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“How She Twists His Bobby Pins”

by Stephanie Gail

January 2011

Brayden stood in front of his open fridge greeted by two Chinese cartons and a half-empty twelve pack. He yawned, the fabric of his loose t-shirt revealing a line of skin as it pulled away from his basketball shorts. A Chinese menu fell off the door as he kicked it closed. If Robyn were still here he would have picked it up.

He slid over the counter, grabbing a pair of chopsticks as he went. His laptop was waiting for him, humming to life as a chopstick hit the power button.

A bobby pin on the floor caused an abrupt stop. He stared at it for a moment before nudging it with his foot.

“That hers?” Parker's voice trailed from his room.

Brayden glanced up, eyeing Parker's legs before focusing on her face. She was currently sporting one of his coaching t-shirts, leaning against the doorframe with her arms folded across her chest.

Parker did not wait for a response, running her hands through her hair and walking over to the fridge. The arches of her feet flexed as she stared at the contents, shutting the door a moment later and kicking at the menu on the floor. She slid across the counter, making a pit stop at the one-cup coffeemaker.

A faint bell alerted Brayden to a new email, which he spun around to check, abandoning the bobby pin under the desk. A mix of dark coffee grounds and sweet perfume trailed from behind him as Parker sat down. She took a small sip of coffee as she leaned her legs over the couch, crossing them

at the ankles. Her eyes remained on Brayden.

“Hey.”

Brayden attempted to remain focused on his new email, which informed him that apparently he had just won a year's supply of Viagra.

He deleted the spam and spun to face Parker.

“Hey.”

***

The bass pounded through faded speakers. Muffled voices carried over from the other side of the door mixing with the continual clink of bottles.

Alcohol coursed confidence through Parker's veins. She glanced to the closed bedroom door before shifting focus to him. Brayden sat with his head bent down, faking focus toward the iPhone in his hands. A repeat of weekends past flashed through Parker's mind as her long legs traveled over to him.

In a mix of pure desire and alcohol-induced seduction, she kicked Brayden's hands free from his lap, straddling his body. Parker sat upright, balanced unevenly on his legs. He brushed her hair from her face with both hands before their lips smashed into each other.

Parker's arms traveled to Brayden's sides, hands anxiously grabbing the fabric of his shirt. Brayden's traveled the length of her back, sneaking up under her sweater. Their mouths hurriedly worked together as the underlying threat of being caught made them want more faster.

A noise forced them apart. All focus shifted to the door.

Close call.

She leaned into his ear, breathing a soft plea. He shook his head, muttering that he couldn't. He wanted to. His lips kissed just beneath the v-neck of her sweater to prove his point. He wanted to. But he couldn't.

****

They stared at each other for a moment before another email alert broke their concentration. Brayden swung around in his chair to check, just in case. Nothing.

“You wanna talk about last night?” Parker's syrupy voice snuck up behind him.

Brayden turned around, toes clinging to the hardwood floor. “What about it?”

Parker put her mug down on his desk and straddled his lap. Her fingers began toying with the collar of his t-shirt. “Just wanted to make sure we're on the same page.”

He glanced at the lettering across her chest, a half-smile at his team's name. Tomorrow's early morning practice briefly crossed his mind.

“I'm not a commitment kind of guy,” he paused. “...right now.”

Parker smiled, leaning her forehead against his. “I'm not a commitment type of girl...ever.”

Robyn flashed through his mind. As if knowing this Parker leaned down, her waist brushing against his leg, and picked up the bobby pin. She arched it between her slender fingers, releasing and watching as it flew across the room. She leaned back and laughed, causing her long hair to brush against Brayden's knees.

****

The door shook, breaking them apart again. Brayden’s eyes lingered on the doorknob, which remained still. He stood up, easing Parker off his lap.

She watched him with her arms folded across her chest.

“I…I can’t do this,” Brayden muttered, running his hands through his hair.

Parker paused, glancing at the door. “You can do whatever you want.”

He listened to the muffled music and sporadic screams just outside Parker’s bedroom door. Robyn was out there. Probably drunkenly eyeing some random partygoer, but she was still out there.

