Oh, yeah. The curse thing. Might as well get to that.

I heard it at the bar down the street, a few months after Brent and I had started living together. We had just finished our first annual, last ever, get-to-know-the-roommate-better night when Brent brought it up. He had gone through close to a pitcher of beer; I don’t think he would have told me the story otherwise.

“Have I told you I’m cursed?” he asked me.

“Only three times tonight and every other time you can’t figure out why your life isn’t perfect.”

“Ah,” was all Brent said in reply. He wasn’t sober enough to catch my annoyance. “You want to know why?”

I looked at him over my glass of beer. “Sure,” I said, fairly certain I was going to regret it.

Without all of Brent’s whining and self-deprecation, the story goes something like this:

Brent may seem like a ‘goody-two shoes,’ but I don’t care who you are; at fourteen years old, hormones take over and you’ll give your left kidney for porn. And from the way he talked, I can only guess that drama-boy was quite the connoisseur. I’m not clear on just how he had gotten his videos, I think from some well-meaning corruptive friend, but he had gotten himself a stock-pile of five or six.

Brent still gets nervous about what his parents think. When he was in middle school, he was deathly afraid of them. Brent kept his porn hidden under his bed. Not exactly the most clandestine place, but he was fourteen, give him a break. Anyway, he actually lost sleep worrying about what his parents would do if they ever found them, or if he left one of the tapes in the VCR, or if they found one of the cases lying around, or if…if…if…

You get the idea.

Anyway, and he gets some ingenuity points for this one, Brent decided he’d hide them in plain sight; namely inside some old Disney tapes he had. Not just inside the covers, but inside the tapes themselves. One night, when his parents went to some party or something, he opened up Bambi, Snow White, and a few others he knew he’d never watch again, exchanged the magnetic tapes with his porn’s magnetic tapes, and then closed them back up. He threw out the left-over casings and packaging from the porn, sneaking the remains to the bottom of the trash cans outside. When his parents got home that night, he was sleeping peacefully and they never suspected a thing.

Even though, as far as anyone could tell from looking at them, they were the Disney tapes, Brent still kept them out of sight under his bed. The switched out packaging should have fooled his parents just in case they went sniffing around his room. He knew they’d long ago forgotten about all the Disney crap they had bought him when he was a kid.

The problem was that four years later, Brent forgot all about them, too.

So one day, after Brent had graduated from high school and was preparing to move on to college, his parents saw the sheer amount of stuff he was leaving behind and suggested a yard sale. They pulled things from every nook and cranny of their home, and piles of Brent’s childhood were laid out for sale to the highest bidder.

Including the Disney tapes.

They sold them. All of them. And the best part is, they seemed to have all gone to different people.

So a week later, an old family friend shows up on their front porch, waving a VHS tape and demanding to know why her five year old had found herself watching Debbie Does Dallas instead of Peter Pan. Brent hadn’t remembered either, not at first, but when he listened to the woman’s story it… all… came… back.

Well, Brent ‘fessed up for the one, admitting to his parents that he had, four years ago, switched the guts of the tapes. They asked if he had done more of them and, teeth gritted, he admitted to it. Though, he answered truthfully, he couldn’t remember how many, probably only about two more, maybe. The lady backed him up there too, saying that the other tape had been ‘just fine.’

Brent spent the next week jumping whenever a car drove into his driveway. He half expected people to begin popping into his house, swinging Disney classics and complaining about therapy bills for their children.

But no one ever did.

The last few weeks passed, painfully and slowly enough, and his parents drove him to college and dropped him off. They had forgiven him, for the most part, and let the matter slide, except for a few snide remarks to his roommates who, once they had gotten the full story out of him, all insisted on shaking his hand.

The problem was, Brent explained to me, those tapes that never came back. He knew he had at least five tapes, he had memorized the titles, but he had never heard about the other four. He could only assume that the owners of the others hadn’t remembered where they had bought them, or that they didn’t know what they had. Or if the buyers had children who were old enough to appreciate such things, they probably hadn’t even found out about the problem. I can only imagine the look on some baby-sitter’s face, sitting the kids and herself down to watch Cinderella for the evening, and then a BJ shot shows up on screen.

This is where the curse comes in. Brent thinks that there are three possibilities: First, that he had so offended God that the Almighty’s been raining misfortune down on him ever since. Second, that karma hasn’t finished smacking him around for the trauma he no doubt has caused the kids who had seen the tapes. Or lastly, that it was a Gypsy family that had gotten hold of the tapes, and unable to return them and get their money back, had satisfied themselves by cursing the causer of such misfortune.

When Brent finished his story, he sat there, grinning at me over his glass, like he had just provided me with some primal truth about the world.

“That’s it?” I asked.

Brent looked surprised. “What do you mean ‘that’s it?’”

“I mean, ‘that’s it.’ You did something bad, so now you’re cursed?”

Brent flushed a bit. “Well, everything’s gone wrong since! And there was a family there, and they looked like they might have been gypsies!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” I said.

“It’s true!” he insisted.

“If you say so,” was all I said. I didn’t feel like arguing the point. It sounded more to me like Brent had finally found his way out from under his parents’ over-protective wings and had ran head first into life. When you have to pay your own bills, cope with professors, girl-friends, and roommates for the first time, of course it looks like everything’s going wrong. That was just how life was, though, and Brent had simply been too sheltered to have ever really experienced it before. He wasn’t cursed, just living.

But I wasn’t about to spend the last ten minutes the bar was open trying to tell him that.

Six drinks into the night, Brent could barely sit upright. “I want a tattoo!” he declared.

I looked up at him. “You want a what?”

“A tattoo,” he repeated, half-focusing on something over my shoulder.

What brought that on? I wondered. I followed his gaze to a girl sitting a few tables down and the butterfly at the base of her spine. I turned back around. “Sure you do,” I said.

“I do!” Brent said, still looking over my shoulder, though whether he was actually gazing at the tattoo, I couldn’t tell.

“Right,” I said, not in the mood for this. He had already spent most of the night sulking about his ex; I didn’t want to spend the rest of it hearing him talk about how daring he wanted to be to impress her and get her back.

“I’m serious,” he said, finally looking back at me. Either her shirt had come down and hid her tattoo or she had turned around.

“No you’re not.”

“Yes, I am. I want to get ‘Hey Amy, suck this!’ tattooed on my ass!”

I looked at him. I couldn’t tell whether the stupid grin was from the bad joke or the alcohol. “You’re dumb when you’re drunk, you know that?” I said.

Brent scowled at me. “I’m serious. I want a tattoo.”

“What? ‘VD Safe’ on your dick?”

He frowned. “No. Just… something.”

“Let me get this straight,” I said, leaning forward. “You’re drunk off your ass, so you want to get some random picture inked into your butt that you’ll have for the rest of your life?”

