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******More Bratty Justin, because . . . We love bratty Justin. LOL. Enjoy! TAG & Sally.

 

 

Chapter 9 - Green Eyes.

 

 

I staggered through the door of my own apartment about forty-five minutes later, desperate for a shower and some breakfast. The only good thing about the morning was that it was still so early that I had plenty of time to get both before I’d have to head back downtown for my first class of the day. I seriously did not know how Eggy dealt with these early morning starts to his days. If I had to be up and functional at dawn every day, I would end up crashing by ten each night - definitely not the preferred schedule for a night owl like myself.

 

Even Daphne, that paragon of productivity, was only just beginning to pad around in her pj’s while gurgling down her morning infusion of caffeine like it was her life’s blood - which it was. She gave me a big old knowing grin as I came through the door. Talk about a Cheshire grin, she practically lit up the whole kitchen with that smirk. 

 

“Welcome back, Stud. Have a seat. I’ll get you some coffee while you start spilling. And I want ALL the details this time. No skipping over the good parts,” she ordered as she waved the carafe from the coffee maker at me. “Well, go on.”

 

Sheesh, when did Daph become such a slut for MY sex life? That girl really needed a hobby, you know? Or maybe she needs to take some time off school and get herself laid or something. She can’t live vicariously through me forever. Especially when, at the moment, even my sex life isn’t much to crow over.

 

“Afraid you’re going to be disappointed this time, Daph. There are no details to give. Unless you want to know about the lumpy sofa I spent the night drooling on,” I replied, almost laughing at the way her face fell when she realized she wasn’t going to get to hear any stories about my dick this time.

 

“Damn!” she complained as she poured me a cup of coffee nevertheless. “So where did you spend the night then, if you weren’t getting lucky?”

 

“At the Triangle Building with my hairy mystery man,” I informed her, sparking a new light of interest in her eyes.

 

“You stayed over with the hermit guy? That’s surprising. Considering his level of OCD, I wouldn’t think he’d be able to tolerate that. He must have it bad for you.”

 

“Eggy did pretty well with the whole overnight guest thing, actually,” I assured her as I took my first sip of that nectar of the gods known as coffee.

 

“Eggy?”

 

“Yeah,” I chuckled along with my friend at the unconventional nickname. “I still don’t know his real name and he’s being all coy about telling me so I said I was going to just call him ‘Egbert’ until he fessed up and told me his real name. I think the name’s starting to grow on me actually.”

 

“You’re weird, you know that?”

 

“Well, duh? You’re just now discovering that?”

 

“But how was your ‘Eggy’ about you staying over and all? Was he super freaked out this morning? That had to be a big deal for him, I would think.”

 

“He was pretty okay with it, I guess,” I reassured her as I dug through the fridge to retrieve some eggs and a lump of not too-moldy cheese which would suffice for an omelet. “It’s not like we planned for me to stay or anything, though. We came across some really interesting stuff in the file of old documents he gave me and we were doing some more research trying to identify the rest of the people involved. I think we’re on to some kind of juicy scandal or something - well, as juicy as you can get when all the people involved are already dead. But, anyway, I sorta just fell asleep on his couch while I was reading, so it’s not like he had a choice or anything. He either had to let me stay or else he’d have had to poke me awake to get me to leave, and that would have involved actually touching me so . . . I think letting me sleep there was the easier of the two choices actually. The only hard part for him was when I asked to use the john this morning after I woke up. That almost threw him for a loop, poor guy.”

 

“You know, you staying over and all is probably the best thing for him,” Daphne opined, stealing a slice of the cheese I’d just cut for myself. “He’ll never get over his OCD if he stays holed up in there all by himself forever. He’ll fucking die in there all alone. Just having you visit him all the time is likely causing him to stretch all his boundaries - in a good way.”

 

“That’s how I see it too. Not that it seems like it’s doing much good. He won’t even touch the coffees I’ve been bringing him without first wiping them down with these wet wipe things. And you should see the cleaning shit he has stockpiled away in there. It must cost a fortune to be that germaphobic. Cleaning stuff isn’t cheap, you know?”

 

“Just keep it up. What you’re doing is basically the same thing a professional would do. They call it ERP - Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy. It’s the best treatment for OCD out there.”

