Come As You Are Ch. 15

"Everything's changing." Vienna waited for Garrett to comment on her statement, however, all she heard was his quiet breathing. "Everything's changing so fast, I can barely keep up with it..."

She trailed off. This time Garrett filled the silence. "Seems like those are good changes though."

"Some of them are." Vienna spoke clearly and quickly, the words pouring from her brain through her mouth. "I don't know if they're good, but I do know that they're major. Too much change, even good change... I'm overwhelmed. The past two weeks have been impossible. No one could have seen them coming, and if they did I'd still call them a liar. I have my best friend back in town, my other best friend is an easy five-hour drive away, and now it looks like I'm going to have a new circle of friends, which my best friend has banged out. And my other best friend is banging out another possible new friend."

"I can see how that can all be overwhelming," Garrett agreed. "But I can't see any of that making you locker-punching angry."

"I'm punching lockers because of Danny Eastman. Freaking Sadie brought him over to our table just because he apologized to her and she believed he was being sincere. He tried to apologize to me but I wasn't buying his bullshit But Gio was. Gio stood there and shook that fucker's hand! He forgave Danny for all the shit he put you through!"

"I know."

Vienna lifted her head and turned to look at him. "That's your reaction? Danny and Gio bury the hatchet just because Danny said he was sorry and all you have to say is 'I know?'"

"I mean, are you surprised? It's Gio. It's impossible to get him mad, and if Danny's being sincere..."

"Say that last part again but with a straight face."

"Sadie lives on the Internet. She knows fake sincerity when she sees it. So why did this make you so upset? What did he say to you specifically?"

"Nothing, because I cut him off. All the shit he did to you? All the baggage you had to carry because of him? Fuck Danny Eastman. Fuck him headfirst into a doorknob." Vienna leaned back against Garrett, sighing as she did so. "Danny's probably down there apologizing to Brenda. Five bucks says he tries to take her home. So what are you going to do when Danny gets around to apologizing to you?"

"He won't. We ran into each other, I said hello, and he stared daggers at me until I looked away. He wants nothing to do with me and I am perfectly OK with that. And if by some sweet miracle he does, I'll... fuck. I'll shake his hand and accept his apology."

"You're serious. You're serious that you'd forgive Danny after all the shit he put you through."

"I said I'd accept his apology. There's no way in hell I'd ever forgive him." Garrett put his chin on Vienna's shoulder. "If it wasn't for Danny, Gio would probably have never become our best friend. And if it wasn't for Danny, I wouldn't have slept with Brenda. Or Sadie, for that matter. For better or worse, he's a major influence in my life. I'll never forgive him, and I'll certainly never forget what he did to me. But if he offers a sincere apology, I'll burn that bridge when I come to it."

Lying against Garrett was comfortable. It brought back memories of sitting on his roof with Gio, watching the stars, or staying up late in her bedroom listening to music, Vienna on the bed, and Garrett sitting against the wall, eyes closed, slowly bobbing his head in time with the music until they both fell asleep. "I'll have your back until the end of the world, but I can't keep stepping between the two of you. I spent all of high school as your protector. Promise me that after tonight I can put my sword and shield down so you can pick them up. Colette told me you're still driving around a U-Haul's worth of trauma because of him."

"Yeah. She mentioned my health insurance will cover therapy once it's kicked in. But that's a conversation for another night, OK?" He hugged Vienna tightly, drawing a sigh and a smile from her. "I know things are changing, but they're for the best. You and Colette are awesome together. And you and I can hang out, and I PROMISE not to be a third wheel to you two. All these changes, they'll work out, and hopefully, we'll all be happy."

Garrett expected a sigh or a smile from Vienna. Instead, he pulled back, worried, as he felt her shiver in his embrace. "There's one thing I have to tell you, and I'm pretty sure you're not going to like it." She raised her head to look at him, still sitting between his legs on the floor of the hallway. "You have to promise you're not going to freak out, get angry, or storm away. I'm banking on almost two decades of friendship to even consider telling you this."

After a moment, Garrett slowly nodded. "I promise. I promise on two decades of friendship."

"Good." She took a deep breath. "So, this was four years ago, right after I just moved back to Emerald Pines, and Gio came to visit me..."

X X X X X

"Gio, relax," Vienna urged after sipping from her bottle of beer. "Everything's going to work out fine. Now grab a beer and get over here."

