Cuffing and Turkey Stuffing Page 2

  He pulls out a water bottle, sealed, showing it to me in an obvious way that has me blinking at him, not understanding.

  I take the bottle when he hands it to me, struggling with the cap because I haven’t eaten or slept, and when I finally get it open, I end up drinking the whole thing, not realizing how very thirsty I was.

  “Oh, wow, thanks,” I say, holding onto the empty water bottle. I can recycle it myself, damn it. I lick my lips, run a hand through my hair to keep it off my face, the static from my hood only now starting to drive me up the wall. “Thanks again for all your help.”

  Michael nods, then frowns at me, like he’s expecting more of an explanation.

  I frown right back, pinching my eyebrows together, setting my mouth, clenching down on my molars.

  “It’s not my place to ask this…but should you be on your own right now? Is there someone I can call for you? Or that you should call since you’re looking a lot better?”

  I’ve never heard him talk to me so much to be honest, I’m not a stalker. It’s not like I watch him when we do see each other, other than to casually observe that he’s quiet for the most part. He doesn’t seem to be one of those guys that’s loud for the sake of being loud, attention-grabbing when another person is in the immediate vicinity.

  Whenever I’ve seen Michael in the building—be it in the recycling room, or the garbage room if I bring my trash and recycling into the garage instead of using the chute, or the gym, or even the garage going in and out of our respective cars or heading towards the elevators together, I usually end up waiting for the next elevator or take the stairs.

  I don’t do situations that make me uncomfortable and having to deal with the fact that this stranger, who happens to be my next-door neighbor, saved my ass when I should be taking better care of myself, (who has the audacity to be as attractive as he is, and made me notice when it feels like I haven’t done that in forever).

  It makes me uncomfortable in a way where I don’t like what I feel when I look at his face.

  I don’t like looking at his face because it makes me feel like I can’t think or see straight, and he’s so freaking hot, and it’s not fair when I look like a fungus.

  Shit.

  “I’ll be fine, don’t worry,” I say, not thinking at all that he is going to be worried. “If you start smelling funny smells coming out of my unit, then you’re free to make a fuss, but I’ll definitely be fine. Definitely.” I nod at him, swaying a little when I get myself fully upright.

  Yeah, no, definitely not getting groceries right now. I’m gonna order food from the Chinese restaurant a few blocks over, eat my weight in pot stickers and call it a night. No, I need egg rolls, too, so many egg rolls and a vat of plum sauce. And maybe I’ll brave the outside for groceries, later, much later, when I’ve slept and eaten.

  I smack my lips, just thinking about all the food I’m going to eat, but I have to get my phone out and pull the trigger and make the decision to actually get enough meals for the next couple of days so I can then garner up the courage (and energy stores) to get my own groceries without fainting as soon as I leave my house.

  How embarrassing.

  If Max finds out, I’m never going to live this down…ever.

  “Thanks again for your help, and the…uh, water. Yeah, thanks,” I say again, walking to my front door, taking out the key (I never ended up locking the front door like the genius I am), and turning the knob to get inside as fast as possible.

  When I look back to take one last (okay, longing) glance, Michael’s picking up his groceries, looking inside them, and I’m happy to note that nothing seems broken, and nothing seems to be leaking out onto the floor, and onto his shoes.

  That would make me feel twice as bad.

  Michael glances up at me as I’m closing the door, being the scared little rabbit I am, and I wave goodbye quickly. I shut my door, lock it with the security chain, practically shaking all over.

  There’s nothing threatening about Michael, nothing that I’m scared of other than he’s beautiful and I haven’t been around a beautiful man in a long time (in real life, anyway, and not on screen), and I don’t know what to do with myself.

  I just don’t know.

  Shit.

  I pull in deep, deep breaths and hide in the bathroom, locking the door there, too, as if he’s the Big, Bad Wolf and he’s going to blow my house down and come inside and eat me (in the bad kind of way, not the good kind of way), and I scramble to focus on making appropriate food-ordering decisions while sitting on the toilet.