 

I dished out the omelet I’d cooked up, sliding it onto a large plate and then taking that along with two forks over to the table where Daphne was waiting for me. She’d poured out two glasses of cranberry juice for us besides the coffee we were both already halfway through. This was sort of our routine, you know? We’d sit, share our food and talk. It was a thing.

 

“Exposure, huh? So, how’s that work?” I asked, wanting to know more.

 

“It’s simple, really. It’s just a form of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy that’s specific for OCD.”

 

“In English, please, Daph.”

 

She laughed at my ignorance but carried on with her explanation. “So, OCD and related behavioral problems aren’t like other mental health conditions. OCD doesn’t respond well to your normal therapy approaches. You can’t just talk someone with OCD through it, so regular, Freud-ish, lay-on-the-couch-and-tell-me-all-your-secret-thoughts-about-your-mother, therapy doesn’t work.” Seeing my obvious confusion, my doctor-to-be doubled down on the science speak for me - gotta love her. “See, OCD is not something rational that can be discussed. It’s a neurologically based anxiety disorder. Telling someone with OCD not to worry is like telling someone with asthma to stop having trouble breathing. It isn’t possible.” She paused while she slurped up the rest of her coffee and then got up to get us both refills. “In a nutshell, ERP Therapy involves the person with OCD facing his or her fears and then refraining from ritualizing. Even though it can initially be extremely anxiety provoking, eventually the anxiety starts to wane, and can sometimes even disappear. The more a patient is exposed to the cause of his anxiety, and finds he’s still okay after exposure, the less anxious he’ll be.” She sat back down next to me and stole the last bite of my omelet. “So, for example, with your OCD guy who has issues with germs - he might be asked to touch a toilet seat and then refrain from washing his hands. It would totally feel horrible to him at first, but once he saw that it wasn’t going to kill him, he’d learn to internalize the fact that his anxieties were all overkill.” 

 

“I get it. Makes sense,” I replied, trying to work though the concept in my head. “Same thing with my coffees, right? The more I can get him to deal with his fears about the germs in them, the easier it will get?”

 

“Exactly. So, your next step would be to get him to stop wiping down the cups. If he can just hold the cup in his hands without freaking over the germs on the cup, he’ll see that it wasn’t as scary as he thought. And then, you could, maybe, get him to even take a sip. Hell, before you know it, you’ll have him actually holding hands and then we can start planning the wedding.”

 

That had me sputtering in my cranberry juice. “Whoa there, Nelly. Don’t you think you’re jumping ahead a little? I only met the guy and I don’t even know his real name. Wedding plans are a bit premature here, Daph.”

 

“Pffft. You can deny it all you want, Jus, but I’ve never seen you have it so bad for anyone before. You’re totally obsessed with this guy. Trust me, there WILL be a wedding. It’s just a matter of time,” she teased me, only giggling when I wadded up my napkin and threw it in her face. 

 

“Maybe we should work our way up to actually touching first, before you start picking out the names of our children for us, huh?” I got up to put my plate in the dishwasher and do a quick clean up of my kitchen mess. “Although, I do kinda feel bad for Eggy, you know? I just . . . I don’t know . . . He’s just different from anyone else I’ve ever met. I feel like there’s this whole other person in there. Maybe it’s his eyes - there’s this impish green sparkle in them sometimes that makes me think there’s another man inside somewhere. Like, underneath that hermit appearance, is this amazing guy, and I want to help him, you know? I want to find out who he really is. Who he could be if he wasn’t hiding his true self. It’s like, I get these little glimpses of the funny, witty, totally amazing guy he could be if he just had a little more self-confidence. It’s a challenge, you know?”

 

“And you’ve always been a sucker for a challenge, haven’t you?” Daphne finished my thought for me. “Like I said, you’re obsessed.” And she scarpered off, humming the wedding march under her breath in the most sarcastic possible way.

 

“Freak!” I yelled after her, following down the hall towards my own room with the intent of showering and getting ready for school, and muttering to myself as the threads of our conversation wound themselves through my brain. “Fucking wedding . . . I haven’t even kissed him yet . . . not that I could with that beard . . . couldn’t find his lips if I wanted to . . . wouldn’t mind looking for them though . . . maybe, after I get him to drink the coffee, I could talk him into letting me cut his hair and giving him a shave . . .”

