Upside Down(9)

“There was no mooning. I did not participate in any mooning.” I was horrified.

Angus’ eyeballs almost exploded out of his head. “You mooned him?”

Merry nodded as she bit into another slice. “Not that kind of mooning. He did not show him his naked arse. If you moon over someone, you daydream over them.”

“Ohhhh,” Angus said, nodding slowly.

“I did not moon him,” I said indignantly. “Butthole or daydreaming or any kind of astral body. Jesus, fuck. Where is my dignity?”

Angus looked around the room. “I dunno man. Did you lose it?”

I slow blinked. “No, it’s around here somewhere.”

Angus smiled. “Cool. So did you speak to him?”

“Yep.”

“He did more than that,” Merry said, smiling as she shoved the crust of her pizza slice into her mouth.

“Shut up.” I grabbed another piece of pizza with as much aggression as I could. “I’ll need to find another bus to catch home and possibly move suburbs. Cities even. I haven’t decided.”

“You’ll be fine,” Merry said.

Angus frowned. “Jordan, are we moving?”

I wouldn’t ever admit it to anyone out loud, but I did like how he assumed if I moved, he’d be moving with me. I patted his leg. “No, mate. We’re good.”

“Phew,” he said, smiling and taking another slice of pizza. “You want another beer?”

“Sure.” I smiled up at him as he stood and headed toward the kitchen. “I need all the help I can get with forgetting this clusterfuck of a night.”

“Jordan, you’ll be fine,” Merry said.

She said the same thing to me on Monday at two minutes past five as I was almost hyperventilating at the bus stop. “Jordan, you’ll be fine. He’s a nice guy. You have nothing to worry about. Unless he’s not on the bus…”

“Oh motherfucker, why would you say that?” I took some gulps of air. “What if he’s not on the bus? What if he moved suburbs to avoid me? And now he’s joined the witness protection program, his name is Hans Solo Gruber and he’s an intergalactic German terrorist smuggler, living in the Nakatomi Cantina—”

Merry gave my arm a shake. “Jordan. Stop it. Get on the bus. Say hello to him.”

I made a high-pitched sound that surprised even me.

Merry smiled. “I’ll call you tonight.” She nodded over my shoulder, and I turned to find the bus right fucking there.

Motherfucker.

I had no choice but to get on. I swiped my Opal card and didn’t want to scan the faces. I truly didn’t, but of course I did. There he was, sitting halfway up, headphones on. And of course I had to walk past him, and just as I made my way through the crowd, he looked up. Then he did a double take, and he smiled and nodded and pointed to his own head. “Headphones Guy.”

I nodded. There were no spare seats near him, so I stood there like a loser. It took me forever to get my brain to work, and Hennessy pulled his headphones down to rest around his neck. “Um, yeah. Hi. I’d always wondered what music you listened to. I would guess it’s some ultra-cool indie band that no one has ever heard of or some underground jazz-fusion mix that won’t hit mainstream for another five years. But then I saw you listening to something that made you upset last Thursday, or maybe it was something completely unrelated to your eclectic music taste. I don’t know, that’s not really my business and that’s not why I’m bringing it up. I just, well, I saw you upset and then the next day you saw me upset, so I guess we’re even—”

He stood up, our fronts almost touching, and the bus jerked and we brushed against each other and I thought I might die. He was a fraction taller than me and I could get lost in those eyes and that smile should be a federal offence. “My stop,” he said, nodding toward the door. Other people were now lining up to get off the bus, and I was holding them up. He was still impossibly close to me. “And it’s not music I listen to. It’s audiobooks.”

“Audiobooks?” I whispered, like he just announced his undying love for me. My heart, my heart was about to explode. I was sure I had ridiculous cartoon hearts in my eyes.

“Flowers for Algernon,” he whispered. “It’s what I was listening to.”

“Daniel Keyes,” I breathed, looking right into his eyes, our faces an inch apart. “That book… Ow, my heart.”

He let out a quiet gasp. “You know it?”

“I cried like a baby.”

“Me too. Every time.” He grinned, our gaze broken by the rush of people trying to get off the bus, and Hennessy turned and stepped off, leaving a void in his place. I fell into his now-vacant seat, pretty sure by the way my head spun that I hadn’t breathed since I got on. And he stood there on the footpath with his head down, and he pulled his headphones back on and popped his coat collar up around his neck to protect him from the wind, looking seven different realms of handsome. And I thought for sure I’d blown it—again, with the incoherent babbling. But as the bus pulled away, he looked right up at me and smiled, all shy-like and timid, and I breathed the only thing worth saying. “Motherfucker.”

The old lady I was sitting next to gaped at me. I shrugged, not even the slightest bit sorry. Okay, well maybe just a little sorry. But he smiled at me. Hennessy goddamned smiled right at me, like I was the reason for his happiness.