Artist: Emma Fujikawa
Well, that’s one way to end a rivalry.
Rose leaned against the headboard of her queen-sized bed. Her eyes drifted from her television over to Luke as he snoozed beside her. She could stream shitty sitcoms any time she wanted. Hulu and Netflix weren’t going anywhere. But Luke would be gone no later than 8 p.m. on Sunday night.
Then it was back to pretending they were just coworkers. Contentious coworkers at that. It was exhausting but necessary. Solace Med Inc. had strict policies against their employees having romantic relationships, and she doubted they’d accept the excuse of “It’s just physical.”
More than that, she wasn’t sure how true it was or how long it would stay that way. Three months in and she was already wondering what their children would look like. Would their first be a boy or a girl? Sandy-blond like his father or black-haired like her mother? Would their eyes be gray like his or brown like hers? With thoughts like that, things were bound to get serious sooner or later.
She ran her fingers through his thick locks. He was a beautiful man. Tall. Lean-muscled. There was even something attractive about his spattered freckles and comically large feet. How long before things got more serious? Before there were real feelings involved? She already loved his laugh, his grin, and his stupid jokes. She was already engrossed by his dull stories. And she already had trouble making it through the week without him. Without his scent on her skin. His breath on her neck. It was only a matter of time before they wanted more. What then?
That was Tomorrow-Rose’s problem. Today-Rose was just enjoying the moment. She reached over and gently pressed her hand flat against his muscular back. A spark of lust flickered deep inside as the tip of her forefinger traced its way down his spine. She considered waking him up for round four but decided to let him sleep. She probably didn’t have the energy for it anyway. And so, to the shitty sitcoms she looked.
A handsome, black baritone had just started asking if she was in good hands when her phone chimed. Rose snatched it up and read the text message.
MARIA: We’re at Phantom’s. Get out here!
Rose chuckled to herself. Maria was the definition of “work hard, play hard.” She was all business in the office but when quitting time came on Friday she Yabba-Dabba-Dooed her way out with the rest of them. The clock read 10:24 p.m., and Maria was probably five or six sheets to the wind.
Rose hadn’t told her about Luke. Maria was lower management. She got her the position and had warned her, “Don’t make me look bad!” It was a great job, and Maria had put in five years. They were best friends but asking her to keep the Luke affair a secret could cost her everything. So, Rose’s fingers danced across the screen of her phone and sent a lie into cyberspace.
ROSE: Not tonight. Sick. Sorry.
She almost sat her phone back onto the bedside table but kept it in hand. No way that was the end of the conversation.
MARIA: Girl, you ain’t sick. Get your ass out here!
Oh, good. She was belligerent drunk.
ROSE: Seriously. Head’s killing me. Another night.
MARIA: You ain’t fooling me. You turn your phone off when you’re sick.
This was the problem with lifelong best friends. They knew every damn thing about you.
ROSE: Look just not feeling it tonight. I’ll come out next weekend.
MARIA: That’s what you said last weekend.
It was hard to argue with that. Rose had been dodging and cancelling plans with Maria for months now.
MARIA: Come on. You gotta come. The whole department made it out. Even Lukeis here!
That was low. Maria knew about her crush on Luke. When she warned Rose about the company policy she added a slap to the face. Let her know the man was out of her league. “You ain’t his type, hermana.”
Those five words were like gas on her burning insecurities. Maria had always been that classic Latin beauty all the boys liked. With the perfect face and the perfect body.
Rose wasn’t ugly. But standing next to Maria for twenty years…well, it was a challenge. Rose was a bit too tall, her face a bit too round, and her curves a bit too thick. She looked like a fertility goddess. She’d made peace with her looks. And had lost a lot of weight over the years. But when Maria said that six months ago, You ain’t his type, hermana, she was fourteen again listening to Nick Ramsey stumble to find a nice way to tell her she was too fat to date.
But this time, she got the hot guy. She had him right here. And Maria was trying to use him to get her to come out. She really could be a manipulative bitch sometimes. It would serve her right if Rose did come down there.
That’s when it hit her. She could end this conversation here and now. Her thumbs got to work.
ROSE: Luke the home body? Bullshit! Pics or it didn’t happen!
This time she did sit her phone down. Maria couldn’t produce Luke. So, she would ignore her message until tomorrow and make something up. Someone called for shots or she forgot to respond after the DJ played her favorite song. But the one thing she wouldn’t do was reply tonight.
Except she did.
This oughta be good.
Rose opened Maria’s message and forgot how to breathe. How to read. How to talk. How to think. She snapped her head to the left to see her guest still snoozing beside her. Then back to the picture.