 

********

 

“Shouldn’t you be studying something like Art History, not Pittsburgh History?” an annoying voice whispered into my ear as I was startled out of my intense concentration on the computer screen I had been reading back to the reality of the school library.

 

“What are you doing in here, Ethan?” I angrily  whispered back at him. “This library is for TAIP students, I thought, which doesn’t include you. Or did you give up on the violin and decide to try your hand at art after all?”

 

“And deprive the world of my prodigious musical talent? Never,” he whispered back, then pulled up a chair and sat down so close to me our knees were touching. “I just met Keith down in the cafeteria and he mentioned he’d seen you up here. He says you’ve been here pretty much all day. But you’re obviously not boning up on your school work, so why not take a break and come get a coffee with me instead,” he gave me a little wink as he asked and it made me want to punch him in the face, but the thought of injuring my sketching hand was enough to stop me. 

 

I thought about just saying no and asking him to leave me alone, but I didn’t think Ethan would listen. And the library was not the place to have the conversation that I now realized had to happen. This guy just didn’t get it. I was going to have to come right out and tell him to his face; I wasn’t interested and he needed to back the fuck off. Now. So, with a sigh, I reluctantly logged off the computer, stowed my books and the printouts I’d made in my bag, and led the way out of the library and down the hallway to the first empty classroom I could find.

 

I held the door open for Ethan, who was grinning at me like a fucking loon as he strutted past me. I don’t know what the asshole was thinking - in what alternate reality would I be taking him into a classroom in my school, alone, to do anything other than give him a rude tongue lashing. He was dreaming if he thought I’d ever do anything else to him with my tongue, cuz then I’d be forced to cut it off and burn it and go mute for the rest of my life, but I’d rather do that than whatever it was he was thinking about right then. As soon as he was inside the room, though, I roughly shoved the door closed behind me, and leaned against it to prevent any interruptions.

 

“Okay, this is the deal, Ethan - and I’m just going to be blunt here, because I’m totally fucking fed up with this bullshit - stop following me around. I’m NOT FUCKING INTERESTED in you! Get it? I do not want to go out with you. I don’t even want to talk to you. I’m not at all attracted to you and that one night I did go home with you was a total fucking mistake. If I hadn’t been so drunk I couldn’t see straight, I would never have slept with you. You are not my type. You will never BE my type. Get it through your tiny little curly-haired skull, okay? Now, stop stalking me or I’ll be forced to tell everyone in Pittsburgh about just how small and useless that piece of fluff between your legs - the one you think qualifies as a penis - really is. Got it?”

 

“What the hell? Fuck you!” 

 

Ethan seemed on the verge of arguing with me and I was just not having it. “No. That’s what I’m trying to tell you here, there will be NO fucking. None at all. Seriously. Get over yourself and LEAVE ME ALONE!” I ordered, almost screaming out the last few words.

 

“You realize you’re totally fucking insane, right?” he snarled at me and I remembered that old saw my mother used a lot about how, ‘if looks could kill’.

 

“Insanely tired of you AND this conversation, yeah. Now, I’ve got places to go and things to do with people I want to be with, so it’s time for you to go, Ethan.” I moved away from the door far enough that it would open and I pointed him through it. “I think you can find your own way out. And, if I see you continuing to hang out around here after this, I’ll be making a complaint to campus security, so I’d recommend that you stick to haunting your own school from now on. Kay?”

 

“Don’t fucking flatter yourself. I was only trying to be friendly. It’s not like your fat ass is anything special. You don’t deserve me anyway,” Ethan said, trying to turn things around because of course he only saw the world through Ethan-colored glasses. “When you finally realize that, and come running after ME, we’ll see who’s begging whom.”

 

If my eyes had rolled any further back into my skull, I could have probably seen my own brain stem. But at least he finally left. I waited until I saw his scrawny ass turn around the far corner of the building before I finally took a deep breath in relief. Hopefully that would be the last I had to deal with Ethan Gold’s skanky ass.

