She loves

 She sits down next to me, and tells me she's fallen in love with me. "I love you" she says as she stops her thoughts and turns her head. "I guess I am not suppose to care but I do, I love you."  It is said in an almost apologetic voice, as if falling in love with me is something to be sorry for. If only she knew the truth of the matter. However, who am I to tell her? She's not a classic beauty she's not the tall, willowy type that has a walk that makes traffic stop, and grown men feel underage. Yet, she is still miles out of my league, and has no business being in love with me. She just sat down and said "I'm in love with you." Not something one expects whilst drinking himself into yet another stupor on a random Tuesday, but nevertheless, here we are. I glance over at her to see if maybe, just maybe, she's taking the piss out of me, but no she is looking as earnest as can be, and seemingly quite serious about her declaration of love. 

She  glances back at me and says "don't laugh, it isn't fucking funny. Do you think I had any intention of falling in love with you. YOU of all people. You're a self confessed bastard, and that is putting it mildly as to what you really are." She lets out a small laugh that could have been confused for a madman's giggle. "It makes exactly zero sense to be in love with you, after all you seem to only capable of loving yourself and no one else. The shitty part about that is, that you told me that, and I wasn't clever enough to believe you. Why, I don't know. What it is about you that made this happen? You bastard, do you have any idea how alive you make me feel?" I looked at her with something approaching panic, and said the only thing I could think of which wasn't clever. "I've no idea what that means, am I supposed to?"

She calls for a drink, which I think she desperately needs, and looks at me with those muddy brown eyes, and repeats "I am in love with you, you stupid son of a bitch. Do you have any idea what this means?' I shudder a bit as the reality begins to sink in. "Well, I guess it means we need to think things through a bit more than we have so far." She chuckles a bit at that, and replies "think things through? What the actual fuck do you think I've been doing for the last month, you ignorant bastard? I've spent hours telling myself that there is no possible way that I love you, that you're the most self-centered bastard I know that you always take the hard way to get what you want. That I love you in spite of yourself." 

I take a very thoughtful swallow of my beer, "you will get over it, I promise." Her eyes flash at that and she very, very calmly says "fuck you, you dumb son of a bitch. This isn't something to 'get over' like the flu, I am IN LOVE with you. Do you have any fucking idea what that means?" I look over at her again, her eyes are virtually shining with feeling, "no I don't think that I do, and I think I might be afraid to ask." She glares at me again, and says "well let me clue you in Shakespeare, it means I am in love with you, you with all the faults you tell the world you have, and all the faults that you refuse to admit that you have. All that shit you spew out to the world to convince them you're a terrible person, I don't buy, I see past it. I see the large "R" romantic in you that refuses to die, no matter how hard you try to kill him. I see the not only the man you are. Which, godsdamn me for saying so, is pretty amazing, but the man you can so easily become if you just get out of your own way just a little bit."

I shake my head, "sweetheart you are much too smart for this, this is a decision that someone like you just doesn't make." She puts up a forestalling hand, "no dumbass stop talking. You just don't understand it, and I am not sure you ever will. To be honest, I am not sure I can put it into words, or at least words you could understand. And you know what, fuck that why do I need to? Why do I need to break this feeling down for you? Why can't you just accept the fact that, for reasons passing understanding, I am in love with you. It defies logic, it makes exactly zero sense, it is perhaps the worst decision I've ever made, but here I am madly, passionately in love with you. All you have to do is just accept it." 

I take another long swig of beer, and smile at her. "You're as mad as a March hare. There is no way anyone like you can possibly be in love with someone like me. It makes as much sense as chickens learning the polka. I am not quite the bastard I make myself out to be, but I am still not worth all this emotion." She snorted at that, "don't you think I know that you, you idiot. Of all the men I know you are the least likely..." What I was least likely to do, I never found out, because at that moment, the front door of Sully's swung open and in walked the dynamic duo of Mutt and Jeff. "Boss wants to see you dickhead, come along nice and quiet like for a change." said Mutt or was it Jeff? Who the fuck knows, and at that moment I gave exactly zero shits. I nodded at her. "Well, sweetheart, it would appear that my dance card has been filled by another. Fear not, I shall return, or at least one hopes I will. With these ladies" I pointed at Mutt and Jeff, "one is never exactly sure."

She glared (she is a great one for glaring) at me, then at Mutt, then at Jeff. I winced because I had been on the wrong end of that glare before, Mutt and Jeff, well they aren't smart enough to understand the meaning of that glare, then again it probably didn't bode as ill for them as it did for me. I stood up, and pushed enough money across the bar to cover my tab as well as hers. "I am sorry for the interruption, but these gentlemen, using the term very broadly, don't like to be kept waiting. Do you boys?" Mutt, or was it Jeff grunted, and replied "just get your ass in the car GI, we have other things to do besides retrieve you." I finished my beer, I am sure you do lads, I am sure you do, helping little old ladies across the street, saving children from burning buildings, and such other heroics surely take precedent over ferrying me back to your boss. Lead on MacDuff, off we go to pay the piper that is Felix." 

With that I walked, cheerfully for once, out of Sully's with Mutt and Jeff to find out what fresh hell Felix had cooked up for me. I suspected that when I walked in and all but kissed him on the mouth for rescuing me from the spot of bother I was in,  it would greatly confuse him. Which for once, gave me the upper hand with the bastard. However, I knew that at some point, he would let me go, and she would find me again. After all, all the Pipers must be paid.