Skate Parks & Spliffs

Grey going away had given me the perfect opportunity to do something about The Lapdog, who had essentially been left in dating limbo. I’d been ignoring his messages while frolicking around a hotel room with a man who gave me multiple orgasms. It wasn’t cool of me… but I was having a lot of fun. Isn’t that the point of your youth?

It was time for me to do something about it, though. I couldn’t combine Mr. Multiple Orgasms with Mr. Skate Parks & Spliffs forever… could I?

“Hey, you free?” I text him. The Lapdog, obviously. Not Grey. I wouldn’t blame you for being confused, though. Dating more than one chap at a time is confusing.

“Sure. Pick you up in an hour? Or you want to call?”

“Pick me up in an hour.”

And then I got ready. Casual ready, not date ready. Baggy jeans. A white t-shirt, slightly tucked in. Trainers. Hair up in a ponytail, with a baseball cap in case I cried or got embarrassed, and dark sunglasses for the same reason. I’d thought of everything.

Or so I thought.

When I got in The Lapdog’s car, he didn’t ask me where I wanted to go. That was weird. He always asked me where I wanted to go, because he was incapable of planning or booking anything for himself. Instead, though, he drove.

“Where we going?” I asked.

He pointed at the radio, one of those ones that un-clips, so you can take it with you and deter burglars. “You’re in charge of the music,” he said.

I didn’t even want to argue. If the boy was finally showing some initiative for once, who was I to stop him? I fiddled with the radio for a few minutes, then his mp3 player, then stopped fiddling when the sounds of Evanescence belted out.

We chatted throughout the journey, all surface level stuff. My family. His family. The dogs. The jobs. Even the weather at one point. It was so weird, and so uncomfortable. Part of me wondered if he knew about Grey already, but how could he? The only people who knew were Bestie, my boss at the The Admiral, and a handful of workers at the hotel and restaurant we had visited together. I doubted that The Lapdog even knew any of them. Perhaps he had seen us somewhere; although, I doubted that, too.

Eventually, I realised where he was driving: one of his favourite local skate parks. I wasn’t entirely sad about it because I actually loved the place, but he could’ve picked literally anywhere in the county with me that night, perhaps even the country… and he chose the skate park. Pffft.

He told me to wait in the car as he scrambled around in the boot of the Nova, then walked to my side and opened the door.

“These are for you,” he said, handing me a large shoe box.

They were brand new rollerblades, in bright pink, and in my size. What a clever boy. He had clearly gone looking through my shoes to find my size, as I’d never told him. I was actually impressed. Perhaps I’d been too hasty and shouldn’t dump him, after all? I mean, it wasn’t like Grey and I had had the exclusive chat, or anything. Was I really doing anything wrong…?

The Lapdog walked me into the hanger-like building, then helped put the rollerblades on my feet, showing me how to do it all properly. Not too loose. Not too tight. Tuck the laces here.

Ten minutes later, he held my hand and guided me to the top of the smallest half-pipe. A child could’ve managed it, so I confidently followed his lead and threw myself down it. I landed on my ass, of course, and in quite some style. Boys laughed as they rushed over and helped me to my feet, asking lots of are-you-okays along the way; and I realised, I was the only girl there. So, obviously, I threw myself down it again… and a third time, just to make sure that I had met every cute boy in blades and on skateboarders. Maybe I was deliberately trying to make Lapdog jealous a bit, to see what he’d do? I was young and dumb, and I thought the dating game was just that: a big ol’ game.

Thankfully, my plan worked. He did get a bit jealous, which then resulted in a very public snog that led to chairs of, “Get a room!”

We didn’t get a room…. But we did go back to his car, smoke a spliff, then fuck in the relative privacy of the highly-coveted parking space under the tree.

Maybe I’d break up with him tomorrow, or something.

The next blog post in the dating timeline is this one: The Drawing.