 

Now I was free to go deal with some much more amusing business. I made my way out of the building and practically sprinted down the street, heading westward, cutting through alleys and skirting the buildings that made up the Cultural District, as I pelted towards downtown proper. I barely stopped long enough at the lobby door of the Triangle Building to let myself in via my usual burglary skills. And then I was galloping up the stairs two steps at a time. I knocked on the door to my Eggy’s rooms, but there was no answer there, so I trotted on down the hallway to the office and knocked there. 

 

Upon hearing a muffled ‘Harumph’ noise - sort of a combination exasperated sigh and growl all put together with a cute little Eggy moan added in for good measure - there was a semi-polite, “You’re coming in whether or not I invite you, right? So why do you even knock?”

 

I twisted the doorknob and let myself in with a grin, answering, “because it wouldn’t be polite not to knock, and if my mother ever found out about me being rude, she’d give me one of her endless lectures which, I can assure you, are not pleasant to sit through, so it’s just easier to be polite and knock.” I found him sitting at the little secretary desk against the far wall, where the modern day laptop sitting on the opened lid of the antique desk made for a strange contrast. “Afternoon, Eggy. Did you miss me?”

 

“How can I miss you when you’re always here?” Egbert answered, trying to sound annoyed, but he was betrayed by the smile that escaped from underneath his beard.

 

“Well, I wouldn’t want you to be lonely now, would I?” I replied and helped myself to a seat in one of the big overstuffed armchairs and beamed my brattiest smile at him. “So, whatcha doing?”

 

“I’m working.”

 

“I can see that. What are you working on?”

 

He sighed and spun around in his desk chair so he could face me directly. “I’m writing a manual for a fucking electric teapot. It’s thrilling work. I mean, who can’t figure out a one-button electric teapot? But that’s my life, so . . .”

 

“Good thing I’m here to distract you, then, isn’t it?” I pulled out one of my signature moves that had never yet failed to get me whatever I’d wanted from the first time I’d discovered it back when I was about five - I smiled at him and scrunched up my nose as if to say, ‘you know you want to agree with me and I’m too adorable to argue with, right?’ I realize it’s a little unfair of me to use that move on a neophyte like Eggy, but all’s fair in love and such. Plus, I’m careful to only use my power for good, and teasing my man was a great cause, wasn’t it? Whatever. Of course he fell for it though and in only seconds after I hit him with the scrunched up nose thing I could tell he’d totally forgotten his work. It’s a burden being this powerful sometimes, but it works for me. Once I had him thoroughly distracted, I dove into the topic I really wanted to discuss. “So, did you find out any more about our long lost lovers or the mysterious ‘B’ after I left this morning?” 

 

“When would I have done that? You’ve only been gone a couple hours.”

 

“Well, how long can writing about a teapot take?” 

 

“To do it right? It takes longer than you’d think. Plus, I’ve already written one on a waffle maker this morning.”

 

“Then you obviously deserve a break, right?” I suggested, 

 

“I guess I could use a drink,” Eggy sighed as he closed the lid of his laptop. “All this talk about teapots is making me thirsty. How about a cup of tea? I see you didn’t bring your trusty mocha with you this time.”

 

“I was too excited to get here to take the time to stop for coffee today. Sorry. I’ll make sure to bring you something special next time though. Any requests?”

 

“I’m sure you’ll surprise me,” he capitulated, and I knew in that moment that I’d already won him over, hook, line and sinker. 

 

I followed him back to his rooms and took up my usual spot on the sofa as he puttered around making a pot of tea. I was amazed at the amount of work it took for him to just get that one small task completed, but considering all the little rituals he had to incorporate I suppose it shouldn’t have surprised me. First he had to rewash the kettle before filling it with water and starting it heating. While that was doing it’s thing, he hand washed two mugs, drying them before lining them up on the countertop, making sure they were perfectly even. Next he preheated the teapot with warm water from the kettle and added two teabags before filling it with the now boiling water from the kettle. 

