to its completion and then laughed wholeheartedly. This got Dave laughing too. Alexis tried to compose herself and retook up to loading (or more like angrily shoving) her wet clothes into a dryer.

The next ten minutes were weird. Dave went right back to doing what they had been doing before, which was to ask her questions from her notes and texts, but two things were different. The first was that she now refused to answer any of them, indeed she didn’t speak to him at all. The other odd thing was that Dave’s shirt was in tatters. It was so badly torn it barely hung onto him at all. But he carried on just as before, paying no heed to the fact that she wasn’t speaking to him, and oblivious to the fact that his torso, chest, and one of his shoulders were completely exposed.

More people entered the laundromat and he was getting stares, because of his shirt. “You better put something else on,” she finally said, breaking her silence. A couple of college age girls were giggling as they shot appreciative looks his way. “Soon those girls are going to come up to you to try to wash their clothes on your abs,” she said. The girls were pretty and she could feel herself getting jealous.

Dave hadn’t noticed any of this, so he looked around and saw what she was seeing. He said, “I don’t have anything else to wear,” he said. He thought for a bit, and then smiled. He said, “I have it.” He took off what was left of his shirt, threw it in the garbage and put on one of her (now dry) t-shirts. It was one of her nightshirts and it said, ‘In your dreams.’ across the chest. It was pink and fit him very snuggly, particularly around his broad shoulders.

“That’s perfect,” she said dryly. “Wonderful solution.” The girls started laughing even more and she felt another stab of jealousy. She needn’t have worried because Dave ignored them completely, and he just kept asking her Brit. Lit. questions, while simultaneously making sure her clothes in the dryers weren’t getting scorched.


But all that was ancient history by the time she unlocked her apartment door and they went in. “Whoa, this place is a lot cleaner,” he said.

“Yeah, I worked on it this afternoon,” she said. She wanted to joke and say, “I did it for you,” but she didn’t have the guts. Besides, it wasn’t a joke, she had done it for him.

She started to put her clothes away in her bedroom. He was still quizzing her as he absentmindedly began to help her with that too. He pulled her sheets out of her laundry basket and began to make her bed.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” she asked. “Taking liberties by touching my no clothes zone of repose!”

Dave misread her joking tone. He looked flustered and stopped immediately.

“Kidding, joking, kidding,” she said as she smiled. “You go, boy. Make that bed.”

Dave looked relieved and retook up the task. But he was thrown off now, so he did so quietly, without any more Brit. Lit. questions for her. He just made her bed silently, lost in thought, focusing on nothing more than that.

It wasn’t until he was done and smoothing out her comforter that he realized she had stopped putting her clothes away, to do nothing else than watch him. “You want to spend the night with me? Right there in that lovely, clean bed you just made,” she said. She tried to make it sound light and funny, but it came out awkwardly and way more uncertain and shy than she wanted.

Dave looked at her, trying to read her. “Are you serious?” he asked.

She was nervous. ‘Dammit, I’m going to have to put myself out there,’ she thought. “Yeah,” she said. “You can sleep over if you want to.” She was hoping like hell and praying to heaven he wouldn’t say no.

“Yeah, I do,” he said.

She smiled in relief. Dave smiled too. She stepped to him, holding out her arms as if she were going to kiss him. He totally fell for it, and he opened his arms to receive her. But when she got close to him, she put her hand in his pocket and then pretended to pull something out of it. “What is this, you pervert?” she said, holding up a pair of her underwear in front of his face. “Trying to steal some of my sexy undies?”

Dave laughed and laughed, losing it completely. She slid into his still open arms, smiling, and loving life, including loving that he always got, and almost always laughed hard at her dumb jokes. Jokes that everyone, everyone, everyone else thought were lame and stupid.


Chapter 10 - Rachel

The next evening was a planned gym workout for them. Alexis was all proud of herself because she wasn’t running late for once in her life. She wanted to get there before Dave.

But when she got to the gym’s short road, she saw him pulling into its parking lot on his bike ahead of her. The boy was always early punctuality wise.

She pulled into the parking space next to him. He was taking his helmet off. He had a huge smile on his face. She was smiling like a fool too.

They kissed and walked up the stairs to the gym’s door. She was blah, blah, blahing about her smoking that Brit. Lit. test she took in the morning. He went to open the door for her, but she stopped him. “Listen, you’re going to have to wipe that idiotic grin off your face, before we go in,” she said. “It has - I got laid last night and more than once - written all over it.”

“I don’t know if I can,” he said laughing. “I’ve been smiling like this all day.”

“I know, so have I,” she admitted. “But we’re in public now, so dial that smile down for a while.”

Dave started laughing hard, she had never heard him sound so silly. “Oh, my fucking God,” she said. “The next two hours are going to be sheer hell.”

Dave focused and got some semblance of control over his face, then they went in. Rachel was just about the first person they saw. ‘What does the girl live here?’ thought Alexis. She looked at Rachel’s gorgeous, toned, speed skater thighs and her sexy, olympic track star butt. ‘Apparently so,’ she thought, rueing her own pole-like body.

“Hey Cuz, hey Alexis,” said Rachel, smiling hugely. “How ya guys doing?”

They exchanged pleasantries. Dave made off to the men’s room to change. Rachel, he saw, was continuing to chat it up with Alexis, as she followed Alexis into the women’s room. He wasn’t worried, Rachel got along with everyone.

He came out before them and planted himself on a stationary bike. Eventually Alexis and Rachel came out of the women’s room, and they made their way to the treadmills. Alexis was now the one who was doing most of the talking. They got on machines right next to each other and started running.

Dave got off his bike and went to them. The treadmills around them were occupied by other people. “So this is how it’s going to be tonight?” he said.

“Sorry,” said Alexis looking around. “No room at the inn over here.”

Rachel said, “I’m sorry. I’ll give you this one,” and she started to dial down her speed to get off.

“No, he’s fine,” said Alexis. “Why don’t you go lift some weights? I think your pecs need a little work.”

Dave glanced down ruefully at his pecs, then looked sheepishly at the girls, next he looked sadly up at the weight room, and then he made sad puppy eyes back at the girls. “But I don’t wanna lift weights. They’re too heavy! I wanna be with you guys,” he whined.

Alexis and Rachel laughed. Rachel said, “Look, Walt’s up there. You love him. See, he’s waving you up, even as we speak. I think he wants you to spot him. You’re the only one he trusts. Everyone knows it. C’mon, be a big boy. We wanna do girl talk down here.”

Dave looked at Alexis to make sure she was good. She was ready for that look, so she gave him a little, ‘I’m good,’ nod. Dave smiled, then he went off and up to the weight room.