The Lion’s Mail Order Menage

That was a pretty good way to accumulate the kind of baggage that would keep you away from developing an attachment to another person.  He had been comfortable without having someone in his life.  Aside from the occasional urge of a physical nature (something that could be taken care of without any kind of relationship at all, if need be), he couldn’t see what a relationship could have that he would want. 

That was how he had felt for more than two decades and in the matter of only a little over a month, this odd girl from Moscow had gone a long way towards changing his mind.  She had changed his perspective on things and he was surprised to find that he might like it.  He was scared sh*tless, but it seemed like it could be worth it.

It seemed so worth it to him that he could almost convince himself that he was only out on a nighttime stroll with a potential mate instead of chasing Tyler and trying to put a stop to him doing something else stupid.

“I’m sorry, did I say something wrong?”

“What?  No!  No, not at all.  What would make you think that?”

“I don’t know, nothing I guess.  It’s just that you got so quiet all of the sudden and I can feel that there’s something agitating you.  I know that probably sounds stupid.”

“No, not stupid.  A little bit eerie, but not stupid.”

“Eerie?” She laughed softly. “What about it was eerie?  What a funny choice of words.”

“I guess I’m just not used to people noticing things like that about me.  It usually works the other way around.”

“How so?”

“I’ve always been pretty good at reading people, you know?  It’s just a thing I’ve always been able to do.  I guess I just sort of came to the conclusion a long time ago that people who are good at figuring other people out don’t tend to get figured out themselves.  Does that make sense?”

“Yes, absolutely.  Very much so, in fact.”

“It’s like they spend so much time seeing other people that they don’t get seen.  It’s weird, but it’s like you see me.”

“Uh oh, is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“It’s a good thing.  It’s just going to take a little bit of getting used to.”

“Well then, get used to it because I don’t think it’s liable to change.”

They walked in silence for a moment, both of them content to just listen to the sounds of the vast city closing in around their little piece of the wild.  There was still her question between them, still the fact that she was right, he was most definitely agitated about something, but he was also enjoying this moment for what it was. 

One of those moments that he would keep in his pocket for a rainy day to take out and dust off when he needed a pick-me-up in the future.  He was careful to remember everything about it, too, because he knew that his time was growing short. 

He knew where they were going and he knew how much longer it would be before they got there, before they found Tyler and whatever fu*ked up thing he had decided to do now.  The terrifying thing was that he thought he had a pretty good idea what it was, and it wasn’t something he was ready for. 

Sure, some day down the line he would have gotten to this point with Meena.  If things kept going the way they were now. Then of course he would have.  But he wanted to do it in his own time. 

Just for once, he wanted to do something without Tyler forcing his hand.  That was when he realized that he was really, deeply angry at his friend.  Maybe he hadn’t stopped being angry since waking up and learning about Tyler’s mail order bride stunt.  Sh*t, maybe some of it went even further back, all the way back to Tyler’s decision to tie them to the New York mafia before ever asking for his opinion or his consent. 

He hadn’t ever thought about himself as the kind of man to hold a grudge but now he realized that right along with his love for Tyler there had been a deep-seated resentment he hadn’t ever noticed.

“Caleb?”

At this point, his head was starting to feel totally fu*ked.  He was the kind of guy who couldn’t stop thinking about a thing once he had started, and he had definitely started with this.  He had followed the white rabbit and was now falling down the hole with no idea how much further he had to fall.   He didn’t want this.

He didn’t want to look at every little piece of his friendship with Tyler in a different way, to turn it over and over and scrutinize it in order to determine whether it had been what he had thought it was.  He just wanted to let everything be.  Why couldn’t he just let things be?

“Caleb!”

Caleb shook his head to rid it of the voices banging loudly around the insides of his head and looked at Meena.  The moment he saw the look of concern on Meena’s face he felt like a complete piece of sh*t.  She was following him without any complaints through Central Park late at night (something people who had never even visited New York knew not to do) and he was over here having some kind of a soul searching, epiphany moment.  This was not the time.  He needed to pull his head out of his ass and deal with the situation at hand.

“Sh*t, I’m sorry, Meena.  I guess I sort of disappeared there for a minute, huh?  Jesus, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Don’t be sorry.  It’s just that I hear something.  Don’t you?  What is that?  Do you think it’s Tyler?  I just can’t see what he could be doing that would make such a racket.”

“I don’t know.  This is the way he went, though, I know that for a fact.  This is the way we always went.”