Free Rhythm, Chord & Malykhin by Mariana Zapata Page B

incapable of doing the ridiculous things that semi-attractive people like myself do; like fart or burp in front of others, smell or have stinky shit. But apparently Sacha, whose last name I still didn’t know, was the anomaly.
    He’d taken a crap in a plastic bag.
    When I had to hunch over and press my forehead against the vinegar-and-lemon smelling table, Sacha poked me in the shoulder. “When you gotta go, you gotta go ,” he said with another laugh that didn’t hold a lick of embarrassment in it.
    I looked up to see that his grin was telling me a story about an incredibly handsome man that didn’t take himself too seriously.
    It was like finding a four-leaf clover.
    “Did I gross you out?” he asked when I didn’t immediately respond.
    I scowled and shook my head. “Are you kidding me? Have you talked to Eli?” He nodded, but there was no way he’d interacted with him enough to not be fully aware of my brother’s mental impairment. I couldn’t see Eli talking to someone for longer than twenty minutes without making some rude and/or inappropriate comment.
    “There’s four of us kids in our family, and Eli and I used to have to ride the bus to school together in the morning, so we had to wake up earlier than everyone else. He’d make sure to get up before me every single day for years so that he could purposely leave me ‘presents’ in the toilet,” I snickered. “You can bring on the brown pickles with me anytime.”
    Sacha chuckled, his index and middle finger pressing against his temple. “What you’re trying to say is that Eli’s to blame for making you this way?”
    “Hey!” I cried. I wasn’t sure whether to be insulted or not.
    “I mean it in a good way. You’re beautiful—“ I’m not sure how I managed not to fall off my chair. “—And you don’t have a problem talking to me about The Clap, diarrhea and vomiting. You’re fun, Gaby.”
    My ears went red. Too worried about saying something dumb, I held out my hands at my sides in a “what can I say” gesture.
    Sacha smiled and opened his mouth right before the sound of loud beeping coming from his pocket tore his attention away from the table. Pulling his phone out, he asked me to hold on before answering the call. “Hey… I just finished going for a run… yeah… I’m about to eat.” He shot me a smile when he glanced up. “I’ll see you soon… I miss you too… okay… bye.”
    The chances that the person he was talking to on the other end was a family member could be pretty high, but my gut feeling said otherwise. Someone that good-looking had to have a significant other in the picture.
    “Girlfriend?” my mouth spewed without a second thought.
    He simply shook his head, and I missed the way one of his eyelids lowered in denial. “Old friend.”
    Friend?
    Sure . I almost snickered. I’d grown up alongside three boys, two of them becoming manwhores right before my eyes. I understood how they worded their sentences. An “old friend” that you told you “missed” was more than likely an ex-girlfriend or an ex-buddy you used to do things with that you probably wanted to do more things with in the future. Sacha didn’t seem to be like my brother or Mase, but still. An “old friend” was an “old friend.”
    It wasn’t my business, though, so I pushed Sacha’s friend and conversation out of my head and smiled over at him, close-mouthed.
    He only smiled back at me. The silence settled around our shoulders in a weird fit.
    “Are you ready to go?” I asked him.
    Sacha nodded and we got up, making our way out. Neither one of us spoke up as we walked back to the venue. I didn’t know what to say, and I guess he didn’t either. We smiled at each other a couple of times when we’d stop at a corner and wait to cross the street.
    I heard the guys before I saw them. We were rounding the nearest building to the venue when Eli’s booming laugh mixed with two other boisterous ones. Immediately, I felt this big ball of