Brent thought about that for a minute. “Not on my butt. Somewhere where I can see it.”

I turned back to my beer. “Whatever.”

“C’mon,” Brent whined.

“C’mon what?”

“Let’s go get a tattoo!”

“No.”

“C’mon.”

“No!”

Brent went silent for a few seconds. “I’ll bug you until we do.”

I looked at him over my glass. He just sat there, smiling smugly, like he had actually accomplished something. Why not? I thought. It might actually teach him not to get drunk. I pushed my beer away and stood up. “Sure,” I said, “let’s go.”

Brent looked surprised. “You mean it?”

“Yes,” I said.

Brent stood up eagerly only to slip and almost fall flat on his ass.

“You want help?” I asked.

“Nah, I got it,” Brent answered, levering himself up off the table. He stumbled to his feet and followed me to my car.

There was a tattoo parlor just up the street from Café Yoko’s. It didn’t look to be the most reputable one in town, but at least I knew where it was.

When we got inside, Brent spent a good ten minutes looking around. “Are you sure this is a tattoo place?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“It looks like a doctor’s office,” he said.

I had to agree with him; except for the books on the stands against the wall, showing off possible tattoos, and the guy in the corner, dressed in a sleeveless leather vest with tattoos running down his arms, it looked just like a clinic. Bored and annoyed, I led Brent over to the books and opened one up for him. “So,” I said, “pick one.”

Confused, Brent began flipping through the books. “Isn’t there just, some kind of standard tattoo?” he complained.

“You mean like everyone else gets?”

“Yeah,” Brent said, missing my point.

“Excuse me, sir,” the girl at the desk said. She was cute, although the lip and eyebrow piercings weren’t my thing. “If you don’t have an appointment, you need to fill this out.” She slid a clipboard towards me from the back of her desk. It had a stack of duplicate forms on it.

Just like a medical form, I thought as I scanned it. “Here,” I said, handing it to Brent. He looked at it with a perplexed expression. “You need to fill it out,” I explained.

The girl cleared her throat. “Uh, sir, if your friend’s getting the tattoo, I don’t think he can. We’re not supposed to service people who are drunk.”

I looked at her. Then looked over at Brent, who was busy trying to figure what to write under ‘Name’. “He’s not drunk,” I said.

The girl raised her eyebrow. “Really?”

“Really,” I said, “he’s just dumb.”

She frowned at him, than at me. “As long as you’re taking responsibility for it.”

“I will,” I promised, then led Brent back to his seat to fill out the form. He finished it and walked it up to the desk. The girl took it, still frowning.

“So do you know what tattoo you want?” I asked him.

Brent thought about it for a second. “I want a butterfly tattoo on the small of my back,” he said finally.

“No,” I said.

“Why not?” Brent demanded. “The girl at Yoko’s did!”

“My point,” I said. “Here.” I handed him one of the books. “Find something else.”

It took Brent a good five minutes to find one he liked. “This one,” he said, pointing at a pretty generic flaming skull.

“That one?” I asked.

“That one,” he answered. “Isn’t it cool?”

“It’s… colorful.” I looked at him out of the corner of my eyes. Brent’s grin looked a little too forced. “You certain about this?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said hastily. “Dead certain.”

“Really? Because it’s not like you can just wash it off tomorrow.”

“I know, I know,” Brent said, annoyed. “That’s the point.”

“So where are you putting it?”

Brent shrugged. “I don’t know, arm, maybe? Wherever it is you put tattoos.”

“Okay,” I said. Can’t wait to hear the artist’s answer to that. “Well, you might not want to get it anywhere too painful.”

“Painful?” Brent asked.

“Yeah, the needles can hurt like a bitch.”

“They use needles?” Brent said shakily.

I almost felt guilty for dragging him all the way out here. “How do you think they get the ink under the skin?” I asked.

Brent shrugged stupidly. “Don’t know. Never really thought about it before.”

“Thinking of changing your mind?”

Brent glared at me. “Not a chance. It doesn’t matter how they put it on.”

“If you say so.” I went back to feeling pissed.

Brent spent a good five minutes contemplating needles until they called the name of the guy in the sleeveless leather vest. Two minutes later, the person the artist had been working on came out. He had gotten a tattoo on his arm and they had wrapped it in saran wrap. I couldn’t see what it was supposed to be though, since it was too smeared with blood and Neosporin, making a red, blotchy mess just above his elbow.

Brent took one look at it and threw up.

“Not drunk, is he?” the girl asked skeptically, standing over him.

“Dumb,” I said, “and has a weak stomach.”

“Sure he is. I take it this means he won’t want a tattoo?”

“Nah,” I said. I looked at his puke, mostly bile and liquid. “Sorry.”

She shrugged. “It happens all the time.”

I half-carried Brent out to the car and slung him in the back seat.

“See,” he muttered out. “I told you I was cursed. I can’t even get a lousy tattoo.”

I glanced at him in the rearview mirror. He was somewhere between pale and green, and there was still some wet spots of vomit on his shirt. “No,” I said, “you’re not cursed. Just stupid.”

“Do you believe in God?” Brent asked from across the table.

For a moment, just a moment, I almost answered him. But after a few seconds of contemplation I decided I didn’t feel like following Brent’s conversation to whatever depressing conclusion of life he’d find. Certainly not in the middle of Café Yoko’s where he has an unending supply of beer. So instead, I ignored him.

“Hey,” Brent said thinking that I just hadn’t heard.

With a sigh, I gave up on figuring out what to do with Holly and met his eyes.

“Do you believe in God?” Brent repeated.

I looked at him, gave him a sarcastic smile, then said, “Self-fulfilling delusions, specifically concerning girls.”

Brent blinked at me. “What?”

“Self-fulfilling delusions, specifically concerning girls,” I repeated.

He gave me a side-longed glance, like maybe I had finally lost my mind. “I, uh, asked, ‘Do you believe in God?’”

“I know,” I answered cheerfully.

“So, uh, do you?”

“That’s not what you’re asking,” I explained.

Brent hesitated. “It’s not?”

“It’s not,” I said. “Think about it. What are you actually asking me when you say, ‘Do you believe in God?’”

He frowned at me, like it was a trick question. “Just that. You know, do you believe in God? Is there an afterlife? All that?”

I shook my head. “No you’re not. Are you having a crisis of faith or something?”

“Uh, well…” Brent’s eyes roved around the room helplessly.“No, not really.”

“And will me telling you that God does or doesn’t exist affect what you think?”

Brent gave me a nervous grin. I think he was trying to decide whether or not he was going to piss me off if he told the truth. “Um… no, it won’t, actually.”

“My point,” I said. “You don’t want to talk about God; you want to talk about something serious so you can take your mind off how depressed you are. God’s just a good segue. So why don’t we talk about your self-fulfilling delusions, specifically concerning girls?”