  I end up getting a bunch of rice, and bean sprouts in soy sauce, and General Tao chicken because I love that shit, and a beef and broccoli stir-fry and basically enough food to feed an entire family (of which I am only one member, and my little sister, Evie, has other people she’d rather hang out with). When that’s done, all there is to do is wait for the food to arrive and for me to buzz up the kid who’s going to deliver my food to me.

  All there’s left to do is wait here.

  Alone, by myself.

  And while I’m embarrassed, yeah, at fainting like that, it’d still be nice, I think, to share a meal with Michael in thanks.

  But that’s never going to happen.

  I’m a winner in the pro-gaming world, but not much anywhere else.

  That fairytale-type stuff where the prince falls in love with the commoner, basically no questions asked? That kind of stuff doesn’t happen to me, even if it were real.

  I’m such a better version of myself when I game anyway. I’m NIKTORIOUS online, yeah, but everywhere else, I’m just plain old Vick.

  I don’t really win at real life, like ever.

  TWO

  “If I’m going to get yelled at, I would’ve done it while on the phone, with you on speaker, and me making myself buttermilk pancakes from scratch,” I say right to Max’s face, her berry-colored hair twisting in giant beach waves that make her look like she belongs on the red carpet instead of here with me, in my home.

  Max waggles a finger at me. “Yeah, like you know how to make anything from scratch instead of out of a jar.”

  “If it’s in a jar, it means it’s food,” I fume, waving my hands around. “Do you make pasta with the dough and water and all that? No! You get it from a box like everyone else. Take off that chef’s hat; you don’t deserve it.” I point to a spot over her head, stabbing the air with my finger. I lean my head back, blinking at the ceiling, putting my hands on my hips so I don’t get tempted to throttle my cousin.

  “Max, what are you doing here? You and Amber did the whole check-up-on-me thing last week. Right? It was last week, yes?” I ask, frowning when we make eye contact.

  “See? You shouldn’t be losing days like that.”

  “Says who? Are you a medical professional? That’s right, you’re not, and your parents will never let you forget it.”

  Max shivers. “I don’t know what I was thinking, wanting to go to medical school. I didn’t get in, so it’s fine. And don’t bring that up again, will you? Amber’s the closest person to the medical field in the Prewitt family and my parents are still going to have to deal. It’s been literal years, and they’re still disappointed.” Max’s berry-toned eyebrows (she did it with eyeshadow apparently, and I think it looks so, so cool) pinch together over the bridge of her nose, and she looks pissed.

  “I came over here to make sure you weren’t dead, and this is the kind of thanks I get? I’ll kick your ass right now, Vick, I really will.” She holds up her hand, the talons she has on as her acrylics this time around making me gulp audibly in fear.

  How can she do anything with her nails that long?

  “Isn’t editing impossible with those?” I point at her hand, and she starts pouting, flinging herself on my couch like she’s the damsel in distress, unable to take any more shit that the world has to offer.

  I get it, we all need to recharge, but underneath all the makeup that Max is always trying out, she probably looks as busted as I do.

  “I don’t want to talk about it. I did it for the video and I haven’t found a really good, flat brush to foil my shimmers on since I obviously can’t use my finger now or I’ll fling my eyeball out at the camera.”

  I nod sympathetically, even though I have no idea what she just said.

  Max is good about that, about picking up on what I know, and what I don’t know, and while I only just got into the world of makeup (basically how to find the right kind of concealer for my under-eye bags, and color correcting for the redness around my nose like I’m Rudolph or something), I can’t pretend to know what I’m doing.

  I have Max for that, and she secretly not-so-secretly loves it when I’m her guinea pig.

  She’s another review channel on the platform, and she likes to advocate for indie makeup brands, the kind that aren’t run by cis white men (which is still the majority apparently), with a special attention to Canadian-owned brands that do everything in Canada, since we usually don’t get the spotlight when it comes to makeup.

