The Bear’s Mail Order Menage

He grabbed the food and threw down money he hoped was enough without even taking a moment to double check and practically flew back out of the restaurant and towards the woman he could not seem to get out of his head. For an awful moment he was simply sure that she wouldn’t be there anymore. Maybe she had thought better of the one-on-one dalliance the two of them were flirting with. Maybe she had never been there at all, but simply a mirage he had conjured up to fill some void he couldn’t quite see.

But no, there she was, sitting on that same curb and twirling a tiny yellow wild flower between two delicate fingers. She looked like perfection. What a goddess she was and she was waiting there just for him. If he hadn’t lost himself to the magic of it all up to this point, now he was a goner. He couldn’t stand up to a thing like this. He honestly didn’t want to anymore.

“Joshua! You’re back, and without the angry waitress in tow. I’m glad to see that. I wasn’t much in the mood to be screamed at again. At least not today.”

“Ha! Are you making a joke, Alina? Are you actually joking with me?”

“I could be,” she said coyly as she stood and brushed her hands off on the sides of her scandalously low slung jeans, “I’ve been known to do so from time to time. And you have all of the food, yes? Especially the onion rings!”

“Especially the onion rings, huh? That your favorite? Even better than home?”

“Ugh, please. Where is home? And believe me, if I knew where that place was, they would definitely not have things that tasted like this. This isn’t even real. I must have made this up in a dream and then wished it into reality. Really, Joshua, it’s got to be some kind of miracle worker back there. Any time you want to tell me the chef’s real identity, I’ll be more than happy to hear it.”

“You really are in a mood today, aren’t you?”

“I’m sorry,” she said with a blush, “I’m being too silly, I suppose.”

“No!” Joshua said quickly, wanting nothing more than to continue speaking with this playful version of a girl he was already pretty much infatuated with.  “I like it. I like it very much. I just haven’t seen this side of you. I didn’t realize you even had this side.”

“It must be the weather. It doesn’t get like this in Russia, you understand. The air never feels this light, the earth never looks this clean. It must be that, or maybe the company. It could be that as well.”

And just like that, everything felt totally perfect. Joshua carried their food in his left hand, while Alina practically skipped on his right. Every few steps her hand brushed against his in a tiny explosion of electricity. It felt like a succession of itty bitty fireworks going off in the palm of his hands and it made him as giddy as a child on the fourth of July. Even coming into view of her apartment made him excited in a way that felt entirely new. It wasn’t new of course, not even a little bit.

She was still living in his parents’ building and he must have been there a thousand times over the years. But he had never approached it in this precise headspace before and it was that which made all of the difference. He couldn’t think of any place he would rather be, no other person on the planet he would rather eat a sh*t ton of onion rings with. It was simple and completely delightful and opening the front door made him feel like he was opening the door to Narnia.

“Oh my god, those were good. Weren’t they fantastic, Joshua? Do you see what I mean? Magicians! You’re living in a town with a diner full of wizards!”

“Good god, and after all of this time I never suspected a thing. It’s a good thing you came along or I might never have known.”

“See? What would you do without me?”

“I don’t know, Alina. I honestly don’t know and that’s a fact.”

She giggled and brushed her hair out of her face, totally ignoring the oil still on her fingers from all of the diner’s fried food. She was sitting in a worn leather chair with her impossibly long legs swung over one arm, her feet swinging back and forth like a child’s. They had been eating and drinking some cocktail of her own making and they were both just tipsy enough to stop thinking about the fact that they should probably be just a little bit nervous.

It was the little bit of vodka that allowed him to say something as brazen as he just had without feeling the need to throw up directly afterwards. And from the shining look in her eyes, it was something she had very much enjoyed hearing. Seeing that response gave him the encouragement he needed to ask her the next question, to finally figure out a little bit of who she was underneath it all.

“Alina, can I ask you a question?”

“You can ask it. That doesn’t guarantee that I’ll answer it.”

“Fair enough. I was just wondering. Back there, in front of the diner when we were about to head home. You said ‘where is home.’ What did that mean?”

“Oh. I see.”

“No, forget I asked. I’m sorry for asking. That’s too personal. I overstepped my boundaries.”

“No, it’s ok. It’s just that I haven’t really spoken about myself, where I come from. It’s not a nice place, Joshua. At least it wasn’t for me.”

Joshua found that he could hardly breathe. He watched as Alina sat up, tucking her feet beneath herself and looking pensively into her glass. He could see that she was choosing her words carefully and the last thing he wanted to do was scare her out of opening up to him. He felt almost like a drug addict, that’s how strong his desire to know her had become.