Brent colored a bit. I think I had actually offended him. “You mean like you and your doomed relationship theory with Holly?”

“Ouch, that hurt,” I said sarcastically. “No, I mean like you and your stupid curse.”

“It’s real,” Brent sulked. “At least I’m not just going to run a girl off because I’m so sure it’s not going to work out.”

“Will you just let it go?” I grated out irritably. Holly was one of the last things I wanted to talk about right then.

“Right, right,” he said, looking at his feet. “Sorry. But really, c’mon, tell me what you think about God.”

I sighed. “Why?”

Brent frowned. “Well, honestly, I’ve just been thinking a lot about life lately. You know, what’s the point, why am I here, all that…” He trailed off.

“And why your relationship with Amy fell apart and why you haven’t dated anyone since?” I suggested.

Brent flushed. “Not necessarily.”

“Sure you weren’t,” I said dryly.

“I wasn’t,” Brent said angrily. “But seriously; don’t you ever wonder about God, and if there’s any meaning to any of this? Or if he just likes pissing you off?”

“If there is an omnipotent, all powerful being,” I said, “I doubt he’d give a shit whether or not you’re mad at him.”

“Sometimes I wonder.”

“Why?”

“You have to ask?” Brent spat. “Look at my life!”

“Which part?” I asked with a grin.

“Very funny,” Brent answered. “I mean, seriously, look at me. I did everything Amy could have wanted, tried to give her space, was the perfect boyfriend, and she left me.” With a sigh, he let his head drop to the table. “God, it just seems like there was nothing I could do about it. Like it just had to happen.”

Weird definition of ‘perfect.’ I thought. “There you go again.”

Brent sat up and glared at me. “You mean talking about my curse?”

“More like your self-fulfilling delusion, specifically concerning girls.”

“It’s real, whether you want…” Brent trailed off when he realized where the conversation had led itself.

“My point. Like I said: God’s just a convenient segue.”

Brent opened his mouth, uncertain of what to say. Finally, he growled out. “That’s not fair. You led me there.”

“Whatever.”

“Look,” he said seriously, “I really want to talk about this: Do you believe in God?”

I massaged my temples. “Look, I’m not going to talk to you about this.”

“Why not?” Brent demanded.

“Because we’ve talked about this before. Twice.”

He looked at me dumbfounded. “No we haven’t.”

“Yes, we have.”

“When?”

“That first night we went out drinking. And the night Amy broke up with you.”

Brent flinched at the reminder, but looked completely confused. “I don’t remember that happening.”

“Of course not,” I said. “You get shit-faced every time I tell you.”

Brent, I think, has a thing for bras.

After that first week with Amy, what she had been wearing underneath her shirt on various nights was about all he ever talked about.

Technically, that classified as “too much information,” but since I didn’t think he had ever gotten a girl’s shirt off before, I figured it was forgivable. I mean, he needed to brag to somebody, right? And his not-really-paying-attention roommate was a better option than the local bar-tender.

“Are you paying attention?” he asked, fifteen minutes into a monologue about red silk and the funny clasp on the back.

“No, not really,” I said, half-attentively. We were in the middle of a shopping trip for light bulbs and he was babbling about underwear. I tried not to contemplate the surrealism of the situation.

“Oh,” Brent said. He knew me well enough to not be surprised. “I suppose Amy’s underwear really isn’t that interesting, is it?”

“No, not really,” I answered. “After all, I only get to hear about it.”

“Uh, sure,” Brent said, not certain what to do with that. “I guess we can probably talk about something else.”

“Nah, it’s okay,” I said. “I’d rather hear about her underwear than yours.”

“Ha ha,” Brent answered. I grinned at him.

I found what I needed and we were on our way out. Halfway there, Brent stopped, staring. I followed his eyes. Ogling mannequins in lingerie now? “What is it?” I asked.

Brent caught himself and blushed guiltily. “Just… uh, contemplating an… uh, gift. Do you think it would be too much?”

I shrugged. “You’ve slept with her, right?”

Brent looked even more embarrassed. What’s the deal? I wondered. Just minutes ago you were talking all about her cleavage.

“Actually, no,” he said, “I haven’t.”

“Oh,” I said. Then thought about it. “You’re kidding.”

“No, actually I’m not.” Brent choked out, looking like he wished he hadn’t brought the matter up.

“Too much alcohol, I take it?”

“No!” Brent said heatedly.

“Then what?” I asked. “You’ve been coming home at ten in the morning every day. Don’t tell me you’re sleeping on the couch?”

“No, with her… it’s just, just… uh….” Brent trailed off. I just glared at him until he forced himself to explain. “I just… that is, we just didn’t feel ready. I mean, we just met…”

I frowned at him. So what you’re really saying is that you were too chicken to stick your hand down her panties. “In that case…” I shrugged. “Hell, buy her a brand new brassiere if you want. I wouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

I rolled my eyes. “Think about it. Lingerie is for when you’re screwing, not for when you’re holding hands.”

Brent flushed angrily at the comment, but ignored it. “That doesn’t make any sense. I mean, it’s not like I haven’t seen her in her underwear already.”

“That’s not the point. Lingerie is made to be taken off.”

“So you really think it’s that bad an idea?”

“Definitely,” I said. “Get her something harmless, like…” I thought about it. “A locket’s good. It’s jewelry, kind of.”

Brent looked at me like I was crazy. “A locket’s harmless? Are you mad? I might as well put a ring on her finger…” He considered that for a moment. “Actually, that’s not a bad idea. But still…” He looked longingly at the row of mannequins advertising the latest fashions.

I laughed out loud. “Whatever you want. But I wouldn’t buy her underwear, at least, I wouldn’t buy it here.”

“Huh?” Brent asked. “Why not?”

“Think about it,” I said. “It’s K-Mart.”

Brent’s eyes kept jumping from his drink, to the counter, and back again.

And it was beginning to get on my nerves.

“What is it?” I asked exasperated.

Brent’s head whipped back around and he flushed. “Her,” he whispered, attempting to nod his head without actually doing so.

“Her?” I looked past him, puzzled. “Oh, you mean Counter-Girl?”

“Yeah,” he answered in a hushed voice. “The girl at the counter.”

“Right. So what about her?”

“Well…” Brent was still flushed. “She’s got a white shirt on, and I don’t think she’s wearing a bra, and… Don’t look at her!”

I shook my head at him. “They’re just nipples. You downloaded how much porn back at college? What’s the problem?”

“There’s not,” Brent answered, flustered. “And no, I didn’t!”

I looked at him with a raised eye-brow. She wasn’t Amy, yet he was going on about her breasts. A good sign as far as I was concerned.

I picked up my bottle, swirled it around a bit, then downed the last of it. “I need another beer,” I said, clanking it back down on the table. “Why don’t you get me one?”

