Longhorns Ch. 01

"You're talking like you're a hundred. What are you, twenty-five?"

"Thirty," he said with mordant emphasis.

She looked surprised.

"Well then we both look young, so it's all good."

"Do you go to UT?"

"Yeah," she said. "I'm a sophomore. What about you? Where do you work?"

"I'm a grad student there."

"Cool, cool," she said, though she sounded increasingly disinterested in the conversation. It wasn't helped by the fact that she continued to text the whole time; Robert was just old enough to find that incredibly annoying.

Their conversation continued on a superficial level through the first two beers. He learned that she lived across the courtyard with two other roommates in a two-bedroom, which meant the place was extremely cramped. Her best friend growing up, a girl named Meredith, was also an undergrad at UT, but she'd "lost her place" in a manner Virginia left pointedly vague. That's how she ended up moving her stuff into Virginia's room and mostly sleeping on the futon in the common room. Their other roommate, Collette, only emerged in outlines for Robert: she was smart, she was serious, she was going to be the world's greatest black, female doctor, and she did not put up with bullshit ever.

Last year, he learned, Virginia had spent a lot of time, along with Meredith, over here at "Clay's place"; he'd been liberal about buying beer and hanging out with them. Without realizing she was doing it, she was painting a picture for Robert of what had happened: Clay ingratiated himself with a couple of teenage girls, probably got at least one of them drunk and fucked them, then brushed them off when, in their naïveté, they thought he was in love with them or something.

Now it looked like maybe it was happening all over again, only he had no intentions of being a creep like Clay. The conversation was dying; he'd let it die, she'd leave, and then the temptation to come over would be extinguished forever.

All that went out the window when he heard a knock.

"Come in," Virginia exclaimed, as if it were her place.

Timidly, a thin, very pretty young woman entered his place. Where Virginia was sexy, voluptuous, this girl, her roommate Meredith no doubt, was petite and slender. With her strawberry blonde hair in shoulder length curls, she seemed more like a fairy princess than a real girl. She didn't have Virginia's curves, but she did have one of those faces, with a cute, upturned nose and milky skin, that made it virtually impossible to imagine ever being upset at her. Entering his apartment, she had a shy, retiring manner, and Robert could see how she and Virginia might make a good match, one loud, the other quiet, one sweet, the other spicy.

"Robbie, is it?" the girl asked in a sweet, girlish voice.

"Robert."

Meredith looked over at Virginia, who had a wicked grin on her face at the sight of Meredith's embarrassment and Robert's consternation.

"Sorry," Meredith said sincerely. "You don't mind me coming over? Virginia said that—"

"It's fine," he said. "You want a beer, too?"

Meredith looked over at her friend.

"You did not make him buy you beer, did you?"

The contrast between the two could not be clearer. Though he knew they were the same age, Robert would have figured Virginia for older than nineteen and Meredith for younger.

"I gave him a ten," Virginia protested. "I had to make it up to him for letting me get Mr. Fins back for you."

Robert and Meredith locked eyes. The girl looked inexplicably embarrassed, and he started to think that maybe she was the one whose heart Clay had broken.

"Thanks," Meredith said weakly. "I'll just have some water. You know I don't drink beer."

"When you say it like that, it sounds like you don't drink at all," Virginia said. "I saw some strawberries in the fridge. And some rum in the freezer. And some sugar in the pantry..."

"Did you find anything in my sock drawer?" Robert asked bemusedly.

"You're the worst, Virginia," Meredith said. "I apologize for my friend's bad behavior."

Virginia squirmed a little.

"What? I was...scouting. And now I know that we're some ice and a blender away from daquiris."

There was something about the way Meredith blushed every time Virginia spoke that made Robert feel a kinship with her. She seemed just innocent enough to be scandalized by her friend's behavior, but too used to it to be surprised. Moreover, she had a kind of natural, unforced sweetness that was hard to resist.

"I could whip up a pitcher, I guess," he said, "if you'd like some."

Meredith's face lit up.

"If it wouldn't be too much trouble."

"Not at all. I make them strong, but I could cut back on the Bacardi a bit for you."

Meredith was about to speak when Virginia interrupted her: "She's a big girl, Robbie. Strong's good."

Robert looked at Meredith, expecting her to ask him silently not to make the drinks too strong.

