How The Cookie Crumbles (46 page)

She shook her head. “Oh right, I almost forgot your kind offer that we could be fuck buddies. Because sex is no big deal for you, you don’t understand that it might actually mean something to other people.”

I sighed. I should have figured that even though this was what Frankie wanted, she would blow it out of proportion. “Okay, sorry,” I told her. “I thought you were interested tonight.”

“It wouldn’t be any good anyway,” she said over her shoulder as she turned to leave.

“What are you talking about now?” I asked her. Was she going to start slagging my performance? That was kinda typical when chicks got mad.

“You still don’t get it, do you? What we had before, that was special because we cared about each other; well, one of us cared anyway. I did things with you that I had never done before. But I can’t do that again without trust and… emotion.”

I watched her disappear into her room, and heard the door lock. Damn, we were so close.

55. Fight Club

I didn’t see Jake the next day, as he had a practice and then left straight away for a short road trip. I was glad to have some separation between us, since last night was way too intense. I resolved not to drink too much and let my guard down again. I wished we could have gone back to the fun days when we were buddies, but too much had happened since then.

Luke didn’t go on the road trip; his knee was still swollen and he couldn’t even skate. His tests had come up negative for real damage, and he was hoping for a rapid return to the ice. Theresa, with her nursing training, was completely in her element and came over constantly to take care of Luke. I tried to stay out of their way, but I couldn’t help but notice that Luke didn’t really like to be fussed over.

Being home with Luke without Jake seemed a little off. They were a bit like the odd couple, and I missed their banter and their obvious affection for each other. Not being able to play hockey or even skate meant Luke was pretty cranky. I had seen this movie before, so I didn’t get involved.

Jake came back into town a few days later, and we weren’t the only ones happy to see him. I got home a little early since the traffic had been surprisingly light, and I had stopped by the farmers market with a special dinner menu in mind. When I walked in, I was greeted by the unwelcome sight of BV. She was sitting on the couch and strapping on this adorable pair of suede roman sandals. She was wearing raggedy jean shorts and an Indian cotton top. BV had some cool clothes, last week she wore this amazing fringed suede jacket. I wished she were nicer so I could ask her about shopping places. I didn’t see Jake around, but his bedroom door was closed, so I assumed that he was asleep after his efforts to climb Mount Silicone.

“Hi,” I said, and then started walking to the kitchen to put everything away.

“Hey Frankie,” Aspen’s casual voice carried across the living room, and I dropped the shopping bags and turned around. She stood up and ran a hand through her perfectly tousled blonde hair.

“Yes?”

She walked up close and looked down at me, then started talking in a low voice. Her flat intonation always reminded me of a bored teenager. “I see what you’re trying to do here, and I wanted to say… it’s not going to work.”

“Excuse me?” I stood up straight as I answered her, but even with heels I was looking her right in the fake cleavage. She was looming over me and trying to intimidate me, but I had never backed down from bullies.

“I can see that you have a huge crush on Jake, and maybe he threw you a few charity fucks in the past, but that’s over now. You can try to get him back by cooking his dinner, cleaning his toilet, and acting like a 1950’s doormat, but he doesn’t give a shit about that stuff. He laughs at you behind your back, and tells the guys how good he’s got it. A beautiful woman to fuck, and some troll to do everything else for him.”

That couldn’t be true, could it? Still it hurt to even hear that. I took a breath and tried to reply calmly. “Look, Aspen, we don’t know each other well, but the truth is that I would never try to break up any couple. No matter how mismatched they were.”

“Really? Because every time I turn around, you’re there with your tongue hanging out. He’s just not that into you, chubs.”

Chubs? Okay, time to take the gloves off here. “And why are you even going out with Jake? You hardly know him. Is it that hockey players are like, the new accessory? Carrie Underwood, Hillary Duff, Elisha Cuthbert, and now, you? OMG!”

“You can rationalize it any way you want. I can see that you’re trying to worm your way back, and it’s not on. Why would any guy go back to beer when he’s had champagne?”

That just showed how little she understood him, Jake loved beer. “I guess you must be pretty insecure if you have to talk to me like this. So I’ll lay it out for you. Jake’s a big boy and he can make his own choices. But I can see that you’re using him, and you don’t appreciate him for what he is. You’re always trying to manipulate him. I don’t have to do anything, he will eventually figure out exactly what a user you are. And I won’t have to lift a finger.”

“Loser. You’re wrong about that, about everything. I thought I’d warn you to save you some effort. Whatever.” She flipped her hair in my general direction, and walked over to pick up her embroidered cloth hobo bag.

I walked towards my room where I wanted to cool down in private. Partway, I paused and turned.

“Hey Aspen, could I get your autograph?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” she sneered at me.

“I mean, I had no idea if you could act or not, since I missed your appearance as Girl #2 on the last straight-to-video blockbuster you did. But now that I see what a horrible beast really lies beneath that sunny exterior, wow, you can act!”

“You bitch!” she screeched, and started coming towards me. Yikes, was she going to get violent here? She was a good seven inches taller and looked kind of strong. I started backing towards my bedroom door and just then Jake walked out of his bedroom, freshly showered with a white towel wrapped around his waist. He looked at me and then at Aspen, the two of us were in kind of a standoff position. Like boxers, if one boxer was allowed to fight about three weight classes down.

“Everything okay here?” he wondered.

BV spoke first, in a voice that was suddenly syrupy, “Fine Jakey, I’m off now.” Then she walked over and laid a big kiss on Jake, with tongue and everything. For the cherry on top, she squeezed his ass through the towel. His eyes were closed, but she was watching me. I merely smiled at her. Then she sashayed out of the house, with Jake and I both watching her. We didn’t say anything until the noise of her crappy old car’s exhaust faded away. When I looked over, Jake was watching me with an expression that looked almost… guilty.

