Push(23)

“Yeah, it turned out pretty nice,” he says lightly. “David was a f*cking slave driver, though. I think he wanted us the hell out of your apartment.” He is smiling at me, and I wonder if he knows precisely how true his statement really is. A few seconds pass, and I can tell he is waiting for my reply.
“Yeah, well...” I say quietly as I shrug.
“At any rate, I’m glad you like it,” he says kindly. “I guess I’ll be seeing you around, then.” I can’t tell if it is meant as a question or a statement. “I’ll tell David that I met you when I see him later tonight.”
“Oh, you’re playing poker tonight, too?” My skin prickles. He is going to see David tonight and I am not. It isn’t envy I’m feeling—I don’t know what it is. “Where do you guys play?” I ask. Hell, if David won’t tell me, maybe Brad will.
“We play in the basement of some building. The guy who owns this building, Carl, he has a couple of other places, and so we play at one of them. It’s a shithole, but it’s private,” he says.
“Would you mind giving David a message for me when you see him tonight?” I ask. This is going to be fun.
“Sure. What is it?”
I pull off my shoe. It’s one of my favorite navy blue high heels. I hand it to Brad with a smile.
“Just give him this, and tell him I’ll need it back in time for work tomorrow.”
At first he looks at me as if I am from Mars. But then something sinks in, and a smile grows on his face. I smile back at him knowing that, yes, he probably would like a crack at me. He would have to take down David first, though, and I don’t see that happening. He shakes his head slowly and lets out a near-silent laugh.
“It’ll be my pleasure,” he says as he takes my shoe by the heel. He’s a handsome guy, this Brad, and at least as far as looks go, I can see why David didn’t want to introduce me. I hope I am not inciting a riot with my little game, but we did agree to nix the jealousy bullshit. Brad looks a little too excited with this opportunity, though, so I decide I’d better set a ground rule.
“But, you have to promise me that you won’t lead him to believe that you were the one that took it off me,” I say. “Because if he thinks for even one second that you and I did anything more than say ‘Hi’...” I raise my eyebrows and trail off, figuring that Brad knows David way better than I do. I’m sure he knows precisely what David will do to him if he thinks something happened between us.
“You don’t have to worry about that,” he says. “I’ll make it perfectly clear that I am nothing more than the delivery boy. He already beats my ass at poker. I don’t need him beating my ass for this, too.”
“Thanks, Brad,” I say. “It was nice to meet you.”
“You, too,” he says as he tucks the heel of my shoe into the back pocket of his jeans. After I go inside, I turn to close the door behind me and see him restarting the lawn mower, the front of my shoe dangling out of his back pocket.
* * *

The next morning, I somehow manage to wake a few minutes before my alarm. I love it when that happens, and take it as a sign that I am well rested and settling nicely into my work routine. When I turn the alarm off, I smell something. I’m not exactly sure what it is, but I know it isn’t a smell that belongs here. It’s an earthy mix of turpentine and tobacco. I prop myself up on my elbows and inhale again. It’s not a bad smell, just a curious one. It’s raw and masculine.
I click on my bedside lamp. I don’t see anything unusual about my room, and I begin to think that perhaps the smell is coming in through the closed windows. I swing my feet off the side of the bed and stand up. Sitting on top of the dresser, at the foot of my bed, is the navy blue shoe I had given to Brad. Shit. It means that David was here last night. Once again, I must have slept like a rock.
I pick up the shoe and smile, thinking about what David’s reaction must have been when Brad presented it to him. I’d bet my first paycheck he was pissed off, at least initially. Obviously Brad gave David my message; otherwise my shoe wouldn’t be here right now, so at least I know that Brad had the opportunity to explain how he got it before David went crazy on him. I begin to think my little stunt went off without a hitch.
I open my dresser drawer and pull out a clean pair of panties and a bra. I already have the rest of my clothes picked out for the day, and I walk over to my closet to get them out. Suddenly I understand where the smell is coming from. There on the floor next to my bed is David. He is naked from the waist up, his T-shirt bunched up underneath his head like a makeshift pillow. He is lying on his left side, his knees curled up toward his chest and his arms splayed out in front of him. I have been to enough high school and college parties to know that he is passed out drunk. As soon as I see him there, my mind deciphers the smell. It’s the whisky coming out of his pores, mingled with sexy-man-sweat and sweet cigar smoke. I suppose I should feel lucky that he didn’t puke. At least not in here, anyway.
I bend down closer. He is in a dead sleep, and I watch his chest rise and fall a few times before I sit down on the floor next to him. The birds are there, of course, twisted around his arms. I want to touch them, to lie down next to him, but I don’t. Instead, I just watch him. This is what he looks like when he sleeps. I like his stillness, his exposure. He is strangely perfect like this, asleep on my floor curled into himself.
I don’t wake him. Instead, I get my clothes out of the closet, grab both of my navy blue heels, and head to the bathroom, closing my bedroom door quietly behind me. Once I am showered and dressed, I eat a quick breakfast. Before I rush out the door, I pull a piece of paper out of my bag, write him a note, and put it on my little table.