The Bear’s Mail Order Menage

Joshua shook his head, suddenly feeling very, very tired. If he had ever wanted to just take off and never look back, it was now. This was supposed to have been the thing to show them a good time, to make them forget the boredom of the same small place day in and day out. It wasn’t supposed to make his life so much more difficult.

He should just end it. That’s what he should do. But even as he thought it he saw his cell phone lighting up and somehow he knew who it would be before he even glanced at it. Who else would it be? It would never be easy, would it?

“Is that her?”

Joshua felt his face go hot as he looked up and nodded at his knowing mother. It was a pretty good guess, given the conversation they had just been having. That being said, he wasn’t overjoyed for her to see how quickly his demeanor changed just because he heard from her. For as much as they talked about Andrew and the awful potential of hurting him, the moment Alina reached out to Joshua he knew he couldn’t let her go. Not willingly, not without it feeling like he had ripped his own heart out. Just what the fu*k was he supposed to do?

“Does she want to see you?”

“She does.”

“And Andrew? Is he going to be there as well? Or is it just the two of you?”

“I don’t know, ma. It didn’t say and I don’t want to ask. I don’t know.”

“Just be careful, ok? Try to think before you do. That can be the most difficult thing in the world, believe me, I know, but I urge you to try all the same.”

“I will. I’ll try to stay afloat.”

“That’s good. That’s all I wanted to hear, at least for now. Now go, will you? Don’t keep that girl waiting. She is a truly beautiful woman, you know. I can see why you want her. I really can.”

“Thanks. I love you, you know that?”

“I do. I love you, too.”

Joshua stood quickly and patted his mom lovingly on the head, ruffling her hair despite her protestations. She smiled and sipped her tea, laughing to herself at her son’s antics. Just like young men all across the world, he was flying off towards more complication than he would necessarily be able to handle. He was flying towards it with open arms and nobody would be able to stop him from doing so.

“Joshua! You came! I was thinking that maybe you would not.”

“Seriously? I would never just leave you waiting around. What’s going on?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to see you. Is that ok? Maybe I overstepped a little. Maybe I shouldn’t be bothering you this way? I know you have other things in your life to take care of. I should find other things here, I know that.”

“No, no, please don’t think that way. I would rather spend time with you than do almost anything else in the world. That’s a fact, I can promise you.”

Alina’s eyes moved quickly to the ground beneath her quickly tapping toes and her face turned the loveliest shade of pink. Inside, Joshua groaned to himself. Maybe it wasn’t the best thing to have come to see her right after having a conversation with his mother that brought all of his conflicted feelings to the forefront. He was talking too much, saying things without his usual thick filter.

It was a recklessness that wasn’t like him and he wished almost immediately that he could take back the effusiveness of his comments. But then she was looking at him again with eyes that were positively twinkling and he started to think that maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.

He cleared his throat and looked around them quickly, trying to get himself in check before he spoke again. He had met her sitting right outside of the diner, a place he was frankly surprised to see her again. She had been pretty hesitant to return their after her confrontation with the local women. It had only been at Andrew’s insistence that she had stepped foot in the place again, and it had been rare. Joshua had wanted them to tell Andrew what had happened with Crystal and her unsavory friend but she had insisted that they keep it between the two of them. He had never understood why, but he had respected her wishes. He would always respect her wishes, regardless of his comprehension of them (or lack thereof).

“So the diner, then, huh? What made you want to go in there?”

“Oh no, don’t get too excited. I didn’t say we were going in there. I called in a takeout order. I was thinking that maybe you could go in there and pick it up. Then we could take it back to my apartment? It was just my idea, anyway. We don’t have to do that, of course. We can do anything you want. We can do nothing if you want.”

“No, we’re doing something, Alina. And I will absolutely go in there and pick up the food, if that’s what you want. But we can go in, you know. You don’t need to be afraid of her. I don’t think she’ll be coming anywhere near you but if she does, well I’ll happily take care of it for you. It would be my pleasure.”

“No, really,” she said with a light tinkling laugh, “that’s not necessary. It’s not because of the girl, although she is terribly mean. It’s not her. I just don’t feel like being in a place like that. I don’t feel like being around hordes of people, if you can understand that. I thought it might be nice, to just be casual, you know? To just listen to records, drink in the day time. Just be lazy, I suppose. But really, I’ll do whatever you like.”

“No, that sounds perfect. It sound amazing. Just wait right here and I’ll be back with the food. Don’t go anywhere, ok? Just stay right there.”

Alina gave him a wide smile that made his heart jump precariously in his chest and added an extra little hop to his step as he made his way into the diner. Who cared about all of the rest of the sh*t at the end of the day? He was the one getting to spend time with that beautiful woman out there on that curb, and it was because she wanted him there, because she had chosen him over everything else she could be doing.

Knowing that, really seeing it in the way she looked at him, the way she bit her bottom lip while they spoke, it felt like it changed things in some subtle way he wouldn’t come back from. It didn’t matter anymore that Crystal and her fellow servers were standing inside and whispering about him even as the bell signaling his entry rang overhead.

It didn’t even matter that somewhere not too far off was Andrew, his friend who had started this whole thing in the first place. His friend who did not know that he had been cut out of the picture, at least for the afternoon, who wasn’t being included in something he perhaps should have been. What mattered was the way his skin tingled at the mere thought of her, the way he got lost in the deep, warm pools of her eyes and the sweet scent of her honeyed skin.

 It wasn’t that having Alina near made Joshua love Andrew any less. It was just that the way he felt about Alina was something he had never dreamed of finding in all of his days. It eclipsed all else, at least for the moment.