blue plaid

blue plaid

“stop dangling your body in front of me”

I threw a pillow at him, and he blocks it with his arm.

He grinned at me and weaved his hand through his strawberry blonde hair, making it stand up. He looked like a blonde jimmy neutrino on steroids. Literally, on steroids as there’s no way jimmy neutrino could have a body like that unless he synthesized some benzene shit in his laboratory.

“Any reason you’d rather throw a pillow at me than have our usual pillow talk, post-sex?”

I rolled my eyes, cringing.

“Can you not say post-sex, as if we were in a Friends episode. This isn’t a sitcom.”

He lazily stretched his arms like a puma or a cougar or something else feline and predatory.

For someone who claimed to be a dog person, he acted more like a cat sometimes.

A really independent, sexy cat.

“I can’t help that you’re soooooo attracted to me.”

I throw his blue plaid shirt at him.

“Put a shirt on. Now.”

He shrugged his shirt on and starts buttoning it up. I tried not to stare.

“Whatever you say, Miss Uptight.”

I glared at my fingernails. Wished I could claw his face off sometimes.

Or his body.

Pick the lesser evil.

-

There’s a story behind blue plaid.

I know I look good in it. I look good in everything, even a garbage bag, but shades of blue and green just fit me to a perfect T. Brings my eyes out, my mom used to say.

It was Christmas. Not Christmas Eve, which just gave me pregame jitters and anxiety about the next morning, but Christmas Day.

She was over at my home. It’s become tradition for her to stay the night and have a sleepover with my sisters and me and my brother. She had an older brother who she didn’t get along with, and her parents technically didn’t celebrate Christmas, they worked all the time and were never home.

So she liked to steal my family from me.

Big deal, my sister would throw around. So what if she hogs us more than you hog the TV after dinner?

It’s not cool for a guy to be possessive about his family, but…

I’m possessive. Extremely so.

But for her, I’d tolerate it.

You can have my family, bitch. And my balls.

Whenever you want them.

Anyway, that Christmas I’d always remember. She was wearing this silky smooth black velvet dress with those sinful lacy tights. I was trying not to get hard in front of my family, and my siblings were trying hard not to smirk at me, but we were all failing.

And I remembered glaring at her, hating her for the way she liked to wrestle control away from me, reciting “sinner, sinner, sinner” in my head.

She didn’t notice. She was too busy baking her “infamous” blueberry-strawberry streusel muffins.

Lol bitch. It’s not Fourth of July, it’s Christmas. Red and green, bitch, NOT red and blue.

My parents were fawning over her “muffins” and my brother was busy screaming his head off about the new X-box that she gave him. And I was too busy feeling jealous that she got my brother, of all people, an X-box, instead of me, even though I already have a half a million consoles to game on.

And I opened my present she gave me, and it was just a dumb blue plaid flannel shirt.

I didn’t bother unwrapping it.

“BITCH.”

I swore under my breath.

My brother looked at me and the wrapped shirt I was holding.

“Bro, she gave me an Xbox and all she got you was a blue plaid flannel shirt? Clearly, she likes me better.”

I wanted to punch him.

I throw the shirt on the couch, and something falls out.

A box.

No, not an X-box (wish it was)

But a gift box wrapped in silver and blue paper.

My brother was too busy plugging in his X-box, and my sisters were busy in the kitchen along with her.

I sat on the couch, holding the box in my hands. Opening it, I stared.

Guess what it was.

No, seriously, guess.

All right, I’ll tell you.

It’s a watch.

But, not just any watch.

She. Freaking. Got. Me. An. Apple. Watch.

Oh my god.

I threw my sweater off and buttoned the blue plaid shirt on. Clasping my new watch on, I turn it on and watch the grid light up.

I ran into the kitchen.

Pulling her into my arms, I give her a big fat kiss on the lips, right in front of my family.

“Thanks for the gift, bitch.” I whisper in her ear.

She smiled at me, her face smeared with blueberry jam.

It was not a blue day.

But.

It was a blue plaid kind of day.