  Max sits upright, pulls out her phone, and takes a bunch of selfies right in front of my face, and it’s only when I realize she’s turning her face from left to right that the eyeshadow on her freaking eyelid changes color.

  I gape, pointing at her eyes. “What the hell are you wearing? It’s like an oil slick for your eye. What?”

  Max grins, not even a trace of lipstick on her teeth when that’s all I seem to do whenever I put the stuff on. I’m a lip balm and lip gloss girl, apparently. “Ah, it’s this Canadian brand that sells multi-chrome eyeshadow.”

  “Multi-chrome eyeshadow. What? That’s an actual thing? Are you shitting me right now? I haven’t slept in like twenty hours again, so if you’re shitting with me, I won’t be able to tell that y
ou’re shitting with me.”

  Max frowns again, sighing. “Have you even eaten? I’m getting us a pizza. A pizza, Vick?” I nod because I don’t know what else to say. Who says no to pizza? She frowns down at her phone, tapping at the screen with her talons, and then looks up at me when it’s all done.

  “I’ve got a new concealer in my bag for you to try. Should help with that shit underneath your eyes. Or you know, you could actually do the right thing and sleep.”

  I reach over my head, bend sideways at the waist until my bones pop, twist at the waist so something moves along my ribs and it feels good and I can breathe easier after all of it.

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ve got a tournament coming up, you know that.”

  “Did Amber call you like she said she would?”

  I shrug, even though it hurts that Amber doesn’t really care. I don’t know what happened, it’s like she became her job, and only her job.

  What’s that saying about the kettle and the pot and the color black?

  Yeah, right. Right, right, right.

  “It’s fine. She’s busy.” I try to wave it off, even though I’m still hurt and pissed because of it. Amber’s Amber and she’s not going to change just because I tell her to. But if shit gets worse, if she blows us off a few more times, then Max and I are going to have words with her.

  Serious words.

  Max rolls her eyes, her long-ass fake eyelashes making me wonder if she can actually see me.

  “Everybody’s busy. I think it’s ’cause Brody’s back in her life. The star-crossed lovers and all that.” Max flicks her fingers up at my ceiling, like she’s trying to get rid of a constellation of stars.

  I shrug, not knowing one way or another.

  I’m tired, I’m hungry, and Max takes up a lot of my energy.

  There’s always so much going on with her, and she loves talking about her job, loves finding new makeup to explore and use as reference, and talking with the viewers on her channel, and having discussions in the comments.

  I went over to her channel one day and found some nasty shit-stain kinda comments there too, about her eyebrows, of all things—like, how shitty of a person do you gotta be, how much pain do you have to be in to talk about the state of someone else’s eyebrows? The internet is a weird, and scary place most of the time, but it’s those little gems of kindness that make it worth it, or so Max tells me.

  I doubt it, even while I watch her continue to work on her phone, even while she’s sharing my couch with me.

  I’ll stick to gaming, and my reign supreme on Raid on Sky Castle.

  “How’s your stuff going?” Max asks, phone in her lap now, looking at me eagerly. She’s always been like that, even if she doesn’t really care, she pretends to, and I appreciate the effort.

  I launch into a tirade of this little shit player under the handle MAV3R!CK, like we all didn’t get that reference, and he’s basically been shit-talking me for a year now, getting more and more infuriated every single time I beat his ass and end up beating him in our scrimmages.

  It started with yo mama jokes a whole year ago now, which cracked me up more than anything else until he got real nasty, like real messed up shit that made me lose my focus for a little while there, but then I ended up trouncing him until he dropped out of the top ten in the league, and NIKTORIOUS has stayed within the top ten for all this time.

  It’s how I make my money—it’s how I was able to move out, to pay for my clothes, for the down payment for my condo, for my mortgage payments, car payments, all the shit I have to buy to keep upgrading my system—keyboards, monitors and to have the fastest (and most secure) internet connection with my setup.

