Rooting For My Baby - 1. Remember

CHAPTER ONE

So Dad had basically forced me to go out with him and Mom for dinner tonight at Olive Garden.

I honestly wondered if they thought that my life was that pathetic where the idea of me, a sophomore, spending Friday night with them at a restaurant was even remotely beneficial to me.

Luckily for them (and me, I might add), Rhonda, my acutely bipolar, homo-loving and super charismatic best friend was PMSing and I wanted to be nowhere near her at that point.

Last time we argued the bitch told me I had as much significance as Madonna in 2015.

Fucking.

Rude.

So now we were going through that exhausting "I'm not talking to you first” stage, but I knew that would reunite eventually. What can I say, I'm fucking irresistible.

I'm Zac Efron's abs irresistible; Dave Franco in a thong irresistible.

Shallow much? I really can't help it.

So anyways, here I was at the table. Mom made our orders without even bothering to ask us our opinions (she knew the routine choice), then Dad started.

"So, uh, Elliot, how's it going in the dating scene?"

Seriously Dad, 'dating scene', who on earth even says that?

Him. That's the answer.

Apparently this seemed to pique Mom's interest, as she looked over to me. I noticed a suspicious look in her eye.

Something's fishy. They were planning something. Probably. I could feel the ulterior motive in my bones.

"It's going great Dad, thanks for asking, I’d much rather spend a fulfilling evening with you buckets of sunshine than with my bae." I said dismissing the question as fast as possible. Note the use of the gender-neutral bae. Well, I wasn’t exactly out to them—at least officially and I’d like to keep it that way. The less they know the better.

"Oh, so what's her name?” he said, apparently immune to my sarcastic response.

These people were up to no good. They were definitely fishing. No denying it. Question is, why? And what was with the sudden interest in my dating life. My completely nonexistent dating life, mind you.

"What's whose name?” I replied matching his shady tone. Two can play that game.

“The girl." he said.

"What girl?" I replied playing dumb.

He got frustrated and said to forget it.

Well that played out coolly.

The night continued on and it was actually surprisingly great—on Instagram.

***

Fifteen minutes in and Dad started again.

“Do you remember Aaron Rodgers and AJ, El?” He said.

El? Where the hell was this coming from? He knew I hated that nickname. He knew it well. I wondered why he was trying so blatantly to provoke me. Apparently, he wanted my attention at the table since from the beginning of dinner till now I hadn’t left my iMessage.

“Isn’t he that drugged out football player from New York?” I quipped, trying to be as nonchalant as possible. He wasn’t going have his way this time. “What does he and this AJ have to do with anything?”

“No, that’s Aaron Rodrigues and he plays baseball not football,” he said as if I cared. “I’m talking my best friend, Aaron and his son, AJ. You seriously don’t remember that huge chunk of your childhood when you spent virtually all your time with AJ?”

“Well, obviously not Dad.” That’s not entirely true though, I vaguely remembered walking around the park exploring and constantly fighting with a taller boy with the greenest eyes I had ever seen.

“Okay.” He resigned, realizing that the conversation wasn’t going where he wanted to. I’m proud to say that after 16 years of my life I could efficiently read and manipulate Daddy Dearest to suit myself on any occasion. This was a prime example.

At this point, I was begging for Mom to join in the conversation to add a little distraction so Dad will give me a break. However, she was way too preoccupied with her phone; probably texting one of her cheek-pinching girlfriends.

Like mother, like son I guess.

I could feel Dad brewing up another question in that God-forsaken mind of his by the way his forehead contorted, his lips puckered north and the wrinkles appeared. That was one habit that I got from him.

No more questions came, however.

JC was helping out a bro.

***

An hour passed and as we were about to enter Dad’s car I noticed a tall figure exiting a black Range. He was easily over six feet tall and had curly black hair and a muscular build.

Talk about hot.

Then the weirdest thing happened—he started to advance towards us. Needless to say, I, being the geekiest nerd on the planet, scurried inside the vehicle as if the guy was some serial killer.

But then I thought, “What if he was?”

Thankfully Mom was already seated shotgun, but Dad was just moving around the other side of the vehicle after opening Mom’s door for her. What a gentleman, heh?

The guy was now approaching Dad. Dad’s a grown-ass man he could handle himself, hopefully. But that thought did little to console me.