Brent looked up at me venomously. “Why don’t you get your own?” he said. I think he thought I was trying to be mean.

“Fine,” I said, standing up. “I’ll get her number.”

“That’s not…” Brent stuttered out, then went silent.

I gave him a sardonic grin. “C’mon, I’ll be there for moral support.”

“But what if I make a bad impression?” he asked meekly.

“Just stay focused on her eyes and you’ll do fine.”

We made our way over to the counter. The girl behind it brightened when she saw me. “Hi!” she said cheerfully. “So did you find him?”

Did I find who? I wondered. Then I remembered; she had been one of our pit-stops as we were looking for Brent. Weird, though, that she’d remember that from a week ago. “Yeah,” I answered, nodding my head towards Brent. “Eventually.”

“So this is the missing roommate, huh?” she said, smiling at him. “So where’d you end up at, anyway?”

Brent flushed. “Nowhere, really. A friend of mind just dragged me off.”

“Is that all?” Counter-Girl asked, sounding puzzled. “It sounded like a pretty big deal.”

I snickered. “Nah, nothing big,” I said with a grin. “Just our local vampire hunting loony dragging him off at gunpoint was all.”

“Vampires? Gunpoint?” she asked, looking scared but interested at the same time. “How does that happen?”

“By being cursed,” Brent answered wryly.

“Cursed?” Counter-Girl said. Now she looked a little fascinated, but mostly terrified.

Nice pickup line, I thought, rolling my eyes. “Ignore my roommate,” I explained. “He thinks it’s a better explanation than ‘I’m stupid.’”

She looked at me, still shocked, then burst out laughing. “I see.” She chuckled. “Does this happen often?”

I shrugged. “Just twice, but Brent was the one that brought him home in the first place.”

Brent scowled at me instead of answering. “So is this a new friend you haven’t told me about or did you pass out fliers when I disappeared?”

I shrugged. “Just to everyone at Café Yoko’s,” I said with a straight face. “Anyway, you’re right; I should have introduced you two. Drama-boy, meet Counter-Girl.”

He gave me a glare before giving Counter-Girl a polite smile. “Brent,” he introduced himself. “And you?”

“Counter-Girl, is it?” she said with a laugh. “Who cleans messes with a single swipe! Who can lift two pint glasses one handed!” She chuckled again, then gave Brent a mysterious smile. “Well, you can call me CG then.”

“CG?” Brent asked. “As in Counter-Girl? You don’t have to call yourself that.”

“Well,” she said, “if I’m going to have to compete with vampire hunters, maybe I’ll need the name?”

For the first time during the whole conversation, Brent said something right. “Why would you have to compete with him?”

“Well, he sounds like an adventure,” she said, giving Brent an ‘I want you but you’re probably unhealthy’ look. “So how’d you become cursed?”

Brent flushed a bright red. I cleared my throat and answered for him. “He doesn’t actually have a reason, he just thinks he’s been unlucky lately. Right?”

“Right,” he answered unconvincingly.

Counter-girl gave him a skeptical look. “Well, then why would…” She stopped as a few other customers walked up. “I think we’ll have to talk some more later. Did you guys want something to drink?”

“Just a couple of beers,” I said. “We’ll say ‘hi’ next time we’re here.”

“Please do,” she said. She gave us both a bright smile as she plunked two beers on the counter and I paid for them.

“When are you working next?” Brent asked hastily as I was turning around. Socially adept and appropriate; what a surprise.

She gave him a demure smile. “From midnight to eight almost every night this week,” she answered.

“I’ll… I’ll see you around then,” Brent said, then spun around and walked back to our table. Counter-girl let her gaze linger on him for a few seconds before turning back to her new customers.

Brent was in his chair before I was. “Not a number,” I said as I sat down, “but something, I suppose.”

“Yeah,” Brent agreed, sounding a little giddy.

I reached across the table, twisted the cap off his beer, then set it back down in front of him. “So did you stay focused on her eyes like I told you.”

“I tried.”

“Really?” I asked. “Then what color were they?”

Brent straightened in his chair. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I’m pretty certain she is wearing a bra, it’s just cream colored.”

The phone rang at three in the morning.

No, that didn’t strike me as abnormal; not at first anyway. Anyone who knows me knows I’m never asleep by three.

I answered it. “Hello?” I waited, expecting Brent or possibly Holly. Or maybe even Dan, since I didn’t doubt he could figure out our number if he wanted.

But it was a girl’s voice on the other end; and she sounded nervous. “Hello?” she said tentatively.

I waited about ten seconds, puzzling over the voice. It reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t place it.

There was a deep breath on the other end. “Is someone there?”

“Yes,” I said simply. I checked the time again, just to make sure it really was three in the morning.

“Oh…” She had a tiny shudder in her voice. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

I almost hung up right then, but I still wanted to know who I was talking to. “No. Who is this?”

“Me? Uh, I’m… doing a survey!”

“At three in the morning?”

“Um…it’s for, uh, insomniacs!”

I frowned skeptically. You have got to be kidding me. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“By calling at three in the morning?”

“Well, yeah,” she said lamely. “If we wake them up, then we know they aren’t insomniacs, and we don’t want to interview them anyway.”

I decided to play along a little longer. “So,” I said, “what’s the first question?”

“Question?”

“This is a survey, right?”

“Of course…” She hesitated. I think she was debating whether or not to plow ahead or save her dignity and hang up. She plowed ahead. “Great!” Her attempt at enthusiasm failed miserably. “So, uh, you have trouble sleeping?”

“Not really,” I answered.

There was silence from the other end. “You don’t?” she asked surprised. “Well then, why are you up?”

“Do you still want to survey me,” I asked, trying to make myself sound confused, “since I’m not an insomniac and all?”

“Uh, no, it’s really just for people who are up this late. Not just insomniacs.”

“Oh, okay.” Sure it is. “Well, I’m up because I get off work around ten at night.”

“I see…” she said. “And, uh, is there a reason for this?”

“Reason?” I asked. “For what?”

“For working late.”

I rolled my eyes. “Hey, you take what you can get. Besides, I’m used to staying up all night.”

“So,” she said, “you are an insomniac.”

I frowned. “If it makes you feel better to call me that, go ahead.”

She didn’t comment on that. “So what do you do for a living?”

“Oh,” I said blandly, “nothing special. I hot-wire cars and sell the stereos on the black market and my roommate’s a male prostitute.”

She went silent. “You’re joking, right?”

“Yes.”

For a second, I thought she was going to hang up on me, but then I heard her take a deep breath. “Seriously, what do you do?”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

I chuckled. “I enter the information on computer order forms. Kind of dull, really.”

“Oh. And what’s your roommate do?”

“You mean the prostitute?”

“Seriously.” She sounded angry.