  But I’m tired, and the only interaction I get outside of the grocery store or heading downstairs to the building’s gym to get some kind of exercise and a change of scenery is to see Max and Amber (excluding the rest of my family, of course), and I think Michael, from next door.

  The poor guy didn’t even get my joke about my decaying corpse stinking up the condo and everything from yesterday.

  As if that’s something funny.

  I’ve got a dumb way of reassuring him, don’t I?

  He’s just so hot, I can’t think properly when I’m around him, I just can’t!

  “How’s the hot neighbor?” Max asks, and I wonder if I said it out loud, if I’ve finally damaged enough of my brain by gaming so long in a day without taking care of myself that I ended up muttering the last few thoughts out loud.

  I’ve been betrayed by my own brain. Why, why?

  I squint at Max, who just gives me a happy grin.

  Honestly, Vick, is there any other kind?

  “He’s fine. Saved my life yesterday,” I murmur, plopping down on the other side of the sectional after rearranging so I can lie down, stomach flat on the surface, head pillowed by my arm, looking over at my cousin, one of my best friends.

  “Again? Maybe I should’ve been a doctor, ’cause you’d believe me when I say you should get that checked out.”

  I shrug it off, knowing there’s nothing really wrong with me other than being over-stressed, exhausted, underfed and a whole lot lonely, too.

  That has to cause some sort of health toll, too, no?

  It has to.

  I think it does in my case, anyway.

  “I’m just tired, Max. You know how it is.”

  Max nods. “All right, all right. I’m gonna make sure you eat something, and then I’m gonna leave and you can sleep.”

  “Oh,” I say, shrugging, then finally asking, “I thought you were gonna sleep over, like when we were kids.”

  Max frowns, and she looks disappointed, too. “I’ve got so much editing to do tomorrow that I’ve got my alarm set for five a.m. I need to get on my computer as soon as I wake up, basically, and you need as much sleep as possible until your next little training stint, or whatever you call it.”

  I wince at the early hour then try to shrug it off. I’m going to have to get a second, and third (probably) wind so I can get her to stay for longer. She’s basically the only kind of human interaction I get outside of seeing Michael the other day in the past week.

  I sigh, nice and long, closing my eyes.

  My life is…unconventional.

  I know my limitations for the most part (outside of those two instances); I know how to do my job solo, and I’ve been doing this long enough to have no idea what that feels like if a boyfriend were to come in the mix.

  Hell, outside of living with my parents and younger sister, I don’t know what it’s like living with a boyfriend, having a steady relationship while my job takes up so very much of my time and energy.

  At twenty-seven years old, I have never cohabitated with a boyfriend, not once.

  And I don’t know I if I want to, to be honest.

  But I think it would be nice to be here after he comes home after work (because he wouldn’t be a pro gamer like me, no way) and I’d pause my game, and we could eat together, and it would be nice (if time allowed, and I wasn’t in the middle of my intense training regimen before a tournament, and if, if, if).

  If only I could force myself to go outside and actually meet somebody, peruse through all the shitty assholes in the city it would take to get to someone really special. And maybe even that someone would look a lot like Michael, golden skin, golden-brown eyes, black and fluffy hair, and be kind like him—just basically be Michael Nash.

  But that’s not going to happen. I know it’s not going to happen.

  The guy should run when he sees me, and he probably thinks I’m taking advantage and pitching a fainting spell every single time I see him.

  Maybe I should sit this tournament out, just this one time.

  I’ve got my sponsorships, and I’ve been good about investing my prize money, more than enough to live on until the next quarterly tournament, just to give myself a rest. I could give myself some time to relax, to recuperate, to get strong again—go to the gym and pick up weight training and maybe even start running again. There’s just an endless amount of possibilities if I give myself the time to relax.

  But what am I actually going to do?

  I don’t even have the brain power to keep my eyes open right now and see what Max is up to.

  “Thanks, man. Keep the change. Have a good night!” Max whisper-calls, her voice always too loud for a whisper, but she tries nevertheless.