I Wanted to Figure Him Out
‘I wanted to figure him out. I thought you were one of the clues.’
That is literally what I said to his dad as I perched on the rim of the bath in his ensuite, pulling my jeans back up and trying to justify what had just happened. Who the fuck did I think I was? Some maladjusted heroine in a bad paperback? Fucking ridiculous, that’s who I am.
I’d been seeing Mike for about three months when he brought me to meet his dad. I wasn’t dead keen, but it meant a weekend by the sea and I guessed it would at least be interesting.
Only I didn’t expect it to be this interesting.
We spent the first night drinking in his dad’s house which sat on the cliff-top looking out to sea. Harry, Mike’s dad, made what turned out to be a pretty banging paella and was free-flowing with the wine. It was good, we stayed up too late and I got to see all Mike’s embarrassing baby photos. It was all playing out just about how I expected.
The next afternoon, me and Mike went off to meet some of his old schoolmates at a pub while his dad stayed in to watch Antiques Roadshow (“Never miss it!” he’d said, without a hint of irony). I’d started yawning around nine, not sure if it was from the hangover or the fact Mike’s mates were the most boring small-town gym-nuts I’d ever had the pleasure to watch drink light beer. I suggested he carry on and get a proper catch up in and I’d head back for a lie-down, hinting it might leave me a bit refreshed for him when he got back. Mike was easily sold and it wasn’t long before I was tucking myself into my coat trying to fend off the sea wind as I quick-stepped the half-mile or so back to Harry’s house.
I figured I’d get some drink into Harry, do a bit of interrogating about Mike, then turn in for an early night. That was the entire plan. Then, somehow, well, I know exactly how, one gin led to another and here I was trying to extricate myself from Harry’s room with some degree of dignity before we heard the door go, not that I expected Mike to roll in before the early hours.
‘Did you learn anything?” he asked, grinning, still not making any attempt to get dressed.
‘No, I already knew it was pretty easy to seduce forty-odd-year-old divorcees,’ I thought as I shrugged non-committally.
‘I won’t say anything,’ he said, in a disturbingly fatherly tone.
‘Well, what a magnanimous fucking gesture from the man who stands to lose way more than I do in all this,’ I thought.
‘Thanks,’ I said, before adding, ‘You should probably get that mole checked out.’
I slid out of the room as he looked down at himself and made my way across the hall, where I lay down in the empty single bed with Hull F.C. duvet covers, determined to be snoring like a wildebeest by the time Mike fell in next to me.
#MariansPrompts #FlashFiction #WritingPrompt
