Walking Disaster

unsettling. I decided to get
my shit together. Abby might be a pigeon, but she was just a fucking girl. No need to get my boxers in a bunch.
    Besides, there was something under the good girl facade. She hated me on sight because she’d been burned by someone like me before. No way was she a slut, though. Not even a reformed slut.
I could spot them a mile away. My game face slowly melted away. I’d finally found a girl that was interesting enough to get to know, and a version of me had already hurt her.
    Even though we’d just met, the thought of some jackhole hurting Pidge infuriated me. Abby associating me with someone that would hurt her was even worse. I gunned the throttle as I pulled
into the Pizza Shack. That ride wasn’t long enough to sort out the clusterfuck in my head.
    I wasn’t even thinking about my speed, so when Abby jumped off my bike and started yelling, I couldn’t help but laugh.
    “I went the speed limit.”
    “Yeah, if we were on the autobahn!” She ripped the wild bun down from the crown of her head, and then brushed her long hair with her fingers.
    I couldn’t stop staring while she rewrapped it and tied it back again. I imagined that this was what she looked like in the morning, and then had to think about the first ten minutes of
Saving Private Ryan
to keep my dick from getting hard. Blood. Screaming. Visible intestines. Grenades. Gunfire. More blood.
    I held the door open. “I wouldn’t let anything happen to you, Pigeon.”
    She angrily stomped past me and into the restaurant, ignoring my gesture. It was a damn shame; she was the first girl that I had ever wanted to open the door for. I’d been looking forward
to that moment, and she didn’t even notice.
    After following her inside, I headed for the corner booth I usually commandeered. The soccer team was seated at several tables pushed together in the middle of the room. They were already
howling that I had walked in with a date, and I gritted my teeth. I didn’t want Abby to hear.
    For the first time ever, I found myself embarrassed about my behavior. But it didn’t last long. Seeing Abby sit across the table, cranky and annoyed, cheered me right up.
    I ordered two beers. The look of disgust on Abby’s face caught me off guard. The waitress was blatantly flirting with me, and Abby was unhappy. Apparently I could piss her off without even
trying.
    “Come here often?” she snapped, glancing at the waitress.
    Hell, yeah. She was jealous. Wait. Maybe the way I was treated by women was a turnoff. That wouldn’t surprise me, either. This chick made my head spin.
    I leaned on the table with my elbows, refusing to let her see she was getting to me. “So what’s your story, Pidge? Are you a man-hater in general, or do you just hate me?”
    “I think it’s just you.”
    I had to laugh. “I can’t figure you out. You’re the first girl that’s ever been disgusted with me
before
sex. You don’t get all flustered when you talk to
me, and you don’t try to get my attention.”
    “It’s not a ploy. I just don’t like you.”
    Ouch. “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t like me.”
    My persistence paid off. Her scowl smoothed, and the skin around her eyes relaxed.
    “I didn’t say you’re a bad person. I just don’t like being a foregone conclusion for the sole reason of having a vagina.”
    Whatever it was that had come over me, I couldn’t contain it. I choked back my laughter to no avail, and then burst out laughing. She didn’t think I was a dick after all; she just
didn’t like my approach. Easily fixed. A wave of relief washed over me, and I laughed harder than I’d laughed in years. Maybe ever.
    “Oh my
God
! You’re killing me! That’s it. We have to be friends. I won’t take no for an answer.”
    “I don’t mind being friends, but that doesn’t mean you have to try to get in my panties every five seconds.”
    “You’re not sleeping with me. I get it.”
    That was it. She smiled, and in that moment, a whole new world of possibilities opened up. My brain flashed like channels through Pigeon porn, and then the whole system crashed, and an
infomercial about nobility and not wanting to screw up this weird friendship we’d just begun appeared in its place.
    I smiled back. “You have my word. I won’t even think about your panties . . . unless you want me to.”
    She rested her small elbows on the table and leaned onto them. Of course my eyes went right to her tits, and the way they now