“I can’t Parker…I just...can’t.”

Her hands traveled to her hips. After eyeing Brayden for another moment she shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Brayden focused on his phone, sitting idly on Parker’s desk. He reached for her arm as it reached for the doorknob. Parker turned around, a smooth smile already playing across her lips.

“Finally doing what you want?” She challenged, turning to face him.

Brayden eyed Parker's slinky shirt, long legs and fiercely green eyes. He thought of Robyn outside, white t-shirt and jeans, hair pinned half-back as always, arctic blue eyes narrowed at him.

“I don't know what the fuck I want.”

Parker's lips parted just enough for a slight glimpse of teeth, as her hands slipped beneath Brayden's shirt.

“Lemme give you a clue,” she said, lifting Brayden's shirt over his head and tossing it on the floor.

Robyn's face flashed through his mind one more time before the instinctive urge to throw Parker down on the bed snuck up on him.

Parker bit the bottom of Brayden's lip after her shirt joined his on the floor. She pushed him onto the bed, strikingly similar to their original chair position.

Her fingers were unbuckling Brayden's belt just as he barely whispered, “Robyn's outside.”

Parker's lips spread into another smooth smile before kissing Brayden's neck. “Robyn's the girlfriend right?”

Brayden closed his eyes as Parker's hands traveled lower, but managed to nod his head. “Right.”

She twisted her hair over her shoulder and leaned over Brayden, speaking so low he almost didn't hear, “The girlfriend that isn't here right now.”

“Actually,” a voice came from the doorway, the speaker blocked by Parker's bare back. “She is.”

****

Parker swiftly tossed her hair on top of her head, her waist brushing against Brayden again as she reached for a pen on his desk. She looped it in her hair, shaking a few pieces free while her eyes focused on Brayden, a grin parting her lips.

“You are endlessly entertaining, do you know that?” Parker asked, gently squeezing his chin between her thumb and forefinger before shifting off his lap.

He watched Parker refill her coffee. As she leaned over to ease her selection from the box, the bottom of his coaching t-shirt rose just over the tops of her thighs.

He wanted her so bad. More than he'd ever wanted anyone. Her hips and her eyes and her hair and that stupid seductive scent of hers could twist him any way she wanted. And she knew it. He could be with Robyn maybe, maybe if Parker didn't exist, if those legs weren't always running through his mind, that hair always brushing against him, that brutal self-assurance that laced every smile, that voice caressing the recesses of his mind, twisting and turning him like no other woman could, not even Robyn.

Robyn. He glanced to the corner where he guessed her bobby pin had landed. There were other reminders of her around, ones that Parker would never take the time to notice—or screw with. The pink circle magnets gathering dust on top of the fridge. The stack of books under his bed, recommended but never read. The pictures, hidden underneath piles of papers in a shoebox on his closet shelf. And the bobby pins. All over the place, those damn bobby pins. She never did manage to keep them in her hair, particularly when Brayden was the one shaking them out.

“Brayden?”

Brayden shook his head, glancing over at Parker. She was holding her mug with both hands, perched on the edge of the countertop with her legs crossed. Brayden's eyes lingered on them before responding with a somewhat dazed, “hmm?”

“I said, you don't happen to have any Bailey's to throw in my coffee do you?”

He just stared at her for a moment before responding, “No...sorry.”

She shrugged, taking a sip and tracing her leg with her free hand. “So...you're still not over whatsherface huh?”

“What?”

Parker stared at Brayden for a moment, coffee still inches from her lips. She took one more sip before responding, “The chick who caught us at that lame party my roommate threw...what was her name?”

“Robyn.”

“Robyn. Right. What's the story there again?”

Brayden turned toward his computer, eyeing a picture of Robyn's face, partly covered by his email screen. He hadn't gotten around to changing it.

“Oh Brayden, so touchy,” Parker said easily, leaping off the counter.

He kept his attention focused on the screen, which rang with a new email alert. His bank now made online banking even easier! He clicked delete as Parker's fingers traced the back of his neck.

She leaned down so that her lips were inches from his ear. He fought the urge to grab her face with his hands and follow her lead.