“Hey Frankie, you’re home really early today,” Jake said, nervously. “Uh, it’s great to see you. So, what’s for dinner tonight?”

Dinner? Was that all he thought about? Maybe BV was telling the truth or a partial truth anyway.

“Make your own damn dinner,” I suggested. “I’m going out tonight.”

Jake

For once I was excited to get back to L.A. Usually I loved being on the road: hanging out with the guys, clean hotel rooms, and crazy dinners together. Life seemed easier on the road. At first, I figured it was because Domer wasn’t with us. But when I walked in the door after midnight, I realized that everything was different now. Someone had left a light on for me, and the house looked nice and smelled good: fresh and slightly sweet. It felt like a real home here. I followed that sweet smell to the kitchen and opened the magic tin and found some oatmeal raisin cookies. I poured myself a glass of milk and grabbed a few cookies and sat down at the breakfast bar.

Domer walked out of his room.

“Thought I heard you.” He sat down across from me and stole a cookie. I protested, but I knew there were lots more in the tin.

Domer grinned at me, “What’s wrong, can’t win without me?” We had dropped two games on the road.

“You wish. How you doing anyway?”

“Better, I’m going to practice tomorrow. If everything’s good, I want to play the next one.” He looked happy about that, and it would be great to have him back since Chips wasn’t as good. “I’m going back to bed now, but we’ll go to practice together tomorrow?”

“Sure. ‘Night.” I got another cookie and headed off to bed too.

The next day I slept in, and then we had a late morning practice. Afterwards, Domer had to stay later, since the trainers wanted to make sure that he was okay after going full out at practice. So I went home alone, did some laundry and made myself a couple of sandwiches. After I finished eating, there was a knock on the door.

“Hey Jakey, welcome home!” Aspen was standing there. She looked hot, as usual, in really short shorts and a thin top. But lately she seemed to be dropping over a lot more, and I didn’t really like it. I liked it better when things were more casual between us. Still it was tough to say no to a booty call, especially one like her. She wanted to do it in the living room, but I wasn’t sure when Domer would be back, so we took it to my bedroom.

“It’s nice to be alone for a change. Frankie’s home all the time. Does she not have a social life?” Aspen wondered as she unstrapped her complicated shoes.

“She had a little scare the first week she was living here, and now she doesn’t like to go out at night. She’s not used to L.A. yet.” It wasn’t anything Frankie had said, but it was something I had noticed.

“What kind of scare?”

I explained to Aspen what had happened and how I had to rescue Frankie at the convenience store.

“She should carry a rape whistle and some pepper spray,” suggested Aspen, “Or a little gun.”

With Frankie’s temper, I’d be in serious danger if she started packing heat. “I don’t think Frankie would carry a gun, that’s not really a Canadian thing. Anyway, now that she has her own car, I don’t have to worry.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty nice car for a student, I guess she has some money?”

I shrugged. I didn’t think it was a big deal that I got her the car, but I didn’t want to get into it with Aspen. Talking to chicks about other chicks always led to trouble.

Aspen was staring at me oddly, and then she said, “You know, I didn’t really like Frankie when she first got here.” She pulled off her top and wriggled out of her shorts. “But now I like her better.” Then she stood in front of me and undid her bra, watching my eyes as she slipped it off and her big tits popped out. Then she slipped off her G-string. She was bald, Hollywood-style. Not that it mattered, because she didn’t really like me going down on her.

She walked over to where I was sitting on the edge of the bed, straddled me and pulled my head between her tits. Then she said softly, “You know, Jakey, if you wanna have a three-way with Frankie, I’d be down for that.”

That sounded hot in theory, but for some reason it made me kind of queasy. And I could guarantee 100% that Frankie would not be interested.

After we did it, I took a shower and when I came out, I heard voices arguing. I went out and saw that there seemed to be something going on between Frankie and Aspen. I was kind of hoping that Aspen would be gone before Frankie got home, but no such luck. I hadn’t even really seen Frankie since Saturday night, and now she started flipping out on me, telling me to make my own dinner and then slamming things in her room.

I hated stuff like this, but I figured it was kind of my fault, and I needed to calm Frankie down. I knocked on her door, and she whipped it open angrily.

“What?” She scowled at me.

“Look, I’m sorry, I know why you’re upset. I figured you wouldn’t like it, but I didn’t think she’d say anything,” I explained. “It’s not something that I wanted to do either.”

“What are you talking about?” Frankie asked, frowning.

“The threesome.” She still looked puzzled, so I kept talking. “You, me and Aspen. It was all her idea, but I thought if I ignored it, she’d forget about it.”

Frankie’s mouth dropped open, and she was stunned into silence. First she started to giggle and then laugh hysterically. She had to sit down on her bed, and I laughed along with her, relieved that she wasn’t all pissed off. It seemed like we had spent enough time not getting each other, and it would be good to be able to get along again.

56. Party Down

“Why are you getting all excited about the party at Roady’s?” Jake asked me. I was wearing a new sundress that was black with neon-y flowers, and doing up my charm bracelet. Jake wasn’t going until later. He was doing his usual multitasking: relaxing on the couch with his feet up and his phone in one hand and a sandwich in the other. Some European soccer game was on the TV.

“Duh, it’s the first party I’ve been to here. My first Los Angeles party.” I did a little rhumba dance move and swished my full skirt around; I was excited to go out.

“Frankie, sit down,” he patted the couch beside him. Lately, he had been a lot more considerate to me, and that was nice. I was still playing it cool though: no flirting and nothing suggestive. And the reason for that started with “A” and ended with silicone enhancements.