Young Writers Society

~1100 words

A/N: warning again about Tommy, that pig.

Grey

Lamp lighting didn’t start for a while, but Grey had a fair idea of what Tommy wanted to ask him about. Grey pushed back into the chamber room filled with pews. He was a little surprised to see Ivy and Nikki weren’t there, until he remembered that Alder had called them into his office. Grey walked up to the office door and stood for a second, steeling himself. He rehearsed the conversation in his head. May I speak to Ivy alone for a minute? Very good. It was polite, and it wasn’t awkward at all. You can do this. He knocked on the door.

Nikki opened it, looking concerned. “Yeah, Grey?”

“May I- Oh my- Ivy are you okay?” Grey was about to say exactly what he had rehearsed when he looked over Nikki’s shoulder and his eyes fell on Ivy’s tear-stained face. All thoughts he had previously prepared flew out of his mind.

Ivy waved him off, wiping at her tears with the back of her hand. “Fine, fine. Don’t worry about me.” She had the slightly erratic tone of someone trying too hard to keep their voice under control. Alder’s face was a mix of emotions that Grey couldn’t read, but he seemed to be trying to console Ivy.

“What do you want?” Nikki shifted her weight so she covered Grey’s view into the room.

“I uh… nothing, I guess. Never mind.” Grey turned quickly from the room as Nikki shut the door. He felt his face grow hot, but snatched up his lamp lighting tools from the workshop. Gidgit skittered out from under his coat’s lapel and looked up at him, tilting his head in a question.

“I tried, okay?” he shouted, but when Gidgit ran to hide back under his lapel, Grey regretted the outburst. “I tried,” he repeated softly.

--

After the lamps were lit and the sun was only a memory in the sky, Grey and Tommy stood together beneath Tommy’s last lamppost.

Tommy’s cigar was already smoking like a dragon. “You do it?” he asked.

“Do what?” Grey asked, trying to feign ignorance.

Tommy took the cigar out of his mouth and rolled his eyes, seemingly unbelieving at how thick Grey could be. “Ask the Gyp out.”

Grey exploded into action, shoving Tommy up against the lamppost. “You call her that one more time and I’ll…” His mind suddenly went blank.

Tommy, unfazed, gave a sharp-toothed, sly smile. “You’ll what?”

“I- I’ll tell Nikki you’re the foulest pig I’ve ever had the misfortune of laying eyes on, and I wouldn’t be lying,” Grey snarled.

Tommy, trying to look decently chastised, raised his hands in a placating gesture, though the remains of an amused grin remained on his face like last night’s spaghetti sauce. “Alright, alright, Mister Macho Man. You’ve convinced me. From this point on, no more potty mouth from me. I’m a reformed man.”

Grey didn’t move. “I’m serious, man.”

Tommy contorted his face into a mockery of a dead-serious business man on the cusp of making the most important deal of his career. “I swear.”

Grey backed off, then looked to his left, off in the distance and said, “No. I didn’t.”

“Excuse me?” asked Tommy, his spiteful grin flickering back into place.

“I didn’t ask her out,” Grey said a little more loudly.

“Oh so you’re a tough man when it comes to threatening me, but you couldn’t ask out a single wagtail?”

“I guess I didn’t make myself clear,” Grey said through clenched teeth. “You call her Ivy or you don’t talk about her at all.”

“Okay White Knight,” Tommy laughed, “I get it.”

“Anyway,” Grey muttered, “what was I supposed to do?’

“I don’t know, just ask her, maybe?”

“She was crying, Tommy! Tears were coming out of her eyes! What was I supposed to do?”

“What was she crying about? Maybe she just broke up with her last boy, hey?” He elbowed Grey in the ribs.

“Oh my goodness. What if she has a boyfriend already?” Grey blanched.

“Don’t worry, she wouldn’t. I don’t think any other guy would vie for her skinny skin. That other broad on the other hand…”

“Her name is Nikki. Honestly, why I even bother with you is a mystery to me. You are a pig,” Grey spat, even though he knew he could never abandon Tommy. When he wasn’t insulting women and ethnic minorities, he was actually pretty fun to be around. He always had something interesting to do on slow weekends. Not to mention he’d been Grey’s only friend for several years. His insults and cussing had never really bothered Grey before, but now, suddenly they did.

“Hey, I thought you were all against name-calling now!” Tommy objected.

“You’re right. I should be nicer to the pigs.”

The two glared at each other for a beat before breaking into grins.

“Sorry I said those things,” Tommy said, extinguishing his cigar.

“No you’re not,” said Grey.

“Well, maybe not, but I am sorry I said them around you. Now I know about a little party going on at the docks tonight. If you promise that next time you see Ivy you’ll ask her out, maybe I’ll let you come with me.” Tommy pulled out a little tin box filled with cigars and put the half-finished one back in.

A little suspicion formed in the pit of Grey’s stomach. “Why do you care so much about this?”

“You’re all mopey these days. Maybe once you two are an item I’ll get the old Grey back. Though I doubt I’ll get him back until a couple weeks after you’ve broken up. May as well get started now, yeah?”

“Are you sure it’s not because of Nikki?”

Tommy pretended to look surprised and affronted. “How dare you accuse me of having vested interest in your relations with a girl! As if our friendship wasn’t enough! Now swear you’ll at least try to ask her next time.”

“All right, I promise. Though if she starts crying again, it’s not for lack of trying on my behalf.”

“Yeah, why was she crying anyway?”

“I have no idea,” said Grey. “I wish I knew.”

“It’ll give you something to break the ice with next time!”

“Oh please no. If I ask her about it she’ll probably start crying then and there.”

“Good point. Females sure are fickle. Maybe you’ll find one more to your taste at this dock party, eh chap?”

“I know the kinds of girls at these parties of yours. They’re nothing like Ivy,” Grey declared fervently.

“But that’s nothing to keep you from window-shopping, is it?”

“No. Let’s go.”