“We don't have to talk about her Brayden, I just thought it might be...therapeutic for you. You're always so tense. I just want you to relax,” she said softly, her hands tracing down Brayden's chest.

His had just gotten to her waist when he jumped, pushing Parker back and awkwardly falling out of his chair. Parker leaned back, hands on her hips, staring at him.

“What the fuck was that?”

He pulled his vibrating phone out of his pocket, briefly waving it at her. “Sorry, stunned me for a second.”

Parker's lips once again spread into that easy smile of hers. “Like I said, endlessly entertaining.”

Brayden kept trying to focus on Parker, like he always did. Throwing himself into her allowed him to escape from all the gnawing reminders of...

Robyn. Parker's body pressed against his on the couch, the waves of her hair brushing against his back. He couldn't help but think about bobby pins. Basketball shorts joined his coaching t-shirt on the floor. Those pink magnets were still sitting on top of the goddamn fridge. Parker's legs were wrapped around his back. All those books Robyn had wanted him to read, just gathering dust under his bed. Brayden's mouth kissed Parker's neck, but that scent of hers made him want to run. That moan of hers made him want to scream. He glanced at her face, watching it twist with the motions. He closed his eyes. The face he saw wasn't Parker's.

Brayden glanced at Parker, asleep and barely covered by a thin blue blanket on the couch. It would be so easy to just throw her on his bed, ignoring the bobby pins and books, lying on top of them and never thinking about the fact that Robyn probably wouldn't call and was better off with whatever his name was, and he could have Parker, have her in bursts whenever he needed her, whenever he had to have her and he could still want other things and screw other women and be with and do whatever the fuck he wanted all the time.

But instead, he went back to his computer clicking the blank screen to life, momentarily transfixed by Robyn's face.

He turned around as Parker made a sound between a groan and a sigh, flexing her entire body upward and pulling out Brayden's cell phone. She tossed it on the table before wrapping herself in the blanket and curling into the couch.

After one more glance, Brayden grabbed his phone and walked to his room, shutting the door behind him.

He sat on his bed, simultaneously pulling out a book from under it while hitting speed dial. He thumbed the outer pages as it rang. Once. Twice. Three times.

“Hi, you've reached Robyn Barnes, I'm not here right now but if you leave your name, number and your favorite book I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks, and have a great day!”

Beep.

“Robyn, it's me. I'm...I'm sorry. For all of it. I don't even know why I'm leaving you this. Fuck, you're probably with him. I won't even lie, I'm with her. But I don't want to be with her. I found your books under my bed and I'm sorry I didn't read them, I'm looking at this one...the cover's yellow and there's a baseball and a faded picture on it, something about summer in the title, whatever that's not important, what's important is that you told me to read this because you liked it and you thought I'd like it because of the baseball but there was more to it than that and you're so sexy when you talk about books and characters and everything else that you love—and the pink magnets are still on top of my fridge and I want them on the fridge, and your bobby pins are all over the damn floor and I want them in your hair, I want to shake them out of your hair—I want you Robyn. I know it's too late, I know you're with him. I know it took me too long. But it's all I've got. So there it is. Call me back when you get this, even if it's to tell me to fuck off. I just need to hear it from you, whatever it is. I--” the voicemail cut him off.

He loved her. He couldn't explain exactly what that meant, or why he knew it now and didn't know it then. But he did. He loved the girl.

As if on cue, Parker opened the door, once again in his coaching t-shirt. Her hair was falling over both shoulders, which she threw back before joining Brayden on the bed. To his surprise, she sat down next to him, folding both legs under her and looking at him.

“Nice message.”

Brayden glanced at the phone in his hand.

“You think she's gonna call back?”

He shrugged, focusing on a bobby pin near his closet. “Don't know.”

Parker eyed him for a moment, her fingers absent-mindedly pulling at her hair. She draped one leg over Brayden's lap, watching for his reaction. There wasn't one.

Stephanie Gail is a high school English teacher, constantly amused by her students who give her very little writing time. She has an intense coffee and book addiction, which helps her to be a compulsive writer.