“He stocks crap at Wal-Mart. Now, anything else personal you want to ask?”

“I…” She sounded flustered. “Your job is hardly something personal. It’s not like I was asking your sexual preference.”

“Straight.” I answered simply. “So’s my roommate. Yours?”

She paused, a little taken aback. “Straight.”

“Cool,” I said. “So… my place or yours?”

She hesitated for about a second. “I… that is…” Then I heard the phone click off.

I laughed to myself as I hung up. And it was just getting interesting.

I got back to work on my resume.

“Are you certain about this?” Holly asked, peering through the windshield at the balefully glowing Wal-Mart sign.

I shrugged. “Well, it’s not like we have a better idea. Brent works here. After this, we’ll head home.”

“I think I want to head home right now,” she said, but got out of the car.

I followed her, taking a quick look around the parking lot. It was mostly empty, of course. After all, at midnight on a Friday, most people were either leaving the movie theater or sitting down to watch something, not doing their grocery shopping. Even the Pizza Hut at the far end of the parking lot was dead quiet.

I turned back to the Wal-Mart and then, something tickling the back of my mind, I looked again at the Pizza Hut. At the far corner, I thought I saw two shapes huddled behind a nearby car. “Hold on,” I told Holly, walking slowly towards them. It couldn’t possibly be… Could it? After about ten feet, I was able to make out a few details of the two people.

I motioned Holly closer. “It’s them all right,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief.

“Brent and Dan.”

“Dan?” Holly asked, a little confused. “You mean the vampire hunter?”

“Yeah, that nut-job.”

“Is he going to hurt him?”

I shook my head. “He’s harmless for the most part, as long as he’s not getting jumpy with his gun.”

“So should we wait for him to give up?”

“No,” I said. “Shit. We should probably just grab Brent and not look back.”

I couldn’t believe it. Somehow, Brent had gotten himself dragged out here in the middle of the night by a crazed lunatic. Maybe he really was cursed?

I walked up to them, Holly following silently behind. I was five feet away, and they still hadn’t noticed me. I stood there, waiting for Dan’s vampire hunting instincts to alert him, but they apparently hadn’t kicked in yet. I cleared my throat as loudly as possible.

The two jumped almost a foot off the ground and Brent made a sound that befitted a middle school girl. He probably wet his pants right then. Dan’s feet hit the ground and he spun on his heels, wrenching his gun out and pointing it at me. His eyes darted between me and Holly, who yelped when she saw what he was holding. Finally, he focused on her, his gun wavering a bit.

I grabbed Holly’s hand and pulled her behind me, stepping in front of the gun. “She’s with me,” I explained.

Dan relaxed a little, only a little. “Maybe she is, and maybe she isn’t.” His eyes narrowed. “They’re making their move tonight. They put blood in your pizza, to make you into zombies. Did you eat the pizza? Tell me you didn’t eat the pizza! Well? Did you?”

I frowned at him. “There was no blood in the pizza.”

“Yes there was!” Dan said angrily. “I tracked it. I had to take him with me! To keep him from turning into a zombie! And now you’re turning into a zombie, too!”

“I’m not… Brent!” I said, exasperated.

“I… uh…” Brent stuttered out. Dan whirled on him, training the gun at his face. He went even paler, but then swallowed and talked even though his voice cracked. “Yeah. There wasn’t any blood on the pizza. I…. Remember? I had half a slice and I don’t look possessed, do I?”

Dan wavered a little. “They don’t actually possess you,” he said, chewing on his lip. “But I guess you do have a point.” Then he spun back on Holly, training the gun on her. Or trying to, at least, since I put myself between them. “But what about her!”

“What about her?” I asked pointedly.

Then I felt Holly pry my hand off her wrist, making liberal use of her fingernails. She stepped around me to meet Dan gaze to gaze. She didn’t even flinch at the barrel of the gun a few inches from her face. “Hi,” she said forcefully. “I’m Holly.”

Dan frowned at her for a moment, then immediately stared directly at her breasts for a good fifteen seconds. Christ! I thought, that’s a way to make a good first impression. Holly flushed about five shades of red. She’s going to kill him. That prospect gave me a certain level of satisfaction.

His head whipped back up right when I thought she was about to slap him. “She’s alive. I could see her breathing,” he said to me, then turned back to her. “Guy van Hellsing,” he said simply. “Where did you find her?”

“She’s a friend.” I gave an exasperated sigh when he didn’t lower his gun. “I’ve known her for months now. Look, she’s fine.”

Dan wavered a little. “That doesn’t mean anything. They could have planted bugs weeks ago. They can do that, you know.”

“I’m sure they can,” I said. “But I doubt they did it to her.”

“How would you know!?” Dan demanded.

I met him eye to crazed, bulging eye. “Look, we aren’t vampires. We’ve never seen any vampires, and we sure as hell wouldn’t be targeted by them! Holly works at an ice-cream shop! I enter gift order information after hours and Brent here stocks the toilet cleaners at Wal-Mart! What the hell could vampires possibly want with us?”

Dan looked back down at his feet. “They’ve got Pizza Hut! Now they’re trying to take over Wal-Mart! And to do that, they’re taking over the people who work there, one at a time! It’s true!” He looked from my face, to Holly’s, to Brent’s. “Fine,” he said heatedly, re-holstering his gun. “I’ll prove it to you.” And with that, he started walking towards Pizza Hut.

Bloody hell! “Hey!” I almost shouted, then forced my voice low again. I didn’t exactly want to get caught out here. “Dan, wait!”

He stopped and turned around, stomping his foot. “That’s not my name!” he said angrily. “I told you, my name’s Guy van Hellsing!”

“Fine, fine,” I said, walking up to him. “But just what were you planning to do? Break into Pizza Hut to show me the blood?”

“No,” Dan said, “someplace much easier.” He took a few steps to reach the dumpster and then hoisted himself up to begin digging through it.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said with a shake of my head. I headed back to where Brent and Holly watched. “C’mon, let’s go.”

“But what about Hellsing?” Brent asked, a little shaken.

“What about him?”

“Well, we can’t just leave him here.”

I looked at Brent like he was crazy. “Why not? He wants to dig through someone else’s garbage and get himself arrested, why shouldn’t he?”

“But what if he comes looking for us?” Brent said. “Do you really want to deal with him when he comes back accusing us of being on their side? Besides,” he indicated Dan with a nod of his head, “don’t you feel sorry for the poor bastard?”

I took a long look at our self-proclaimed vampire hunter. He had managed to pry open their dumpster and was half-in and half-out, constantly looking over his shoulder at us to make sure we were still there. I guess he didn’t want us to leave before he had proven himself.

Was he even worth bothering with? We could go over there and drag him back down; but he’d just be back next week, knocking on our door. It seemed liked the best thing to do was to just let him get arrested. At least then he’d get to see a psychiatrist.