 

While the tea was steeping, my man set two coasters on the table in front of the sofa, taking extra effort to make sure each was centered precisely at opposite ends. He put out a sugar bowl, creamer and a trivet for when the pot was ready, and aligned them with the coasters. Two spoons were added, each squarely aligned next to its respective coaster. Finally, when the tea had brewed long enough, he brought the pot over, poured out a portion of the final aromatic liquid into each cup, making sure that the water level in each was equal, and then placed the pot on the trivet in the middle of the table. It was all done very deliberately and with absolutely accuracy. 

 

Which, of course, I immediately ruined as soon as I grabbed my cup and in the process moved it out of alignment with the rest of the set up. I saw Egbert briefly flutter his eyes closed and sigh as he dealt with my disruption of his perfect tableau. Thinking back to Daphne’s advice about Exposure Therapy, though, I figured it was good for Eggy to have to deal with me messing with his ritual a tiny bit. But, to distract him from his moment of distress, I decided to change the subject.

 

“So I did some work of my own this afternoon,” I offered over the rim of my tea cup as I inhaled the aromatic steam. I wasn’t usually much of a tea drinker - not because I didn’t like it, but I tended to need the extra caffeine hit from a coffee more - but after drinking this, I may have been converted. “I was busy trying to solve the mystery of your missing name.”

 

That seemed to surprise my Egbert, who tilted his head at me over his own cup as if to grant me leave to try and figure him out while remaining skeptical that I’d succeed. Little did he know that I wasn’t one to give up easily. Not when I had a mystery almost as delicious as the tea I was drinking waiting for me.

 

“It took me a while to come up with a way to find what I needed,” I explained. “I didn’t have much to go on other than the fact that Rumpelstiltskin was wrong.” We both chuckled at that. “But, since you hinted that it starts with    a ‘B’, I started off by looking up ‘B’ names.

 

He chuckled again at that, probably thinking that I was going to play his game and that he could continue to draw this out, but he didn’t know about MY secret. I could play a little, though. I liked to play. Not that word games were my preferred type of game. But I didn’t think my man was ready for the games I did want to play with him. Who knew, though, I might get there someday, right, and boy had I been dreaming about it . . .

 

“You’re definitely a Barnaby,” I guessed.

 

“Definitely NOT!”

 

“Okay, how about Bartholomew?” He shook his head, ‘no’, and I laughed. “Barnard? Benedict? Beauregard? Bonaventure?” He just kept shaking his head amusedly. “Betelgeuse?”

 

“Hell no! I think I prefer Egbert.”

 

“Fine, well then . . . How about . . . Brian? Brian Kinney?” I ventured, causing him to gasp in surprise that I’d seemingly pulled the correct name right out of the blue.

 

“How did you do that?” he asked suspiciously, his hand busy twirling the hair from his beard as he continued to stare at me. 

 

“You thought you were being super sneaky by putting the building in the name of an anonymous LLC, but that didn’t confuse me for long,” I grinned cockily at him, enjoying my moment of triumph, knowing that I’d solved at least one of the mysteries about this building. “But did you know that the Secretary of State’s records are online and anyone can find the name of any business’ Registered Agent. So, when I saw that The Flatiron Consortium, LLC listed its Registered Agent to be ‘Brian Kinney’ - a ‘B’ name, by the way - and that the Agent’s address was the building’s street address, I figured I’d gotcha.”

 

Eggy . . . I mean, Brian . . . cleared his throat - a sure sign that he was uncomfortable with the situation. What? Did he really expect me to never find out his name? “I hope . . . you don’t mind that I know your real name now, do you?” I suddenly felt like an asshole for going behind his back like that. “If you want, I can still call you Egbert?” I suggested lamely. 

 

Brian shrugged his shoulders, obviously thinking over what I’d offered. “I guess it’s okay. I mean, I know your name after all. I suppose it was kind of unfair for me to not have offered mine to you at the beginning. You know, when you first broke in,” he grinned and his eyes did that bright green sparkling thing that I’d become a hopeless pushover for, and I relaxed, knowing that he was going to be okay with this. “You think you’re a real genius now, don’t you? I can already tell you’re going to be insufferable after this. And here I was thinking that most criminals were inherently stupid. Why did I have to be haunted by the world’s only smarty pants burglar? Although it's probably for the best; I was getting tired of ‘Eggy’.”

