Free The Numbers Game by Frances Vidakovic Page A

do well?”
                Rick
smiled. “I think mate, you might get that party in your pants you’re looking
for.”
                “And if I
fail miserably?”
                Markie had
to consider all the possibilities. Rick looked at him in dismay.
                “Trust me,
Markie you don’t want to go there. The nice girls eat up nice boys like you
alive. Worse yet…” Rick paused for the full effect. “Nice girls don’t know how
to throw up. They don’t know and won’t want to ever, ever let you go.”
                Markie got
the picture. In this instance, good girls were the bad ones and bad ones were
first-rate. He’d have to get use to this. Beware the evil angels, whose
sweetness was undoubtedly a poison. Hello queen bitches, whose mouths
undeniably needed to be washed out with soap but at least they knew how to go
down with it.
     
     
    Reluctantly Markie
prepared himself for a night on the town.
                Deep down
all he really wanted to do was stay home and watch the clash between Manchester
and Arsenal on cable. Now that was going to be a game: full capacity crowd and
the usual rough English antics. But no, Rick insisted his friend get off his
shoddy ass and go out on a hunt instead, on a Tuesday night, of all things.
                “You’re
not wearing that?” Rick asked, as he filtered through the front door.  His
voice sounded shocked and appalled all at once, as if Markie’s mother had
infiltrated his body. 
                “What’s
wrong with it?”  Markie looked down at his outfit and what he saw was fine:
black shirt and beige colored cords. Okay so he was hardly adventurous in his
style but since when has that been a crime?
                “Did
Serena take off with the iron?”
                “No it’s
in the laundry.”
                “Oh,” Rick
tried to hide his smirk. “Isn’t it about time you learnt how to use one?”
                Damn. Of
course, you don’t just throw something out of the washing machine into the
cupboard! Markie had forgotten there was something in between.
                “No, but
it’s really time I got myself that cleaner.”
                Or Serena
back. She would never have let Markie leave the house looking like a mess.
Since her departure, the house looked as if a hurricane has charged through it.
Once tossed, clothes never make their way back up off the floor. Dishes lay
squished in the dishwasher, unpacked since they finished the last cycle or two.
He could never remember if they were dirty or clean so he sent them through
another wash, just to be sure. In the living area, it was a little scarier.
Even Markie treated the place as if it was a minefield, hop-scotching and
tiptoeing across the paper, glass, and plastic debris. He wasn’t used to living
in filth; it’s just that without Serena there to press the point of cleanliness
there didn’t seem to be any point.
                “I really
should stay in and clean this mess.”
                “Bullshit,”
Rick said. “Women love seeing this crap. It brings out their nurturing, ‘please
let me help you’ side. The moment you clean it up you’ll be labeled as either a
fag or neurotic Jerry Seinfeld clone.”
                Damn
Markie couldn’t have that. He needed to make sure he sent out the right
message. For the next three months, whether he liked it or not, he would forget
about loving Serena and concentrate on living the life of a single boy. I am
single, I am single , he affirmed to himself all the way to the club. It
wasn’t working.
                The place that
Rick took him to wasn’t a typical weekend dance club but rather an ordinary
sort open mid-week. Markie preferred to call it a pub or better still a
drinking hole. Macy’s, as it was so named, looked like the sort of place
Liverpool’s