“Jax, can I be totally honest with you?” Nate said as he licked his ice cream. “These girl’s nights are becoming more frequent, right? Should we be worried about that?”

  “I don’t know? Girls need to, you know, do girl things and talk about girl things. Best to leave them to it. No point in trying to anticipate.” Jax replied.

  Nate nodded to Jax’s wise wisdom. “I don’t know, I just can’t help but think they are talking about us, otherwise why can’t we go and hang out too?”

  “Should I bug them?”

  “NO!”

  “Well then, why worry about something you have no control over?”

  “Because maybe, I’m feeling… things… that I want to talk to, one of the girls about?” Nate said, framing his non-chalant way of saying he was attracted to one of the women as a question.

  Jax turned to Nate slowly. “Nate, are you saying you want to have girl talk with me?”

  “Well I mean it would be boy talk, I guess, but yea?”

  ***

  The Cat’s Meow was an all-women's social club that featured a full restaurant, bar, lounge, and live music venue on the second floor. As one would imagine, the decor was strictly women-focused. Headshots that covered the walls were of famous women celebrities from all different industries, as well as photos of all-women’s sports and arena teams holding the various trophies and championships they had won. While pink and various tones of purple were the main theme throughout the venue, every color from the color wheel was represented as well. The whole place was a celebration of women and their contributions to the galaxy.

  “So he looked at me, and we had a whole conversation, and that's when he got Biff to leave." Lindy said very fast.

  “Mhm, and what was this whole conversation that took place?” Dee said with an accusatory tone.

  “Well ok I didn’t actually say anything.”

  “Ok, then what did he say?” Another woman sitting next to Dee said.

  After the first few times that Lindy and Dee had come to the Cat’s Meow, Gildy instantly took a liking to them. They all happened to be around the same age so that helped, but the three couldn't be more different. Lindy was a princess, Dee a destitute on her last leg, and Gildy was kind of in between. She opened the Cat’s Meow after quitting her corporate job in insurance because she saw a gap in the market for a bar and lounge for only women to come and hang out and get shit faced.

  “Ok so he didn't say anything either, but it was in our eyes, you know?” Lindy said, gesturing her hands pointing from her eyes to Dee’s.

  “So to recap, you told me like four months ago you like this guy, like, like like him, and now things are heating up because you held on to him when a douche bag was sexually harassing you and he looked at you?” Dee said with an assuming look on her face.

  “While I agree with what Dee is saying, if I'm reading between the lines correctly, I do kind of think it was a little weirdly romantic?” Gildy said with a mischievous smile creeping on her face.

  Lindy squealed a little and so did Gildy. Dee rolled her eyes.

  “I hope this love never finds me. I just want a man to come up to me and claim me. But like, when I want to be claimed. A man who is confident enough to be with me. Otherwise I could go for a casual pick up at the bar.”

  “No way! If some guy came up to you to “claim you." you would literally throat punch him.” Lindy laughed.

  “Yea, you’re probably right, I might kill him actually." Dee said through her own laughter.

  “You almost killed this Bill guy when he tried to do the exact thing.” Gildy added.

  “True.” Dee nodded after drinking down a shot.

  “Hey, Miss Gildy, We are getting kind of backed up and-” A nervous little human woman said, tapping on Gildy’s shoulder.

  “Ladies, I need to get back to it, maybe one day I’ll have enough money to hire enough employees so I can sit and chat more.” Gildy said with a frown.

  “Go do your thing, we’ll be here for a while I'm sure.” Dee said while wiggling her face from the strong taste of the shot she downed.

  ***

  “Another miss, how do you do it Jax? The concept is so simple, it's like pool and air hockey had a baby.” Nate was referring to the game that Jax introduced him to in the student lounge. This game existed on Earth, he had seen it on social media, but he couldn’t remember the name of it for the life of him.

  “I don’t know what either of those things are but it’s literally just geometry. I think they put this game in here to teach us strategy or something. The school doesn't do anything without trying to teach us a lesson.” Jax said as he lined up a shot on the board. He took aim with the disc and slid it gently across the table and hit another smaller disc into a small hole in the corner of the board.

  “Yea yea, whatever.”

  “Speaking of geometry, when do you think you and Lindy are going to collide, you know, perpendicularly?”

  “That has to be the nerdiest way to say “when are we going to hookup”.”

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Hah, yea I know.” Jax said with a pleased look on his face.

  “I don’t know man. I think she was just scared. Me and Dee are the fighters on the team, I think she was just trying to do what we usually do and get to one of us so we could deal with the threat.”

  “Does she hold your arm when she does that? BOOM!” Jax shouted as he landed his last puck into a hole on the board.

  “No, I guess not.”

  “Well then, maybe there’s more to it.”

  ***

  “Yes, I was genuinely scared, but it was like a reaction. I went for him, because… I knew he would protect me.” Lindy said.

  “While that's true, he would do anything for any one of us.” Dee said.

  “So there’s nothing to it?” Lindy said as she sunk into the couch she was sharing with Dee. She looked out to the rest of the lounge area taking in the cat themed decorations and rainbow color spectrum of paints and wall papers spread across the lounge.

  “I’m not saying that. I’m sorry, I’m not trying to dampen your spirits. Maybe you guys have a slow burn thing going, you know?”

  “No, I know. I got a little excited. Romance stories really excite me. Back home I’m just presented with a man you know? May it please the Princess, please behold this jacked dude and his oversized dong.”

