jealousy sows rejection with a kiss Who: BB & Daniel. What: BB cries on Daniel's shoulder over Alice's rejection. Where: Daniel's apartment. When: Evening.
From all appearances, it would look to anyone coming into Daniel's third-floor apartment that he was alone. Anyone who decided to glance down, however, would spy the twenty-something Asian girl under his table, lying in a fetal position on the floor. In one hand was clenched a chicken mcnugget, clearly one escapee from the box of ten sitting on top of the table. She looked utterly forlorn, adding a tinge of misery to her otherwise odd decision to lay underneath the piece of furniture, rather than seated at it.
As she finished the nugget, eating it squirrel-like with tiny, eviscerating bites directly into her mouth. She leaned up enough to hold up her hand, fishing for another nugget from the box. Daniel kept her waiting for a short time, staring down at her simply to see if she might budge. As expected, she did not. He handed another nugget down to her, shaking his head.
"This is no way to live," he said. "You don't even have sauce. How does anyone eat compressed chicken paste without sauce? Shameful."
He grabbed another chicken nugget from the box and pushed his chair back. Leaning down, he brought his arms to rest atop his thighs, and peered down into the relative dark at his friend. "It's not that bad, is it? Honestly?"
"Yes, it is," BB shot back, sullen, exchanging her aim for the nugget in his hand and prying it loose. "You don't just crush on someone for ten years and then drop it like a hot potato, Daniel." This time, as if for emphasis, she shoved the whole of the chicken nugget into her mouth before resuming her spot on the floor. The next bit of conversation was muffled and distorted by the food she was chewing. "An' I fergot tah ask fer sauce, OK?????" Tears rimmed her already reddened eyes as she pillowed her head on her arms.
"I think I've got some barbecue sauce in the fridge if you want." He passed a thin, folded napkin down to her. "But you have to be an adult and get up and go get it. OK?" His voice took on a singsong lilt. "There's tequila in there…"
Daniel leaned back in his seat. He folded his arms low and loose over his stomach, fingers laced, his dark eyes still on his friend. "I just… I dunno, BB. Do you wanna talk about it, or should I just get the booze and let you cry it out?" He chewed at his lower lip. "Um… how'd you bring it up to her? I guess we can start there?"
"Ugh," she said in response, though whether this was for the flavorless compressed chicken paste, his offering of tequila, or his question was not entirely clear. She sniffled for a moment, and then finally crawled out from under the table, as slow as though she were trapped in molasses. Then she gradually made her way over to the fridge, per his teasing instruction, and opened it, hitting herself with a blast of cool air.
"I kissed her. I mean, I didn't, like, go in full tongue or anything. I just, I kissed her is all. We were hugging and she was telling me about...changing or something...and..." I mixed my signals the fuck up, she couldn't seem to bring herself to say. Rummaging around in his fridge for a few moments longer than it actually would take to get either sauce or liquor, BB eventually pulled back out from the ice box with both BBQ sauce and tequila in hand, closing the door with a bump from her hip. She wandered just as slowly back toward the table, where she took a seat like a big girl this time.
After she'd deposited the alcohol, she plucked up a chicken nugget and dabbed it with some sauce directly from the bottle before filling her mouth once more. "I might've, I dunno, freaked her out. A little."
"Yeah, maybe." Daniel stole a nugget from the box and the bottle from her hand. He mirrored her motions, then popped the whole bite of chicken into his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully, for once carefully considering his words before he spoke up. "Y'all have been friends for a long time, though. She really never picked up on how you felt? You'd never, I dunno, dropped any hints, or asked her out in a way you could play off as a date or not a date, depending on how it went…?" He shrugged, shaking his head. He reached for the tequila and dragged it across the table toward him.
"Nevermind. I'm not blamin' either of you for the miscommunication. I can see where you'd think her comment was a little bit of an invitation. Has she spoken to you since?"
BB shook her head miserably, stealing back the BBQ sauce to spread it on another nugget. She kept looping it around for a long minute, making the tiny stack grow far taller than it needed to be, talking all the while.
"Naw, I don't think she ever computed that, out of anyone, I'd have a crush on her. Skittles... Alice, I mean, she's got some, uh, confidence issues. Has a hard time when anyone might possibly like her. She... She can be a little dense, you know?" She stopped swirling the sauce, and then shoved the whole of it into her mouth, her upper lip coated with brown. A thumb swiped over her mouth, which was then summarily sucked along with the rest of her fingers.
"I mean, I did kinda nudge some of her boyfriends off, just... I was being protective, OK? And then she got upset because she thought I was trying to keep her away from people, like...sabotaging things, but it wasn't like that at all..." BB reached for another nugget, her unending stream of commentary following her movements.
