It took her all the effort she had to not burst out laughing at him immediately, and she had to bite her lip to keep even the giggles at bay. This place was utterly, utterly insane and she was so ready for a bit of insanity. No wonder things like that existed when the day-to-day was so mundane; suddenly waking up pregnant or a man must put some excitement back in your life. “Holy shit…” she said, still trying not to laugh. “And why does it make a difference that the genie’s a woman? Wouldn’t a male genie make the same presumption? Does she even do it maliciously?” The temptation to say the words and make a fucking genie appear out of thin air was tantalising, the phrase on the tip of her tongue. Abi restrained herself, for his sake as much as hers.
She instantly felt bad that she’d even brought it up, given how awful his memories about that age of his life must be. Reading about trauma and loss was never anywhere close to living with it, and she knew she’d never be able to understand what he and so many other men had gone through in the first war. “Shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring it up like that. Just my idiot brain not thinking things through right,” she said, feeling like there was a weight on her shoulders. “Nobody should have to go through that. America in particular always seemed to fuck over the people that fought to defend it, or at least what they signed up to do…” she should just stop talking about it, since he obviously didn’t want to discuss that part of his life any further. “I had another 9 months left, or so. I started way later in life than most people did but I look like a child so nobody really questioned me. They never believed me when I said I was 8 years older than most of them.” She chuckled at that memory, of the faces looking at her in disbelief. None believed her until she pulled out her ID and even then, half of them thought it was fake.
Abi looked him in the eye, enable to discern straight away where his mind went with that ‘re-energising’ phrase. She wouldn’t mind that but then nothing would get done. “Same way writers always do; share ideas, bounce off each other, drink a bottle of wine, laugh about our ridiculous ideas…” She could imagine it, in her wildest fantasies. The fucking writing partner of Ernest Hemingway. Now wasn’t that a dream?
“Oh sweetheart,” she replied, a slow grin forming on her face. “Don’t you underestimate me now. I might not be making threesome sex tapes with Ava Gardner and those young ingenues like you did, but if you wanna see my kinky side, all you gotta do is ask…” She leant back in her booth, licking her lip. She’d heard rumours about those tapes and had always long wondered if it was true. Hell, it might not have even happened to this Ernest, but he must at least be into the idea of it. “Trust you to humble brag to Fitzgerald and complain at the same time.”
He was definitely a riddle she wanted to unravel. Her pre-conceived notions of how he might have been had been wiped out since she’d met the man before the name, in that bar in Cuba, getting drunk and dirty dancing, toes in the sand on the beach. That first kiss had been electric. No, Abi definitely liked the man more than the myth, even though she was interested in both. She’d keep herself closed-off but he was an interesting person, first and foremost. Obviously bored off his mind, being stuck here.
“Finding the right person to open up to is so fucking hard, though. Every time I tried to before, my throat would close up around the words for no reason specifically. Eventually they all got sick of my act and I’d find some other girl’s panties under my bed…” she rolled her eyes. “But hey, so far this is going good for me. Chocolate cake and good coffee, amenable company who thinks I’m not bland and boring. What more can a girl ask for?”
Laughing at the dumb little butt wiggle, she reached for her cup as he brought it to her, thanking him before taking a sip. Her tolerance was pretty low, considering she was a college student, technically. But there was still something holding her back from opening up to him entirely. What it was, she couldn’t say with all certainty… but they had plenty of time and space to maybe get to know each other, if he wanted a second – third? – date.