She took another drink while she watched her best friend sigh before walking to the refrigerator on the far side of the apartment. Gio opened the door to the fridge and took out a fresh bottle of Coors before flopping down on the other end of the sectional couch. "Nice place," he told her.

The walls and ceiling of the studio apartment sported a fresh coat of white paint, causing the surfaces to gleam in the summer sun that shone through the eastward-facing windows. The kitchen appliances were brand new as was the living room furniture, including the gray L-shaped sectional couch that Gio and Vienna were currently sitting on, as well as the low white table that sat at the angle of the couch, complete with a young fern set in black soil.

"I always imagined your first real apartment as being a lot more bohemian. Brick walls, curtains, the vague smell of must, that kind of thing. This place is so... so..."

"Touristy?" Vienna motioned with her beer. "The owner renovated this place to be an Airbnb for out-of-towners until she realized just how predatory those things are. So she decided to rent it out to a local instead." She put her legs up on the couch after kicking off her sandals. "It'll work for a couple of months until I can move in above Sins and Needles. Living above a tattoo parlor bohemian enough for you?" Vienna tilted her beer towards Gio. "Here's to being a local. For the second time."

Gio laughed as he tapped the neck of his beer against Vienna's bottle. After taking a deep pull he slumped into the couch cushion and threw his sock-covered feet on the table. "Damn it Gio," she exclaimed. "Why is this bothering you so much?"

"Let me finish this first, then we'll talk?"

"I'm gonna hold you to that." They spent the next few minutes drinking their beers in silence. Vienna took small sips while keeping an eye on Gio. The tall Italian sat quietly, taking longer and longer swigs of Coors. As soon as he set the empty bottle of beer on the center table she swooped in. "OK, so what the fuck? Why does this have you so worked up?

"I don't know. I mean, you're right." He pushed back on the couch, sitting up and keeping his feet on the edge of the table. "This shouldn't be bothering me. I mean it should be bothering me, but it happens to everyone. It's happened to me before. I should let it go, just like you said."

"Yes." Vienna nodded vehemently in agreement. "Yes, you should. Just like I said. Just like I said last week over email and yesterday while you were driving across the Great Plains."

"I know, I know. But..."

Vienna did her best to cut Gio off at the pass. After almost a decade of friendship, she knew when the dam was about to break. "Gio, don't..."

"... who breaks up with someone over email?!?"

"Oh Christ," Vienna groused to herself, "here we go."

"Seriously!" Gio threw his arms in the air as he loudly proclaimed, "Email! Have the decency to break up with me to my face! Let me down easy and give me a chance for some closure! Don't do it with a four-page email!" He looked at Vienna with disbelief. "Don't ramble on for four pages and end the whole thing by saying 'it's not you, it's me!' She typed that!"

"I am well aware," Vienna said in a futile gesture.

Gio put one hand over his face. "Nine months and that's how she breaks up with me." He shook his head, keeping it covered with his hand. "Is this how we're supposed to break up now? Over email? What's next, doing it over text or instant message?"

Vienna settled back, finishing her bottle of beer, waiting for her friend to finish up. "Well," Gio said after a few seconds, "at least she's moved all her stuff out of my place. Thank God for small favors."

"You know she's probably banging that guy, right?"

Gio turned his head to look at Vienna with a confused look on his face. "What guy?"

"The guy who helped her move out? The only reason a guy helps a girl move out of her ex-boyfriend's apartment is if he wants to sleep with her or he's already sleeping with her." Vienna shrugged, spreading her hands in front of her as she did so. "Based on what you've told me, they've been banging for the past couple of weeks."

"You think so?"

Vienna gently patted Gio's thigh. "Oh sweetie," she teased. "I know I'm the only one in this group with tits, but am I the only one with brains as well?" She rubbed the fabric of his track shorts. "That's probably why she broke up with you over email. She imagined you getting upset and punching the guy in the face."

"I've never punched anyone in the face," Gio exclaimed in shock. "I don't think I've ever punched anyone, period."

"I know that. You know that. I'd bet your ex-girlfriend and this other guy didn't." Vienna gave Gio's thigh a firm shake before pulling her hand back. "All you need is a pair of glasses and you'd look like an Italian Clark Kent."

Gio used his feet to pick up his empty beer bottle from the table. "Grab me another beer?" he said while offering her the bottle.

