hold onto the memories, they will hold onto you

Kay wakes up to her phone buzzing on her bedside table and blindly gropes for it. When she opens her eyes to sneak a peek at the screen, it’s earlier than she should be up on a weekend when she doesn’t work, and she has a missed call from Patricia Blum.

  Patty’s the closest thing Kay has to a work friend. Most of the others who work at the bar with them are skeezy dudes and annoying straight girls, but Patty’s kind and good-natured and such a genuine delight to be around that it’s hard to not be friends with her.

  When she picks up the phone, Patty’s breathing heavily, and it almost sounds like she’s been crying. Kay automatically gears herself up to unleash hell on whoever dared to hurt sweet Patricia Blum. “Pat, are you okay?”

  Patty finally gasps out, “I’m amazing.” Her voice is shaking, but she’s utterly sincere, and it throws Kay for a loop. “You’ll never believe who I had sex with last night.”

  “Who?”

  “Okay, you know the guy from the bar who I’ve had the most embarrassing, stupid girl-crush on forever? The one who comes around with that group of gays for karaoke ever so often, who does the most amazing Amy Winehouse?”

  It takes Kay a moment to process who she’s talking about, not because there are a plethora of guys to choose from who can pull off women’s shoes so elegantly while singing Amy, but simply because she can’t compute that the guy actually fucks women. She always assumed he was dating the one with the bug-eye glasses who always smells like a half-and-half mix of weed and cigarette smoke, at least until Bug Eyes started bringing around the nervous Mormon-looking guy a few months ago. She likes that group generally. The only one whose name she knows is Beverly, who she had a gender studies class with last semester. They’re loud, and have gotten kicked out for fighting exactly once before, but the guys at the next table definitely deserved it. Plus they’re actually funny and they always tip well. “You did not hook up with Fuck Me Pumps!” she blurts. 

  “I so did!” Patty squeals. “He’s literally passed out in my bed right now. His name is Stanley, he’s an accounting major, and if he’s gay, he’s overcompensating harder than any closeted guy I’ve ever met, because I had three orgasms last night, Kay, seriously.”

  “Oh my God.” Kay really doesn’t know what to say other than that. “I’m happy for you. I just can’t believe he’s actually straight.”

  “It literally feels like a dream,” Patty sighs out. “My legs are still shaking. I’m lying down in the bathtub right now because I can barely walk. I’m sorry, am I being too gross?”

  “Hell no,” Kay says, because she knows she’s overshared more explicitly about her own hookups to Patty, at work no less, and if anyone deserves this, it’s Pat. “If anything, I want more details. Is it true what they say about the correlation between shoe size and dick length?”

  Patty giggles. “I was shocked. He’s very well-endowed for a man with such dainty feet. And!” she exclaims as if she’s just remembering the best part. “He’s even Jewish. I’m gonna marry him, Kay, I swear. If I don’t, I’ll never forgive myself.”

  “L’Chaim. Can I be a bridesmaid?”

  Patty just hums dreamily. “He’s such a gentleman. It was like a fairytale. I saw him at Ricky’s party last night and I wasn’t gonna say anything, but then he came over to me and introduced himself. He remembered me from the bar and asked me to dance. We were both pretty tipsy and I honestly thought he was just being friendly for the longest time. But after a while he asked if I wanted to go sit in his car, and we started talking. I barely remember what we talked about, I just remember how nice it was. He’s really easy to talk to. Funny too.”

  “Jeez, Patty, are you sure you didn’t make him in a lab? He sounds like a dreamboat, and I don’t even swing that way.” Kay has a natural instinct to dump on whatever guy her friends are focused on that week, but Patty’s not giving her much to work with in that regard.

  “He drove me home at the end of the night, walked me to my door and everything, and I honestly thought that was gonna be it. I still thought he was gay at that point, mind you. But then he kissed me. And then,” she pauses for dramatic effect, “he fucked me better than I’ve ever been fucked in my entire life. I feel like Cinderella.”

  “Except he’s the one in the teeny tiny stilettos.” That makes Patty giggle again. Kay doesn’t think she’s ever heard her sound so happy.

  -

  When Patty comes out of the bathroom, Stan’s awake, sitting up on the bed looking both shy and smug at the same time. “‘Better than you’ve ever been fucked in your life,’ huh?”

  Patty blushes. “How much of that did you hear?”

  “Enough to significantly inflate my ego for the time being.”

  She buries her face in her hands. “I’m so embarrassed.”

  “Don’t be,” Stan says as Patty settles on the bed next to him, and he pulls her onto his lap. “Can I tell you a secret? I’ve liked you for quite awhile, too.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh yeah. Since the first time I saw you at the bar. I noticed you immediately.”

  “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

  Stan raises an eyebrow. “Harassing a woman while she’s at her job is hardly a good first impression to make.”

  “It wouldn’t have been harassment,” she assures him. “None of the regulars who hit on me are as handsome as you. Or as nice.”

  “Hmm. So how long have you liked me, exactly?”

  “You mean besides the first time I saw you do karaoke in high heels?” Patty asks giddily. “You remember the night you punched that guy in the bar?”

  Stan sucks in a breath of air through his teeth. “Unfortunately. I had the broken hand afterward as a reminder. First and only punch I ever threw in my life. I made such a fool of myself that night.”

  Patty brushes her fingers through his curls. “I thought you were very charming. You even offered to help me sweep up the broken glass from the fight, messed up hand and all. That’s when I knew I had it bad.”

  “All because I had too much to drink and the hubris to think I could take some six-foot-two asshole and his stacked buddies? I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t slightly humiliated.”

  Patty shrugs. “He deserved it.”

  “Of course he did,” Stan agrees. “He was being rude to you all night. Don’t think I didn’t notice.”

  Patty rises up on her knees and kisses him. “You are something else, Stanley Uris.”

  “A good something else, I hope.”

  Patty grins. “A great something else.” She kisses his neck, then along his jawline, and whispers in his ear, “You wanna go again?”