"She's right," she said. "Strong is good."

Robert arched his eyebrow and shared an unspoken moment with Meredith before setting to work preparing the simple syrup and slicing the strawberries. With his back turned to the living room, he started to dig in the lower cabinets for his rarely-used blender. When he found it and stood back up, he could sense someone behind him. He turned, expecting to find Meredith offering her assistance.

"Need a hand?" Virginia asked.

"Chop strawberries?"

"No prob, Bob."

As Virginia began to slice the strawberries and dump them bit by bit into the blender, Robert began to boil water for simple syrup.

"I make 'em the slow way," he said, hoping to forestall any protest when he wanted to stick the syrup in the freezer for ten minutes before pouring it in.

"Usually the best way," she replied, shrugging her shoulders. "I'm not in a rush."

"No plans tonight? No boyfriend?"

Virginia laughed.

"How long you been waiting to ask me that?"

Robert flinched.

"No, I mean—"

"Relax, I'm just busting your balls. No, I don't have a boyfriend...or want one. Meredith's dating a UFC fighter, though."

"Don't listen to her," Meredith exclaimed from the living room. "We're both super lame and stay in on Friday nights."

"It's not Friday," Robert remarked.

"Don't worry Robbie, you're gonna catch up to us. Or after a few daquiris, we'll slow down to your speed," Virginia quipped.

"Robert."

"Exactly."

The syrup prepared, he poured the warm liquid into a pyrex measuring cup and from there poured what he needed into a small cup.

"As soon as that cools, we'll have a pitcher."

"Great, because I did an incredible job on these strawberries."

"Do you need me?" Meredith asked from the couch.

"With all my heart and soul, baby," Virginia replied, with faux passion.

"You're alright, too," Meredith replied nonchalantly.

Robert had a sudden moment of realization. Ever since Meredith had walked in, somewhere in the back of his mind she had reminded him of someone—not her looks, but her demeanor. Finally, it had dawned on him—she reminded him of his baby sister. The way she would kid and joke when someone with a bigger personality was around, but would come across as shy and sweet on her own. The way she pretended to keep crazy ass Virginia in check but secretly liked having someone to lead the way. She was his little sister Meghan all over.

Meredith was adorable, admittedly, but for Robert, she really was too young, too innocent, for him to feel comfortable thinking of her sexually. Then there was Virginia in front of him, crazy hot and also maybe crazy Virginia, licking strawberry juice from her fingers.

She has to know how that looks.

"Split a beer with me while we wait?"

"It's the last one," he replied.

"Exactly."

He reached into his cabinet for a glass.

"I don't have cooties."

"I might," he replied sarcastically.

"I'll take my chances," she said, taking a long, slow sip of the beer before passing it back to him.

He took a sip, too.

"Somehow I have the feeling this won't be the last time I'm mixing drinks for you girls."

"We are pretty cute. Most guys can't resist us."

"Should I?"

"Resist? No way."

Robert passed her the beer back. She looked radiant drinking it. None of this made sense to him, but he was content, for now, to just let it all unfold before him, neither to resist nor to initiate.

"Well, then," he said, "I've got drinks to mix."

***

"So you're telling me she doesn't get off for two hours?"

"You're not mad, are you?"

Robert shouldn't have been surprised. This was the kind of thing he'd grown to expect from Virginia, always testing the limits of his patience and getting out of it by being, well, hot.

"I do have things to do."

"Better than hanging out with your bestest friend?"

The sad thing was that she was at least half right. Most of his friends had been her friends—people he'd met through Beth. Now he couldn't stand being around most of them, and this weird, semi-exploitative relationship was the closest thing he had to a best friend who actually lived in town.

Though admittedly she was good about chipping in, their relationship seemed to be built on illegal alcohol purchases, the comfiness of his sofa, and his cable subscription. Virginia had been over at his place a least a couple of nights a week for the past two months, even after the semester had started. He saw Meredith less. In fact, the whole reason he was sharing chips and salsa at La Casa Azul with his "bestest friend" Virginia right now was that she had secretly roped him into giving Meredith a ride home from work. Only, Meredith wasn't due to get off work for another two hours.

"I have friends."

"Sure, I've seen them. They look fun," Virginia said, not needing to adopt a snarky tone for the sarcasm of her comment to be immediately apparent.

"You have a very high opinion of yourself," he said.