“Guy!” Holly called softly.

Dan looked back at her at the sound of his fictional name.

“We believe you,” she said. “Now come on down.”

He looked back at her suspiciously, than finally pulled himself free of the dumpster and dropped back down to the parking lot. “It’s in there!” he said fervently, still holding a dripping bag of garbage.

“I doubt that,” Holly answered. “Do you really think they’d be dumb enough to leave evidence in their garbage?”

Dan looked at her, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“They’re vampires, right?” she explained. “Surely they’d be more thorough than that. I mean, they’ve been doing this for how many centuries?”

He considered this. “Then we’d have to go inside…”

Holly shook her head. “They want you to do that, don’t you see? Their security cameras are just waiting for you. You break in there, and the vampires’ll have you in their clutches before you know it.”

Dan shook his head, but he had a doubtful expression on his face. “They couldn’t catch me.”

“Can you really be so sure?” Holly asked. “And what makes you think there’s still any evidence in there?”

He glanced over at the Pizza Hut. “It was there last night…”

“But why would it be there now?” she pressed. “They were doing their final moves tonight, right? Then aren’t they done? Wouldn’t they have cleaned out and left? It’s an empty trap,” she said softly. “Don’t you see?”

Dan suddenly looked worried. “But they couldn’t possibly do that! They’re not that fast!”

“They’re vampires, remember? Why couldn’t they?”

Dan looked at her, a shattered expression on his face. Then suddenly he swore and tossed the bag across the parking lot, splattering Holly with whatever was inside. To her credit, she didn’t flinch.

“Dammit!” he said angrily, sounding near tears. “God dammit! How could I have been so stupid!” He turned away from us.

“Do you want a ride home or something,” Holly called from behind.

“No,” Dan answered harshly. Then he stalked off into the darkness.

“Well,” Holly said as we walked up, wiping some kind of gunk from her face. “That was easy.” She looked back at me, plainly disgusted. “Can I take a shower at your place?”

“Sure,” I said, “but you’ll have to sit in the trunk.”

“Ha ha,” Holly answered in a voice that dared me to try it.

As we pulled out of the parking lot, Brent looked back at the shadows Dan had disappeared into. “Do you think… do you think that’s the last of Hellsing we’ll see?”

“Maybe,” I answered. “Maybe he’ll travel on to some other city, nobly following his dream of wiping out the vampires. Maybe that is his fate, to forever journey from one place to another.”

“You think?” Brent asked seriously.

“Of course not,” I said. “Two weeks from now, he’ll be knocking on your door, trying to get you to help him break into Wal-Mart.”

Brent was silent for the rest of the ride home.

We pulled up to Café Yoko’s, grabbing one of the few empty parking spots.

Holly let out an exasperated sigh as we did, glowering at the building. “Do we really have to go in there?”

I shrugged. “Other than Waffle House, I don’t know anywhere else Brent may have gone to.” Then I looked over at her. “If you hate it that much, you can always wait in the car.”

“It’s not that,” she explained. “It’s just that the clientèle is a little, you know… Off.”

“Tell me about it,” I agreed, opening my door.

I figured we’d start at the counter. Brent and I were regulars, so there was a chance someone might have recognized him.

“Hi,” I said to the girl behind the counter. “I’m wondering if maybe you’ve…” I trailed off when I noticed she was pointing at Holly.

“I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?” she said, snapping her fingers to help herself remember.

“Me?” Holly asked, surprised.

“Yeah,” the girl said. “Wait! I remember! You’re the girl that dumped that drink on that guy’s head!”

“Uh…” Holly stuttered out, unnerved by the sudden scrutiny.

The girl leaned forward. “That was you, wasn’t it?”

Holly straightened, standing up to her full five foot, three and a half inches. “Yeah… so?”

“That was the coolest thing!” the girl said. “He was being a total ass at the counter.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. He complained about the line, and the prices.” She shook her head. “I don’t know if he thought he was impressing somebody or what, but he had something to say about everything!”

“That’s just what he was like at Baskin Robbins!” Holly answered with a laugh. “I told him how much a scoop was and he started cussing at me!”

“Seriously?” the girl said in disbelief.

“Seriously!” Holly affirmed.

“So what’d you do?”

“Told him to get the hell out of my store, what else?”

“No way,” the girl said, even more impressed.

“Yup,” Holly said proudly. “Just like that.”

“And the manager didn’t yell at you or anything?”

Holly laughed, and gave the girl a mischievous grin. “I am the manager.”

The girl put her hand on her hip and look dutifully impressed. “Wow, I wish I could do that… Do you handle all your problem customers like that?”

Holly giggled. “You bet. There was this one guy who just barged in right when we were closing. And so I told him…”

I cleared my throat very loudly. Both of them stopped talking and looked at me.

“Oh, yeah,” the girl said. “What did you want to drink?”

“That’s not it,” I said. “I was wondering if you had seen a friend of mine.”

The girl frowned. “Maybe. What’s he look like.”

“Short hair, this tall, kinda whiny. Might have been following a girl like a puppy dog?”

She shook her head. “Don’t think I’ve seen anybody like that. You’re welcome to look around, of course.”

“Of course,” I said, eyeing the many filled tables.

“Anyway…” Holly was already starting up again.

I rolled my eyes. “I’ll be right back,” I said, slipping off into the crowd.

“Sure thing,” Holly said. “Anyway, like I was saying….”

I weaved my way around tables, hoping to see Brent, or maybe even someone we both knew. I made a quick circuit of the café but I didn’t see him anywhere, just the usual, after-hours crowd.

When I got back to the counter, someone else had joined Holly and the counter-girl. Cassie, I realized, slowing up. And from the looks of it, the self-proclaimed problem guru had already gotten herself hired.

Cassie finished taking a sip from the iced drink in her hand. “And so there wasn’t a note or anything? He was just gone?”

Holly nodded. “He even left a half-eaten slice of pizza. And we’re not- Oh, you’re back!” She noticed me returning, and then noticed I was alone. “Brent wasn’t here, I take it?”

I shook my head for an answer, then fixed my gaze on Cassie. “Hi,” I said.

Cassie nodded in greeting, then gave me a significant look. “Was I right?”

I ground my teeth. “Yes. Mostly because Holly talked to you earlier that evening.”

Cassie smirked. “Right is right. Anyway,” she waved at Holly with her hand, “your girlfriend here was just telling me about your disappearing roommate.”

I sighed. “So?” I asked, ignoring the “girlfriend” bit.

“So…” she said. Then she stopped smiling and her eyes narrowed at me in a glare. “Will you believe me this time?”

“Sure,” I answered.

“Seriously,” Cassie pressed.

“Yes,” I agreed, exasperated.

“Promise?”

I gave her a side-long glance.

“You have to promise!” she almost pouted.