It was impossible. Just fucking impossible. But it was right there on the screen in front of her. Luke. Her Luke. Luke who was asleep beside her. At Phantoms. With Maria. This wasn’t an old picture. Maria was wearing the dress she’d bought a few days ago.
Rose swallowed a lump of panic. Calm down. There’s lots of possible explanations.
ROSE: He does look kinda like him. That his brother or something?
MARIA: What’re you talkin about? It’s Luke.
But it couldn’t be.
ROSE: That’s not him and you know it. Come clean.
MARIA: Luke doesn’t have any brothers. You been crushin on this man six months and never talked to him?
She had a point. At the office, Rose and Luke mostly threw banter back and forth. Bickered their way through the day. Compared sales figures. But they’d never really talked until this whole thing started up, and even that wasn’t exactly filled with conversation. The truth is she didn’t really know him.
How had this started? The whole thing had been a whirlwind. She remembered running into him at the bodega down the street. He helped her carry groceries back to her apartment. And then…
Suddenly, she felt ill. Panic was working its way back up. The soreness of her muscles and the smoldering pleasure in her loins felt like a violation.
Rose dashed out of bed and hurried into her living room. She couldn’t stay there next to him. She curled up on her couch, her body and breath trembling. God, she wanted to scream. Call for help. Tell Maria to come rescue her. But part of her still struggled to find a reasonable explanation.
Okay, girl. Relax. Think. One of these guys is Luke. The other isn’t. You just gotta figure out which is which.
But how? Three months of hurried dinners and bedroom fun hadn’t exactly equipped her to separate fact from fiction. But she had to start somewhere.
ROSE: Did he come alone?
MARIA: He showed up with Steve.
Steve! He left Solace Med a month ago. But she still had his number. Maybe he could give her something.
ROSE: Are you and Luke really at Phantom’s?
STEVE: Yep!
She took a deep breath and started typing. And then erasing. Then typing again. Then erasing. She started a half dozen sentences but didn’t know how to finish any of them.
Then came another message.
STEVE: Not chatting with you on here. You wanna talk to me you gotta come out.
Nothing felt real anymore. Everything was wrong, but she couldn’t figure out how. Maybe it was time to tell Maria everything.
Just then, a message came in.
MARIA: Don’t pester Steve. He really needs tonight to go well.
That didn’t make any sense.
ROSE: Why’s that?
MARIA: You didn’t hear this from me. But Steve and Luke are on a date tonight.
That clicked hard.
ROSE: A date? You sure?
MARIA: Yeah. I know you had a thing for him but I told you. You ain’t his type. Just don’t spread it around ok? Luke’s not really out yet.
So, that was it. Luke was gay. And the man in her bed very much wasn’t. That meant…what did that mean? That bedroom Luke was a fake? That Phantom’s Luke was a fake? She couldn’t really tell.
Rose was startled by the sudden silence of her bedroom TV. And terrified by the footsteps heading her way. When Luke emerged from the bedroom, she almost screamed. He shambled his way into the living room rubbing his sleepy eyes. “You coming back to bed?” he asked.
“Um. Yeah. In a minute.”
He nodded an okay and stumbled into her bathroom.
The world started to spin in a cyclone of panic.
What should she do? Should she leave?
Of course, you should! She yelled inwardly. That other Luke might not be real but at least you wouldn’t be alone with him!
She would leave. Rush out the door as soon as he fell back to sleep.
The toilet flushed. The sink ran. The bathroom door opened and produced a Luke. “What’re you up to?”
“Oh. I’m just…” her words were cut short as he started toward her.
It took everything she had not to jump off the couch when he sat down beside her. “Who texted you at this hour?”
“Maria,” she answered quickly. “She’s out at Phantom’s. Been trying to get me to come out. You know how she is.”
He glanced at her phone and then her face.
Something in him changed in that moment. The lamplight reflected something in his eyes. Not anger. Not jealousy. But something unsettling. Something twisted.
Malice. That was the word. And a gleeful malice at that. He had the smile of a mischievous boy about to pluck the wings off a fly or rip the head off his sister’s favorite doll. And the words that came from his grinning mouth were enough to stab her in the chest.
“Is Luke there?”
Kareem Miskel was born in Chicago and raised in a small Illinois town called Mattoon where he graduated high school. He loves to write fantasy, science-fiction, and horror of all kinds. He tends to prefer constructing smaller narratives, tending toward flash fiction, short stories, or novellas. Today he lives in Bartlett, Illinois and works in customer service.
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