"You have a very high opinion of me too," she replied.

She's got me there.

Despite her moments of annoyance, he couldn't deny that being around Virginia was a bit of a thrill. Tori Black and friends had been banished from his masturbation routine. Like someone from the prehistoric era, he was now using his imagination to stimulate himself, and Virginia was his muse. Nevertheless, he felt a lingering sense of wrongness that kept him from actually making a move on the girl over ten years younger than he.

"Hey y'all," Meredith said in a slow, put-on Texan drawl, "welcome to La Casa Azul. Would y'all like to start with some margaritas or some of our famous guacamole?"

"I'd love a margarita," Virginia said.

"ID, ma'am," Meredith said, suddenly switching her voice to sound as stern as possible.

Virginia played along, fishing out her wallet and handing her ID over to Meredith.

"You're underage, Ms. Gaye. I'm afraid we're—"

"Stop laughing!" Virginia cried, seemingly genuinely embarrassed.

Robert hadn't even noticed he was snickering. The thirteen year old inside never goes away...

"There's an 'e' on the end!" she huffed.

"So you're telling me your name contains the words 'virgin' and 'gay?'" he asked with glee. "How did you survive grade school?"

It was so rare for him to have the upper hand on Virginia in a conversation. Her bashful discomfort was something to relish.

"So funny," she said. "Never heard that before."

Meredith was giggling too.

"Be nice to her," she said, trying to hold a straight face. "After all, it's hard being a gay virgin."

With that the two of them erupted into laughter, and Meredith had to flee the table to avoid scrutiny from her manager. After a moment of steaming, Virginia looked like she'd given up resisting his teasing.

"You had to enjoy that."

"Well, I just think it's weird I didn't know your last name. You probably know everything about me given how much you like to snoop."

"Yeah, I got your last name off a Viagra bottle," she said, trying to regain her composure.

"Speaking of which," Robert said, stifling a grin, "I've got this friend whose boner won't go away..."

Virginia snickered. Though it had been fun to tease her, Robert didn't actually want her to feel bad. Their food came, and for a while eating occupied them. Virginia was stuck with a water, as she didn't actually want to risk getting Meredith in trouble, while Robert sipped a margarita on the rocks, no salt. With two plates of enchiladas behind them, they struck up their conversation again.

"Seriously, though, thanks for doing this," she said. "My car's in the shop, and I always give Meri a ride when she works night shifts during the week."

"It's not so bad," he said. "I mean, I actually like this place. I got dressed up and everything."

Is it just my ego or did she just check me out a little?

"Make it up to you?"

Robert was getting used to stifling all the thoughts he didn't think he should be having about this girl, who was still not twenty years old. He'd once heard a rule from a friend back in college: half your age plus seven. That's the absolute youngest someone can be and still be fuckable, in, like, an ethical sense. He'd run the math, and it made sense to him: a twenty-two year old could reasonably hook up with an eighteen year old, but a thirty year old? Twenty two is the lower bound.

"What did you have in mind?"

Virginia narrowed her eyes.

"Well, given your internet search history, I guess I could dress up in latex and spank you until you called for your mommy."

"That might scare me if I didn't clear my browser history after every visit to fetishfreaks.com," he quipped. "Besides, I have very conventional fantasies. The furry community is growing every year."

"Gross!" Virginia said loudly, with a giggle. "And embarrassing that I even know what that is."

"I guess we're both sickos," Robert added helpfully.

"So all I need to do is dress up like a Ninja Turtle or something, and you'd come in your pants?"

"Remember when you wore that fuzzy velour pajama set over at my place? I had to change boxers like three times."

For Robert, all this joking was getting uncomfortably close to a deeper truth: he was finding it harder to resist the urge to make a move on her, even if it still seemed like a mistake in the back of his mind. Not only was she young and...unpredictable, but she also lived right across the courtyard. Clay had to sneak away in the dead of night to avoid the fallout from crossing her.

"Well, anyway," she continued, "thanks for this. You're...you're a really nice guy."

Well, that was it. He was nice. A nice, neutered teddy bear. And, really, maybe it would be easier. 'Nice' is the kiss of death for a girl to say to a guy. She didn't think about him the way he thought about her, and that...sucked. But still, he needed to stop seeing her as a romantic prospect anyway. She wasn't.