“Fine. I promise.”

“Okay then.” Cassie screwed up her face and put her hand under her chin. “It’s really weird, but it sounds to me like he got dragged off by some guy with a gun.”

I gave her a look. She says this and she expects me to believe her. “Really?”

“Yes,” Cassie said with a succinct nod.

I gave her a few seconds to explain herself, and when she didn’t, I spoke up. “And why, exactly, would you say that?”

“Well, think about it. People just don’t leave in the middle of meals unless it’s something serious, and even then, they usually take it with them. Sounds to me like someone dragged him off.”

“Sure it does,” I said blandly.

Cassie’s smug grin faltered a bit and she gave me a suspicious look.

“What about if there was an emergency at work, or something?” the girl behind the counter suggested.

“Nah,” I answered. “He works at Wal-Mart. I don’t think they have emergencies there.”

“And besides,” Cassie added, “people just don’t just drop their meals unless they’re forced to.” Her mouth twisted as she thought for a minute. “Still, you should drop by, just to check.”

“So?” I said after a few seconds had passed.

“So… what?” Cassie asked.

“So are you just telling me to drive over to Wal-Mart and he’ll be there?” I couldn’t keep the exasperation out of my voice.

Cassie looked like I had hurt her feelings. “Well, all you asked was ‘what happened to him’ not ‘where is he’. I guess if you want me to…”

“No, no it’s fine.” I frowned. “Anyway, Holly, we should prob-”

“You don’t believe me, do you?” Cassie broke in, sounding hurt.

I looked at her over the rim of my sun-glasses. What does she want from me? “No offense, but it’s a little implausible that some guy showed up with a gun and dragged Brent off.”

“You promised!” she accused.

“But…” I wasn’t certain what I was supposed to say. She seemed to be completely missing the point.

“You promised!” she said again, this time in something that sounded like a wail. Then she put her back to me and slumped over her drink, sniffling. “My cousin never has this problem. You’ll see I’m right. Just you wait….” she trailed off.

“It’s okay,” the counter-girl said politely. “I believe you.” She gave me a meaningful look that asked us kindly to leave before Cassie burst into tears again.

“That was mean,” Holly said as I dragged her out the door.

I shook my head. “It’s not like you believed her either.”

Holly frowned at me, but she got in the car and we drove off.

I couldn’t believe I was here again. It seemed no matter how much I tried to avoid it, no matter how much I went out of my way to avoid this place, I always seemed to find myself here. Here at this lowest of restaurants, this haven of late night vagrants.

This… Waffle House.

“I don’t think he’s here,” Holly said beside me, scanning the windows. “Maybe we should just skip this and go on to Café Yoko’s?”

“No,” I said, stepping out of the car. “For all we know, they might have dropped by here and left. C’mon.”

Holly got out too, shutting the door. “Are you certain it’s going to be okay?” she asked.

“Don’t worry,” I said simply. “I have quarters.”

The expression on the waiter’s face when we walked in the door was priceless. No doubt he never thought he’d see me here again. But we don’t always have choices in these things.

“What are you doing here?” he snapped at me, scowling the whole time. “Showing me your new sunglasses?”

I kept my temper down as I stared at him, Holly standing uncertainly beside me.

“He’s not here,” she observed, here eyes scanning the tables.

“Who’s not here?” the waiter jeered. “Your boyfriend?”

“Brent’s not my boyfriend,” she said angrily.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” he answered her. He gave me a smirk. “I was talking to you.”

“Well aren’t you the comedian?” I said with a shallow grin. “Look, I’m not here to cause problems.”

“Really?” The waiter puffed his chest out. “Well then, I think you came to the wrong Waffle House.”

I shrugged off his attitude; he wasn’t worth my time. “I’m just looking for my friend, okay?”

“Then look somewhere else,” he said importantly, “and get out of my restaurant.”

I took a few moments to size him up, then frowned. “All right, Holly. Let’s go. This bastard isn’t interested in helping us.” I stuck my hands in my pocket as I turned to go, quickly making a count of what I had. Three quarters, I thought with a grin and gathered them into my hand. There was at least two more, but I doubted I would need them.

The juke box was only a few steps from the door. I had all three quarters in before the waiter even realized what I was doing.

“No!” he shrieked, charging towards me.

“Stop,” I said, my finger a mere inch from the music selection buttons.

The waiter froze in his tracks. “Don’t do it!” he hissed.

“If you don’t want to hear the Waffle House Song,” I answered simply, “why don’t you tell me whether or not you’ve seen Brent?”

“Like hell I’ll tell you anything! I’d rather-”

My hand came down, pushing the button with a soft click. “That’s one,” I said. “You want another?”

“I got nothin’ to tell you, you bastard,” he said, choking out the words.

My finger came down again, landing just on the button, but not pushing it down.

“No, wait!” he howled, “I’ll talk, I’ll talk.”

“Have you seen my friend?”

He shook his head emphatically. “I ain’t seen him. Not since that last night you two came here. Please!”

“Are you positive?” I demanded. “Are you absolutely certain?” I pressed the button again. The restaurant was so silent, the click sounded like a gunshot. “I have four plays left!”

“I swear! I haven’t seen a hair of him.” The waiter was practically bawling now. “God, I wish I had. Please!”

“I think he’s telling the truth,” Holly said beside me. “Let’s get out of here.”

I stared down at him, grinning cruelly, and then pressed the button four more times. The whir of the jukebox began, and through the glass I could see the electric arm move, pick an actual record off the stack, and then place it on the player. Sweet Home Alabama began coming out of the speakers.

“There,” I said, “that wasn’t so hard, now was it?”

The waiter nodded at my words vacantly.

I turned to go and found myself staring at a gun pointed straight at me. Holding it was a tall guy with a ski-mask covering his face. Before I could get a smart remark out, the bastard swung a baseball bat at me. It struck me hard in the stomach and dropped me to the floor, winded but intact.

“Nobody move,” the guy shouted. “And everybody down!” He fired once into the ceiling, eliciting a few screams. Everyone dropped to the floor, covering their head with their hands. Holly ended up beside me, but her hands were fluttering just above my chest, as if she was afraid she’d hurt me worse if she touched me.

“Nobody move!” the guy said again, sounding a bit less sure of himself. He glanced around the room, and then shattered the glass cover of the jukebox with his baseball bat. He fired again into the ceiling, and then took his eyes off the customers just long enough to drop his bat and scoop up a handful of the records. Then, brandishing the gun at any one confused enough to look up, he darted out the door.

From behind the counter, one of the cooks slowly stood up, glancing from the shattered cover of the juke box, to the new set of holes in the ceiling, and back again. “God damn it!” he said angrily. “That’s why I keep telling management we should just switch to CD’s!”

When Brent first met Amy, she seemed like a blessing from God.