  Dee spit up her drink laughing. “Tough life girl.”

  “Deeeeeeee.” Lindy said, drawing out the vowel sound in her name.

  “You like slow burn, then let it burn girl. Let it smolder. Play your little games, if you want things to move a little faster then turn up the heat a little bit you know. Things cook faster when you turn the heat up.”

  “But you can also burn it too, Dee.” Lindy said putting her head in Dee’s lap

  ***

  “Look dude, she’s a princess at the end of the day. She’s gotta have high standards. Besides, how do you even know if she is single? Maybe that’s what these girls nights are, maybe they are going on dates with their boyfriends.”

  “You don’t think I have a chance?”

  “I didn’t say that. In the chick flicks my Mom makes me watch-”

  “Yea makes you watch.”

  “Do you want my help or not?” Jax said with his hands out, before he locked in and sunk another puck in a hole with a spectacularly angled shot.

  “Sorry, sorry. Please continue, Fabio."

  “Be her friend, her close friend, let her confide in you, and then there will be an opening where she will be truly vulnerable, and then you make your move.”

  “That sounds… incredibly manipulative.”

  “I guess, but they wouldn't have made so many movies about it if it didn't work, so you say manipulative, I say tried and true.”

  “Ok, I’ll do the friend thing. She is so out of my league, but I won’t wait to strike like some predator. I’ll make a move when I feel like it makes sense. When it comes up casually you know?”

  “Sounds good. Now, what do you say we go to bed, I’ve beaten you like three times and I’m tired of winning.”

  ***

  Lindy passed out on Dee’s lap as she played with her hair and finished talking to her about her boy problems. Gildy walked over and put their glasses and plates on a tray and had one of her staff take it back to the kitchen. She sat down on the couch faced towards Dee, with her arm holding up her head.

  “So what about you Dee?”

  “What about me?”

  “I know a troubled soul when I see one.”

  “Hah, troubled.” Dee said as she reached for another bottle of alcohol.

  “You can talk about your problems too, you know?”

  “I’m fine, living it up with my princess friend, solving her boy problems and stuff.”

  Gildy picked up on Dee clearly trying to avoid any kind of analysis or girl talk. Gildy knew a street urchin plucked off the street when she saw one. She liked alcohol too much, because she knew it made problems and pain feel more dull. She focused conversations and questions away from her because she wasn’t comfortable in the spotlight. Usually when she was in the spotlight that meant abuse of some kind was headed her way. Gildy saw the scars Dee was trying to hide because she had them too. Gildy pulled up her shirt to show a scar on her upper torso. Dee looked over at her confused.

  “Is this a strip club too? I didn’t realize this was a dinner and a show situation.” She said, trying to play off the awkwardness.

  “This is where my aunt hit me with a stick so hard it cracked a rib and punctured my lung. That was the day I got free, I was fifteen, how old were you?”

  “I don’t know what you mean… I” Dee was fumbling now, the walls were cracking. She’d been abused but never had to go to the hospital.

  “When I got out I got put in the foster care system and that brought me here. The family that took me in was the dream I always wanted. There were me, my found siblings, and the only mothers I ever knew, and care to know. They got me into therapy to undo the years of torture from the person who was supposed to love me and take care of me. I have my walls too, but I learned that talking about it, sucking out the poison from within helped me tremendously.”

  Dee stared at Gildy silently. She had lied to herself for fifteen years that families were earned and that she hadn’t done enough to earn one yet. She had rewired her brain to make herself believe that love, not even just romantic, was something that would always be out of her reach.

  “I was twelve. You can start working when you turn twelve on Hirondant. One day a truant officer came to the apartment to pick me up for school, and I just never went home. I never went back to school either.” Dee chuckled. “But I never went back…there.”

  “Where did you live?”

  “On the street for a few days. Then while I was walking around after work I found this old abandoned municipal structure that I think was some kind of water valve, I don't know, it was near a river, that’s where I washed up. It had a concrete floor, four walls and a roof. It was overgrown, but so is everything that isn’t even remotely maintained in the jungle. I got one square from work since I worked twelve-hour days. I bought myself some basic clothes eventually.”

  “You did it, all on your own. You're more brave than me, more brave than I bet you think you are.”

  “I ran though. Brave people don’t run, they fight.”

  “Sure, cowards run away, they teach you that in contractor school. But you were a kid, not a contractor.”

  “I should have made him pay, I should have stabbed him, something. He was a cripple too, it was hard for him to even beat me by the time I left.”

  “You were a kid.”

  “He would call me over if I got his dinner wrong and would whip me with his belt from his chair. Gods, I fell for it so many times.”

  “Dee.” Gildy said softly.

  Dee looked to Gildy, expecting her to say more.

  “You got yourself out. I'm proud of you.”

  Dee looked at Gildy confused. She didn’t need her approval, she didn’t need Gildy to be proud of her. She didn’t even do anything. She just didn’t go home one day. She just figured it out, she didn’t need anyone, she was fine on her own, and she would be fine now that she was in contractor school. She would graduate and get a decent paying job and go back and help the kids she left behind. The faces of the kids from the alley flashed in her mind one by one. She looked up at Gildy confused, quickly becoming overwhelmed by the flood of emotions.

  “I… Didn’t… I need to…”

  “This next part of your life.” Gildy started, looking down at Lindy. “You’re not going to do it alone. Whatever it is you need to do, your friends are going to be with you.”

  “Friends?”

  “Friends.”