"Here I thought I was coming across as an old creep."

"You're not that old."

He laughed.

"And...?"

"No, you are totally a creep," she said. "Or, let's call it a dirty young man. Like, I'm pretty sure I've barged in on you when you were jerking off before."

Robert couldn't help himself; he was turning red. Why deny it?

"Guilty."

"It's fine. To be totally honest, I'm not sure why you let me come over so much. If I was going to town on myself, I'd just tell you to go away."

Yep, there it is. New image to store.

"Well, maybe I'll have to hang a sock on my door in the future."

She laughed.

"Yeah, one for the door, and the other one..."

He rolled his eyes.

"Dating sucks. I miss just having a damn girlfriend."

Virginia stopped giggling. She looked uncharacteristically serious.

"Ummm...do you want to talk about it? I mean, I'm not trying to get up in your shit or anything, but...we're friends now, right? I mean you feel that way, too?"

"Yeah," he said, exhaling, "we're friends. I guess Beth wanted something...big. It's like her life was geared around sticking it to people at her college reunion. She'd rather be miserable and have this fucking impressive on-paper life than chill out and enjoy just...being."

Virginia curled one side of her lip up dismissively.

"Well, she sounds like she sucked. You're better off without her."

"It doesn't always feel that way," Robert said, trying not to sound like too much of a downer. "I'm not, you know, miserable or anything. I'm just...shit, let's be honest, it's been a bit of a dry spell."

"Hence all the masturbation..."

"Sad but true," he said. "I've only had sex, like, twice since coming back."

Virginia's brow furrowed skeptically.

"Twice? I didn't know...I mean, sorry, I really am butting into your business."

"No, it's OK. It was an OKCupid thing. One of those trying-to-make-something-happen-that-wasn't-there kind of things."

Robert had the strangest feeling, one he waved away as wish fulfillment: Virginia looked jealous. Her voice had certainly sounded displeased when he mentioned having sex since they'd become friends. They had never really been very deep or intimate with one another. If anything, he was usually more heartfelt and genuine with Meredith, whose disarming sweetness and sincerity made it easy to open his heart to her. She really had become like a little sister of sorts to him in a very short period of time. Talking to Virginia, though, meant always being 'on,' always ready to respond with a joke or dodge a probing question. She was never cruel, but neither was she the easiest person to talk to about personal matters.

"So, what are you in to? Like, do you have a type?"

Robert paused. He wasn't sure the intentions behind her question, but he opted to treat it is disinterested speculation.

"No 'type' I guess. I mean, I was with Beth a long time, so it's not like I had a million girlfriends."

"Well, give me basics. Blondes, brunettes..."

"Bald," he said, nodding his head, "Definitely bald."

"No, I mean her head," Virginia said without missing a beat. "I was going to ask about your vaginal preferences later."

Robert almost spit his margarita out laughing.

"Yes, I prefer that the girl has a vagina. In fact, mark that one as a requirement."

"What else?"

"Besides having a vagina?"

"God, you are like every other guy," she said disapprovingly.

Robert felt for the first time that she was trying to engage him in earnest conversation.

"Sorry. Looks? Really no type. Pretty, I guess. I mean, that's great. But there's lots of different ways to be attractive. Definitely more than one. I don't think I have some perfect girl in my head I compare everybody to. Funny. Has to be funny. It's nice if she thinks I'm funny, too. Smart's good, but you don't have to go to Harvard. I guess, maybe curious is better—open to learning new things, not just already knowing everything. And, well, this is actually a huge must-have for me: independent. I'm just not into women who come across as super needy. I want her to have her own life and goals."

Virginia was uncharacteristically silent.

"Meredith," she said quietly.

Robert was confused.

"I'm ready!" said Meredith cheerily, practically skipping over to their table with her apron slung over her shoulder. "Let's blow this popsicle stand."

Robert was shocked it was so late. It felt like the night had just begun. They all climbed into his vehicle and headed back home. The girls mostly were content to chat with each other, though they both periodically lapsed into silence as they texted other people. Robert was always amazed at how much time they both spent communicating with people he'd never met. Though he had only a few friends, at least he actually physically saw them from time to time. He didn't know enough people on earth to spend as much time texting as they did.

"Hey, Robert, Could you do something for me?" Meredith asked.

"Anything for you," he replied.