LCU, life in present tense, part 2

LCU, spring semester, 2083 (part 2 of 3). Last semester, fall 2082.

*soundtrack (for all three parts), "Lifeboats," by Snow Patrol*

They find themselves in a new bar one Thursday night - or new to them, rather. Lucky's Card Bar in the Old West End has been around for decades, longer than the three of them put together. There was a help wanted sign on the door for bartenders. April needs a job, seriously, she doesn't have rich entrepreneur parents funding her education like her friends.

April says, "I'm broke as a joke, guys. Which one of you are buying my drinks tonight?"

Beau says, "Eh, maybe, if you don't tell Evie."

April says, "Tyler? I'll put out."

Tyler says, "Eww."

"I haven't slept with your brother in like, six months now," she says. She knows. She could measure it down the the day - October 21st, 2082. It was a Tuesday, and they did it in his bed, music playing, after a little toking on "the bubble blower," she was wearing polka-dot panties, and he wore Superman boxers. "Isn't there a time clause or something? An expiration date?"

"No," Tyler says. "There isn't."

"I'll buy your drinks, April, you don't have to sleep with anybody."

"So you're allowed to be my best friend this week?"

"I'm allowed to be friends with whoever I want," he says.

"Except for me," she says.

"She never said that," he says.

Tyler tunes them out, their bickering like an old married couple, looking like he might throw up, or run away, or both.

Beau knew Evie was on her way, since she called him like she does, three times an hour, and he didn't lie about where he was. That's almost like an invitation. So he couldn't have picked a more inopportune time to follow April's voice calling from the photo booth. He had to check on her. She could have been in trouble or something.

Evie says, as begins to pull back the curtain, "Beau, who's in there?"

"Oh, nobody," he says.

But that cover is quickly blown when April slinks out of the photo booth and past them. She just wanted some pictures with her friend. Well, no, to be honest she wanted much more than pictures, but she didn't think anything would come of it. Nothing would have come of it - to April's dismay, Beau has been perfectly faithful to his little girlfriend these past six months.

"I know," Beau says, trying to ease his way out of a lecture. He lied to April earlier - Evie doesn't like her and she doesn't want them to be friends. "You want some pictures."

"No," she says. "Not anymore."

"You want pictures," he says, leaning towards her, trying to make her smile, trying to salvage the night at the very least.

He feeds some money into the photo booth and pulls her inside.

A minute later, they come out with four adorable picture-perfect photos. He tries to ignore the intensity of her doubtful stare. "See," he says. "They're nice, huh?"

Tyler sits at the bar, alone, noticing how there's nobody here, and the only people who are here have all coupled off. The night is weird and lonely and just plain wrong. This night is a disaster waiting to happen, persistent clouds waiting to rain.

And weirdest of all is Beau making a strange face at him from underneath the smoke and bar lights, as if saying, "Dude, help!"

Tyler doesn't know what he's supposed to do, but it strikes him as the perfect motto for life, if lives could have mottos, his would be, Dude, help!

Tyler can't be sure, but he thinks he's noticed the bartender checking him out all night. She's cute - or beautiful, he might say, because it feels awkward to call an older woman cute. She isn't old, just older. Not as old as his mom...

And then Tyler reminds himself, maybe he should try not to think about sexy women and his mom in the same thought. Though the word around town lately is that most people can't avoid thinking of his mother that way.

And did she just...?

This is like one of those scenes that happens in movies, that never really happens in real life, except it's happening now - this sexy older woman just winked at him. She slid her fingertips across his back as she went behind him, leaving a trail of her perfume in the wake - potent stuff.

He doesn't even know what comes next. He tries to remember what they do in the movies, is he supposed to follow her or something? What if he's wrong and she clocks him across the head with her purse?

He gets up and walks towards the back corridors of the bar. At the same time, April stumbles back from the bathroom. "Where are you going?"

"Bathroom, duh," he says, with a telling grin on his face.

She's too drunk to take notice though. "You're drunk, April, go sit down."

She goes, feeling her way toward a barstool, her head swirling and light.

She looks up to find a man before her with a gripping smile and dark, dark eyes. "You're not the same bartender," she says.

She didn't order anything, but he pours her a glass of water. "No, sweetheart," Maxwell says. "I'm not the bartender."

She watches him talk, rather than listen, exactly. His words float through her head like the background music of the bar, and she just gazes up at him with a lazy smile on her face. They're talking, having a conversation. He's asking her questions and she's answering, though she can't remember the questions, but only the answers she gives back, in this dreamy stupor. One of the questions must have been, "What brings you here?"

Because she says, "I need a job," pointing vaguely at a sign hung behind the bar. Help wanted. "You need some help," she says.

She hardly notices when he slips around the side of the bar and appears sitting next to her. "How old are ya', sweetheart?"

"Nineteen," she says. "Twenty in August."

"Twenty in August," he repeats. She thinks this might be her job interview, as he looks up and down the length of her body.

"Tuesday night," he says. "About seven o'clock. Heather will show you the ropes."

"Okay," she says.

"Don't you forget now," he says.

"I won't," she says.

And while April interviews for her job, Beau plays a game at the table, with Evie at his side, and Fenton and Iris dance on to bar music like they haven't missed a beat, Tyler slips right past them all. It happens so fast, some introductions, some nerves, and she asks him to walk her out.