Vienna chuckled as she removed the bottle from between Gio's feet. "Look," she said while walking to the fridge, "there's plenty of other fish in the sea. It's OK to get upset about the end of a relationship, but considering she ended your relationship via email and was most likely cheating on you with this guy, it's not worth getting THAT broken up about." She came back to the couch with two opened bottles of beer. "I bet that by the time you drive back to Mississippi, you'll have forgotten all about that bitch."

Gio nodded half-heartedly in agreement as Vienna gave him his beer before sitting down. "It's just a run of bad luck. I'm on a bit of a losing streak, that's all." He gave himself an affirmative nod. "Yeah. It'll turn around. You mind if I crash here? It was a 20-hour drive from Mississippi. If I go home to sleep there's no way my folks are going to let me skip church tomorrow morning."

"You're going to skip church? What's next, using a condom?"

"I think the Lord would rather have me snoring on your couch than in the chapel of St. Apollonia's. So can I sleep here?"

Vienna answered with a snort of friendly disdain. "You have to ask? There should be a spare pillow and blanket in the drawer right underneath where you're sitting."

After sitting back up and taking a sip of beer, Gio asked, "What do you want to do tonight? It's still early, we could grab a catnap and then go out to dinner?"

Vienna flopped her head back on top of the couch. Her dirty blonde hair hung over the edge. "How about we order a pizza from Joey R's and stay in? There are two more six-packs of Coors in the fridge once we finish off the one we started. We can put our feet up and just hang out."

This time Gio nodded in agreement. "You had me at Joey R's," he grinned, "but why the hell are we drinking Coors? You've been a Ruby Red girl for as long as I can remember."

"Housewarming gift from my landlord," Vienna answered. "I am young and broke so I am not turning down free beer." She glanced over her shoulder at the clock on the far wall. "It's 6 PM now. We'll order around 7?"

X X X X X

"This might have been a mistake." Gio patted his dark blue tank top over his flat stomach. "A deep dish pepperoni and... five beers? I'm going to be cutting like a madman for a week."

"Worth it," Vienna said as she handed Gio another bottle of Coors. He accepted the bottle before she flopped onto the couch next to him. "Just keep hydrated," she said, nodding with what she thought was the wisdom of her years. "All we have to do is eat smart and drink water."

Gio tapped a finger against his bottle of Coors. "We are drinking water."

Vienna lightly smacked him on the shoulder. "Don't make fun of the free beer I'm giving you!"

"Five beers in and I'm barely buzzed. All Coors is good for is empty calories."

"How much Coors did we drink in high school?" Vienna waggled her half-full bottle. "Pretty much that was all we drank until the back half of senior year when Garrett's granddad started piling us with Ruby Red." A sad smile creased her face. "Grandad West was awesome."

"Yeah, he was. Remember the time Danny told you and me that Ruby Red was 'fag beer?'" Gio shook his head. "God, that guy was an asshole."

"Anthony Giovanni! Did you just swear and take the Lord's name in vain?"

"I guess... yeah, I did." He chuckled before taking another sip of Coors. "But Jesus Christ, he was a fucking asshole!"

Vienna broke out in a fit of laughter, made worse by the smile on Gio's face as he watched her outburst. "You never talk like this! You are tipsy!"

"OK, maybe I am." Gio finished the bottle of Coors while Vienna tried to contain her laughter. "Danny made fun of us for drinking Ruby Red until... I think it was Brenda who said something about how she had Ruby Red during winter break... no, during the blizzard... and she liked it a lot better than all the Coors Danny ever drank."

"Danny got pissed at that. He went to throw Garrett's backpack out the window before catching himself. I'm surprised their little senior year truce managed to hold for as long as it did. I swore there were a couple of times Danny was going to explode because he couldn't put his hands on Garrett."

Gio shrugged as he took Vienna's empty bottle. By unspoken agreement, it was his turn to head to the fridge and get fresh beers. He wobbled a little bit as he stood up from the couch. He had to put a hand on the kitchen counter, drawing a snicker from Vienna as he kept his balance. "Maybe I should have just punched him in the face at some point. Might have taught him a lesson or something."

"While I do find it funny I punched Danny more times than you did, you're a nice guy. The negotiator. I'm the raging bitch, remember?"

"Aw, you're not a raging bitch..." He laughed when he saw the look on Vienna's face. "Fine, you're a raging bitch."