 

“Nah. I think you secretly loved being ‘Eggy’. But we’ll have to keep that private - just between you and me - because we wouldn't want the entire world to know my private pet name for you, now would we?” I teased him right back, thrilled to see him being so bold and even a tad flirty. Of course, then I just had to go and ruin it all by pushing too far, but then again, that’s sort of a thing for me. I’m well known in certain circles for going too far. I just can’t help myself sometimes, you know. “I mean, I can’t be introducing you to people as ‘My New Boyfriend, Eggy’. No. We’ll save that for pillow talk, I think.”

 

The second the words were out of my mouth I realized that I’d once again spoken the quiet part out loud. The pernicious fantasy I’d been having about how I would tame the wild beast of the tower and then make him fall in love with me, kissing him silly through that ridiculous beard until we were both breathless, was supposed to have just stayed inside my head. Right? Did other people have the same problem I had with a lack of a filter or was I just congenitally incapable of holding my tongue around a man I found attractive? The world may never know because I literally just can’t stop myself sometimes.

 

“Your new ‘boyfriend’ huh?” Of course he’d picked up on that particular phrase. I was, by that point, blushing so hard that I think my face probably resembled a ripe tomato. But he didn’t let up. “Did I miss something or did we skip a few important steps.”

 

Instead of apologizing, though - because I didn’t see my Eggy as the type to respect someone who apologized without good cause - I decided to double down and just go for it. I mean, what the hell, right? ‘In for a penny, in for a pound’, my grandfather always said. So here was me, just laying it all out there and probably about to get shot down harder than any man’s ever been rejected in the history of men, but at least I was going down fighting, you know? Fuck it all and damn the torpedoes! 

 

“Well, I wasn’t going to tell you until after our first official date - and by that point you’d have already fallen so head over heels in love with me that you’d be unable to say no to anything I asked - but I guess the cat’s out of the bag, so to speak. So, yeah, I’ve decided that you’re going to be my new boyfriend. You can try to fight it if you want, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I’m very persistent and I almost always get what I want. It’s pretty much already a done deal at this point,” I declared, shrugging and offering up one of my killer smiles, hoping that brash and relentless was a winning strategy. 

 

“You are SUCH a fucking brat! You do know that, right?” was his only response which, all things considered, I thought was a good sign; I could work with annoying and bratty. “What if I don’t want a boyfriend? Agoraphobic guy here, remember? I need a boyfriend like I need a fucking hole in my head.”

 

“Ah, now, that’s not true. You need a boyfriend more than almost anyone I’ve ever met, Eggy. You need someone who’s going to draw you out of yourself. Get you out of your head. Introduce you to all the glorious wonders of this crazy world. And who better than me?” By that point he was just shaking his head, looking a little lost but amused enough by my approach that he wasn’t saying ‘no’. That, in turn, emboldened me. “So, we might as well get started. What do you want to do on our first real date? Personally, I’ve always thought the traditional dinner and a movie thing was a bit dull. And you’re probably not ready for the club scene, as fun as that can be . . .” Which is when Daphne’s whole lecture on Exposure Therapy came back to me and I knew this would give me the perfect excuse. “How about I just make dinner for you here, instead?” I offered. 

 

“Dinner? You . . .” Poor Brian started to look a little panicked.

 

“Yeah. I’ll cook for you and we can chat and it’ll be great.” From the look on my man’s face, he definitely didn’t think it would be anything like great. “Come on, Eggy. Let me do this for you. Please. I promise it’ll be okay. I know you’ve got the whole germ thing but we can work around that, right? I’ll let you be in charge of the cleaning and you can watch me cooking so you’ll be able to see that it’s all done on the up and up. You’ll be fine. Trust me.”

 

 

 

 

Chapter End Notes:

11/23/18 - Green Eyes by Cold Play - This chapter was really fun to write. I think all writers out there will empathize with how you’re sometimes writing a scene and your character takes over your brain, making the chapter go a way you did not expect. We had that happen here. Justin took over this entire chapter, exerting his brattiest self, and he ended up taking the end of the chapter a completely different direction. Don’t you just love it when that happens? LOL. And, for those that are interested, here’s a little info on the type of CBT we’re referencing here: ERP Therapy. TAG & Sally.

 

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