Brent and I sat at the bar, scanning over the people that came in. I think he was waiting for me to make a move, but after finding out that the last two girls we were hitting on were lesbians, I was in too shitty a mood to even bother.

And then she walked in.

Dressed up in a way that invariably said ‘I’m single and I don’t care,’ I gave her a once over and moved on.

Brent, however, couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off her. He watched her when she walked to the bar, when she ordered her drink, and when she made her way to a table and sat down alone. His mouth was hanging half open the entire time.

It was so pathetic, it was almost cute.

“We’ve been here a while,” I said.

“Yeah,” Brent agreed distractedly.

“Nearly three hours, I think.”

“Seems so,” Brent said, wishing I’d be quiet.

“I’m feeling kind of tired,” I said, watching him from the corner of my eye. “You?”

“Yeah,” he agreed again.

“I think we should leave.”

“Sure. Le… What?” Brent sputtered out.

I hid my grin as I finished off my beer. “What? You want to stay?”

“Well, yeah,” Brent answered lamely. “I mean…uh… I want another drink.”

“We have plenty at home, you know.”

“Well… uh, it’s all yours.”

I waved my hand. “It doesn’t matter, you know that. Look, I’m tired, and unless you have a good reason, I don’t feel like sitting here and watching you waste money.”

“You’re right,” Brent conceded, standing up. “Let’s go.”

I just sat there. “That’s it?”

Brent looked at me confused. “What’s it?”

“Like, ‘that’s it.’ That’s all. You’ve been staring at her for the last ten minutes, and you’re ready to go just like that?”

“I… uh, what do you mean?”

I looked over at the girl and indicated her with a nod with my head. “Her.”

Brent, the weirdo that he was, flushed a little. “Her? So, what about her? She’s pretty and all, but what’s it matter?”

“Pretty,” I agreed. “And single. And obviously not happy about it. So?”

He gave me that same confused expression. “So… what?”

I shook my head. “And you wonder why you’re still single?”

Brent actually managed to look a little angry. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Go talk to her.”

He blanched. “And say what?”

“How about, ‘Hi, my name’s Brent’?”

He glanced back at her for an instant, and then looked immediately away. “And just walk up to her?”

“How else are you going to start a conversation?”

Brent looked up at her, then looked back down. “Just forget about her, okay? Let’s just go.”

I gave him a long glance. “Hey man, it’s your life.” I stood up. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Brent surprised me then. He didn’t turn and walk towards the door, he didn’t whine about feeling awkward; instead he took a deep breath and took a shaky step towards the girl he had seen. He managed to walk steady all the way to her table. Whatever he did, she didn’t throw her drink in his face, so I’m assuming he didn’t make an idiot out of himself. In fact, she asked him to sit down. I ordered myself another beer, and got ready to wait for him to come back with her number.

Things seemed to go rather well, both of them smiling and laughing. In fact, they seemed to go well for the next twenty minutes. I ordered another beer, but the crowd at the bar seemed to be thinning out, the singles leaving, either alone or in hastily made couples. Finally, after fifteen more minutes and another beer, Brent stood up. He walked over to me.

“The bar’s about to close,” he said.

“I noticed,” I answered with a shrug. “So, what’s her name? And did you get her number yet? I’d like to get out here.”

“It’s Amy. And actually…” Brent glanced over to her, blushing. She was watching him with a proud smile on her face. “She invited me to come up to her apartment for a drink…” He trailed off.

I blinked at him for a second, letting that filter through. Invited him up for a drink. And then I laughed and shook my head in disbelief. “And you came back here for permission?”

Brent looked even more embarrassed. “Well, I mean, we came here together, and you’re the one that dragged…” He stopped talking when he saw the expression on my face.

“Go,” I told him. “Just go. It’s not like I came here to find a date.”

“Th…thanks,” he stuttered out, visibly relaxing.

“No problem,” I answered. And at that, he turned around and made his way back to her. She stood as he approached, then took his hand and led him almost seductively out of the bar. Like I’d want to deal with him if he didn’t go with her, I thought as the door swung shut behind them. He’d either never stop talking about how much he liked her, or he’d be mad at me for not having gone. I stayed a the bar for a few more minutes, watching the last of the stragglers make their way out before I settled with the bar-tender and left myself.

Valentine’s Day, I thought to myself. And I’m leaving a bar, all on my own, and Brent found himself a girl And the only reason I came out here was because he was probably going to cry himself to sleep tonight if I hadn’t.

Outside the door, there was a girl there, in a tight blue dress with curly black hair. She was staring out over the street, but didn’t seem to be going anywhere.

“Looking for a cab?” I asked her.

She looked over at me, surprised. “No,” she said. “I’m waiting for a car I called.”

“How long ago did you call for it?”

“About five minutes.” She shrugged.

“Ah. You’ve probably got another ten or so, then.”

She sighed. “Yeah, I know. It probably wouldn’t have taken that long to find a cab out here.”

“Well, maybe not here.” I said with a laugh. “But a block or so that way,” I pointed east, “and you probably wouldn’t have had a problem.”

“I’ll remember that,” she said. Then she looked over at me. “Are you waiting for a cab?”

I shook my head. “Nah, I live a few blocks that way.” I pointed north.

“Oh,” she said, then asked. “Are you a student?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Yeah,” she answered. “Junior.”

“Senior.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen you around campus.”

“There are ten thousand students or so,” I said with a grin.

“True,” she agreed. Another few seconds passed. “So what are you doing out on your own?” she asked.

I shrugged. “My roommate was bummed because it was Valentine’s Day, so I dragged him out here.”

“Your roommate?” she asked. “Guys get bummed on Valentine’s Day?”

“My roommate does.”

“Oh.”

We stood there in companionable silence for a few more minutes. I looked over and noticed she was shifting a little, wrapping her thin coat tighter around herself.

“Night’s not over yet,” I said simply. “You could always come over for a drink.”

She looked at me, surprised.

I shrugged. “I mean, I’m just going to go home and be bored. I wouldn’t mind a little companionship.”

“I…” she began, and then hesitated. Her eyes turned to the car that had just pulled up to the side of the street. When she turned back, she gave me a sad smile. “My car’s here.”

“Oh,” I said. I looked at her, then at the car, then back to her. “It’s not like I couldn’t call you another cab.”

She looked at me again, the expression on her face confused. Then she took two steps, closing the gap between us.

I met her, eye to eye, uncertain as to what I should do. Then, standing just on her tip-toes, she gave me a gentle, but long, kiss. Finally, she dropped back down and took a few steps backwards.

“Happy Valentine’s,” she said, giving me a guilty smile. And then she turned around and walked to her car.

“Yeah, you too,” I said, but I doubt she heard me. She got in the cab and it drove off, leaving me behind to watch it.

With a shrug of my shoulders, I walked home.