Vienna nodded. "And to think the whole Danny/Garrett mess came to a head because Garrett talked to Brenda fucking Lattimore." She chuckled as she leaned back against the couch. "Maybe she had a crush on him. Lord knows Garrett kept making stupid puppy eyes at her class when she thought she wasn't looking."

Gio turned away from the fridge with a cold bottle of Coors gripped tightly in each hand. "You said they were pretty hot and heavy after the prom. Something about them dancing together?"

"I don't remember what I saw. That was what, six years ago? Oh wow, it was six years ago."

Gio flopped down beside her and handed her a bottle. "Could you imagine Garrett and Brenda hooking up? I love my boy but the way he acts, I don't know if he knows his way around a girl's body like you and I do. And Brenda had a dynamite body..."

The laughter turned into an annoyed snort as Vienna whacked Gio on the arm. "You never say that about me!"

"I tell you that you look great all the time!"

"You never used the word 'dynamite!'" Vienna gave her friend a playful sniffle. "Maybe I want to be told how hot I look once in a while."

With an exaggerated roll of his eyes, Gio rolled onto his side. He stared intently at her. "Vienna, you got a killer body."

"Nope," she said after a moment, "sounds weird. I get the same feeling I get when my stepbrother flirts with me." Vienna shuddered. The deep swallow of beer helped to soothe her momentary disgust. "Yeah, never hit on me again."

Gio slowly thrust a shaking finger into the air. "I was NOT hitting on you. I was complimenting you. There's a difference."

"Still, stick with telling me I look good."

"Deal."

The next few moments passed by in silence as the pair quietly sipped on their Coors. Gio's legs were on the table as Vienna, her legs pulled underneath her, settled in against his shoulder. "Can I say that it's nice to just be you and me?" she asked after a couple of minutes. "I miss Garrett, but you and I don't hang out like this very much anymore."

"The summer after graduation." Gio shifted to let Vienna get more comfortable against him. Her blonde hair tickled his tan skin. "Garrett left that first morning of the summer. It was just you and me for three whole months. We hung out, bummed around, listened to music, snuck beers in the woods..."

"Do you remember trying to get me to come to church with your family?"

"Did you ever seriously consider it?"

"Not once."

The pair shared a round of soft laughter before Gio continued. "Don't get me wrong, Garrett's going to always be my friend come hell or high water. But so are you. And sometimes I get jealous of how close the two of you are."

"Same here." Vienna reached out to lightly poke Gio in the ribs, causing him to squirm just a bit. "I've known him a lot longer, but you guys are both... well, guys. And does he ever tell you that he feels like he's the odd one out like we're both way too cool to be his best friends?"

"All the time. That's why the three of us are all good friends. We're all so damn neurotic!" Gio laughed heartily, Vienna joining in with a good-natured chuckle. It was his turn to lean his head against her shoulder. "Weren't we supposed to have it all together by now? Like, know how the rest of our lives were going to be?"

"Are you kidding me?" Vienna put her arm around Gio and rested her head against the top of his. "We're 24 years old. We're supposed to be fucking around and figuring out what we want to do with our lives. If we're still acting like this when we're 30? Then we can be concerned that we might be wasting our lives. Until that point?" Vienna tapped her beer against Gio's. "Cheers, motherfucker."

"Cheers, motherfucker." Gio smirked as he also tapped his beer against hers. "I swear," he said after taking a swig, "Garrett's going to be the first one of us to get married, just you watch. He's going to meet some girl down in Florida and they're gonna fall head over heels for each other. I'd bet money on it."

Vienna answered with a casual shrug. "And if he does? Good on him. As long as she's not a raging bitch or anything."

A loud laugh escaped Gio before he responded, "You're the only raging bitch for Garrett."

"Damn right I am," Vienna said, punctuating her words with a firm nod. "Same with you." She reached out and put her hand on Gio's thigh. She squeezed his firm quad, shaking it slightly in a reassuring manner. "No one else is allowed to be a raging bitch to you but me. Don't worry. You've got the start of a career in IT work and I promise you're gonna meet a smoking hot piece of tail once you get the hell out of Mississippi." Her hands remained on his leg as she added, "Because seriously, you're way too hot for any of those Southern belles."

A genuine smile, the kind Vienna had known for the past ten years, crossed Gio's face. "Thanks, Vienna," he said, turning his head to gently peck her on the cheek. "That's exactly what I needed to hear."