The guy raised his hand, going in for a hit I assumed and I yelled, “Dad watch out” with an ear-piercing loudness, convinced that this was going to be a mugging. I’m way too young to be freaking Bruce Wayne.

Mom screamed upon the outburst and Dad rushed to see what was wrong.

“What the hell Elliot!?” he shouted with annoyance in his voice.

Mom was clutching her chest and the Tall Guy was standing awkwardly holding out his hand. Then it hit me—he was going to give Dad a handshake. Tall Guy stood a few feet away from the scene giving a concerned look which was kind of odd seeing as his long cheek dimples gave the impression of a smile, and worried plus smiling was possibly the creepiest expression that could be made based off this scene.

I panicked knowing I had to come up with a reasonable excuse for scaring the crap out of my parents.

“Uhm, Adele’s new album is out,” I tried knowing that that had abso-fricken-lutely nothing to do with the situation. I’m so grounded. But in my defense, Dad was a major Adele fan.

“Then why were you shouting ‘Dad watch out?’” he responded. If I kept this up, he would totally strangle me. Shit.

“Oh, that’s a new single on the album.” I replied knowing full well that that excuse wasn’t gonna cut it. To further reinforce my excuse, I started to belt out lyrics from “Hometown Glory” which earned me a scolding from Mom and Dad. Mom held her hands against her ears and Tall Guy was beginning to give me strange looks.

Need I tell you that this is probably why I was still a virgin… this godforsaken nuttiness.

Tall Guy walked over and gave touched my Dad on the shoulder and then the light hit his eyes and the green iris struck a memory, AJ.

Dad seemed to recognize him instantly, no longer paying any mind to me (thank God, I might add) and then they gripped each other in a bear hug.

“AJ!” Dad exclaimed, and from that moment on I knew that things were gonna get really interesting around here.

***

“Hey Elliot.”

“AJ… what the fuck are you doing in my fucking bed, it’s like 3 fucking PM?!”

“So are you saying you don’t want me?”

“NO, I’M SAYING I THINK IT’S FUCKING WEIRD THAT YOU’RE IN MY BED AT 3 IN THE MORNING, how the hell did you even get in here?”

“Shush, don’t worry about that Sweetums.”

“Sweetums? Do I look a housewife to you?”

“Shhh, Elliot, lay back and relax.” At this point, Elliot was too caught up to even process the absurdity of this act.

“Lie back on the pillow.” AJ said. Elliot acquiesced, a pencil jammed into his back all of a sudden.

“What the actual fuck!” Elliot cursed, trying to soothe the searing pain by pressing down on the area.

“It’s a little too early for that Babe.” AJ chuckled. He proceeded to unbuttoning his shirt, leaning in for a chaste kiss on the lips, then he receded.

“Again, AJ” Elliot moaned. AJ then pressed on once more, this time—full-on tongue-action. AJ pulled back after several oxygen deprived seconds, then they both began to take deep breaths.

“You’ve been a bad, bad boy Elliot, and I’m here to punish you.”

Elliot’s erection got granite-hard, AJ proceeded to tearing off his wife-beater and Elliot gasped loudly as AJ’s smooth, pronounced abs are revealed.

“What did I do, AJ baby?” Elliot whispered.

The highly seductive undertone of Elliot’s reply took him by surprise.

“You, um… you, you burned down a house.”

The mood was trashed.

“I burned down a house. Which house? Where the hell did that come from AJ?” Elliot quipped, as he sat up in the bed.

“Well, why are you acting so angry? When someone says you’ve been a very bad boy in this situation, why on earth would you even ask what you’ve done? IT’S A FREAKING RHETORICAL QUESTION!”

“Well…I’m a virgin how the hell was I supposed to know that!” Elliot replied, obviously embarrassed.

“So we’ve moved from potential sex to arguing, who would’ve thought.”

AJ was pissed and Elliot was embarrassed, but tried to cover it up by being angry.

“Well can’t we just continue where we left off? I mean, it isn’t that awkward, is it?” Elliot said hopefully.

AJ shook his head yes and Elliot’s cat meowed. Elliot took it as a yes from the cat too and turned red.

“Shut the fuck up, Buttercup, you bitch!” Elliot cursed.

AJ succumbed to the awkwardness at that point.

“Maybe I should go, Elliot.”

Elliot didn’t give a reply. AJ went through the window.

***

Elliot woke up, sat up in his bed and then the dream came back to him. He groaned painfully into his pillow.

“Well, fuck me!”