So he does.

She lives just across the street, and as he suspected, she didn't just want some company on her walk through the quiet streets of the Old West End. And she doesn't seem like the type of woman who would be afraid of the dark. She doesn't so much ask him if he wants to come in as she just takes his hand lightly there at the foot of her front door, and she lures him inside.

He lets her.

She's a grown woman with her own house, no parents, no roommates. And this happens the way these things usually happen - after alcohol and some dancing, except he is stone sober and he barely danced a minute until right now. Her music is soft, some jazz song he doesn't know - he doesn't listen to that type of music, but it's good for dancing, for moving with her in a dimly lit living room.

Her name is irrelevant, though she had actually told him at one point, Hannah, Heather, Helen? Did it even matter? He doesn't really know how these things work, the casual way, but she takes control of everything. She showed him just what to do, and just what is allowed. He takes note, and follows her lead.

Maybe she knows exactly what's going on here even before he does. His love for Summer Phoenix is tattooed painfully across his forehead, and she reads it. She knows this young man has loved before, and he's loved deep, he's loved hard. So she can make this so easy for him, knowing that even if he's young, surely he won't be inexperienced.

These are the best kind, she thinks. The ones who would be off-limits except for this one night of weakness. This one night where she'll help him in ways nobody else can.

There is something very important happening here, and he slowly begins to realize that. This is more than just discovering what her skin feels like underneath that little blue dress, but every piece of clothing removed, every touch, every surely placed kiss, this becomes a process of dismantlement.

He wants this, not her so precisely. He wants this because it's something to be done, it's a movement, it's a direction. She's beautiful, and that helps, but she could be anyone. He's using her, even before he knows it, just as she's taking something from him. He's using her to dissect his love for Summer.

This is an attempt to break things down. Summer and Tyler, Tyler and Summer. He breaks them apart to their very bones. Broken down, disassembled.

In pieces, in shards, maybe even beyond repair.

But even broken, even in shards, scattered like glass on pavement, there is still love, underneath it all as if burrowed into his skin.

So he brings it to her, this disassembled love. He brings her the pieces.

It's very early when the rain starts that morning. As he walks to her front door the sky begins to mist above him. It's a school day, a Friday. She would be awake already.

She comes to the front door before he can knock. She lights up, the way she does when she sees him. It's cool but not cold, and she's in pajamas and bare feet. He can't look her in the eyes, but instead studies the grass as it collects tiny beads of rain. "You should have shoes on or something," he says.

"Are you going to come in?"

"No," he says. "You probably won't want me to."

"I slept with someone," he says.

"You what?"

"I had sex with somebody else."

"Sex," she repeats. "You had sex with someone? What are you saying? Who?"

"You don't know her," he says.

"Sex," she says. She's trying to define it to herself. "Like..." The image is naked, skin, and his dick, very precisely, in someone else. She can't say those words though.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"I don't know," he says.

"I didn't think you would."

"I did," he says. "I'm sorry."

"I went on a couple dates," she says. "I threw a football around. I kissed him, a peck, it lasted five seconds."

"I'm sorry," he says.

"I know we're seeing people," she says. "But I didn't think you would do that."

"What did you want me to do?" he asks her, his voice pleading and desperate. "This has been all about you, Summer, what about me? What about what I wanted? What am I supposed to do?"

"I don't know," she says. "What do you want me to say?"

He shakes his head.

"So this is it? You're, like, done with me?"

"No," he says, reaching to her arm. She doesn't brush him away. "I'll never be done with you."

He pulls her closer and her arms hang loose around his back, her chin hangs heavy on his shoulder. She can smell it on him still, cigarette smoke, the perfume, the remnants of this other faceless woman. She pulls away. "You should go," she says.

She leaves him there in the rain.

Disassembled, to their bones.

What he is supposed to do is obvious now. People had their opinions one way or another whether he and Summer should explore their options or not. Time apart is what they really needed, what she said she needed from the start. He just wasn't listening. He wanted to win her back, or convince her otherwise, when really he just should have given her want she wanted.

He drives to Fort Bluewater. This is something he can do. He's seen the flyers posted up all around campus. "We need YOU! Fight for your people, protect the planet! See your recruiter today!"

This is something needed, something other people are doing to be of use. This is something to occupy his mind and consume him when the other things consuming him feel wrong.

This is something he can fight for, when the things he really wants to fight for are not up for debate.

And best of all, it's so easy.

And it's done.

*** to be continued ***

notes: I think you guys already saw this coming. Tyler is my third volunteer for the military ;)

*** outtakes ***

I've never seen a rejected photobooth woohoo, lol! She got thrown out and onto her butt! Good thing ACR is doing its job this time, since Evie was standing RIGHT there!!!

Awww, we love you April, but really, honey, what did you expect?

Say Hi to Fenton and Iris, lol! I'm still playing them in the background (I can't help it, they're so cute!), so you'll probably see them in the background of pictures every now and then. Beau, Tyler, and April are all friends with Fenton now, he's such a popular guy. Iris is a little quieter though.

It's a shame I have so many Sims already! I think I'll send them to Takemizu with Dallas next year, since I usually send a few non-playables along when one of my playables goes.