"It sounds exactly like that," Daniel said. He rose from his chair and moved back into the kitchen, returning with a roll of paper towels. He set them down, quite pointedly, in front of his friend. "I'm honestly not sure how it could sound like anything other than that. I mean… were these guys you 'nudged off' violent? Aggressive toward her? Possessive? There's tryin' to protect your friend and then there's somethin' else entirely. I like you, BB, but I can definitely see you goin' the wrong way with that."
A small furrow creased his brow. He watched her closely, assessing her reaction as he put forth a dangerous question. "Be honest. Has there ever been anybody in her life you would'a been comfortable with her bein' with? Anybody good enough for her, to you?"
BB pointedly ignored his questions (though they were at first greeted with a large groan, followed by rolling her eyes), though her flaming cheeks revealed her embarrassment. Instead, she grabbed the paper towels and clumsily ripped one off, slowly going through and cleaning her fingers that didn't need to be cleaned inch by inch. Finally, she shrugged.
"Hell if I know, honestly, I never dug that far into any of them; I mean, I didn't need to. Online dating makes it hella easy to police people's relationships, yah know?" She arched a brow in his direction, her glances carefully measuring his reaction to her words. "All I saw was a dick getting close to the girl that, you know, I mean..." A long sigh rolled out of her, her hands falling into her lap.
"She helped me figure out I was gay, OK? I mean, I figured, she just needed more time, and then she'd come around, and you better believe I was gonna make her come..." BB trailed off, her hand moving to flip long, black locks over one shoulder. This time it was Daniel's turn to roll his eyes. "I mean, you had to have that one guy right that made you realize 'holy fuck my tinker toy doesn't fit in the same hole as everyone else's,' so don't even try to say like this has never happened to anyone else in the history of the world." BB crumpled up the paper towel, tossing it down next to the bottle of BBQ sauce with a careful look in Daniel's direction.
"Of course I had that guy," Daniel said. "And that girl, and that everything else. But that was my realization. Nobody did that for me, or tried to push me into it, or anything else. And when people turned me down it's 'cause they didn't swing that way. See the difference?" He propped his arms up on the table, resting his chin in one palm. "I know you care about her. So that means you have to respect her sexuality and her preferences and her decision, you know? As shitty as that feels. If you're her friend, BB, you've gotta act like one."
"UGH," was BB's only reply, her arms thrust down at her sides as she tipped forward and put her forehead to the table's surface. Her hair fell around her like Cousin It, hiding her face from view.
"I know, I know, I know," she mumbled, her voice both small and muted by the table. Finally, her hands came back up, brushing her hair to the side. "But c'mon, it's not like you never did nothing dirty to get someone you liked. I just... set the fucking record for it, I guess." She sat up, slowly, pushing her hair back as the truly morose look threaded through her features once more. "I don't get why I'm like this. I just am, OK? And, like, I'm not, like, trying to justify what I did... I just did it and it is what it is so believe me, I don't... I swear I'm gonna throw the rest of these chicken nuggets at you if you're gonna insist I don't feel bad enough already." One hand reached out, latching a finger over the edge of the box to start dragging it toward herself. Daniel laughed, reaching across to pull the box back toward himself.
"Pretty sure I put the kaput on any friendship we might've had."
Daniel shook his head. "Nah, I doubt that. Just give her time. There's no reason for her to cut you off. I mean, unless you keep acting like a possessive psycho. Then I'd totally expect it…" He stole a chicken nugget and popped it whole into his mouth. The box was nearly empty now, and already Daniel's mind was turning toward what little junk food he had in the house, wondering if ay of it was sufficient for an occasion such as this.
"I think I've got some gelato," he said, continuing his train of thought aloud. He shrugged. "If you think that'll help. But seriously, don't worry too much. She's gonna be upset, sure, but this'll pass. Everything does. And then you'll be friend again and she can be your wingman at all the lesbian bars in town. You'll see. She'll come around." He pushed the tequila bottle closer to her. "C'mon. Buck up. It's weird seein' you like this."
"Fuck you, too," BB replied, her usual smile pulling at the edges of her lips. Even with the profanity, she reached for the bottle and tugged that to herself in lieu of the nuggets, one hand going to the mouth to twist open the cap. Daniel laughed, nodding his approval of this turn of events.
"What kind of gelato? It better be lemon or I'm gonna scream." She favored him with a hard, mock-glare as she tipped a small amount of the liquor into her mouth.
"I've got a ball gag for that," Daniel teased; BB swallowed, pulling the bottle away long enough to stick her tongue out in his direction. "You know how the neighbors feel about noise." Grinning cheekily he returned to the kitchen, calling out to her over the sound of clinking spoons and the freezer door opening. "Coconut almond chocolate or southern butter pecan."
"Coconut," she returned, taking another swig from the bottle before placing it back on the table. "And then we're gonna talk about something, anything other than this weird as fuck apartment building, crushes, or the fact that Alice slept with my brother over me." She frowned again, and then took another, longer swig. "Ice cream me. Now."