Taming Tawnee

"I'm pretty sure that Mandy's going to ask you out."

"Yeah right. I'm not fallin' for that. Whatever you're trying to do , just don't okay?"

"I'm fucking serious, dickweed. Don't ask me why, but she likes you. There's a couple things that you can do that will make her like you a little more."

"Oh yeah. Yeah. Like what? Get a tattoo of her name on my back? Pierce my nose?"

Tawnee rolled her eyes and threw her hands in the air. "I told you, I am serious. Do you want my help or not? I know you've probably never touched a living girl before."

"I had a girlfriend for like six months!"

"You had a girlfriend?" Tawnee asked. She didn't think that was possible. She certainly hadn't noticed. "Who?"

"Sam."

"Sam? I thought Sam was a dude."

"Sam, short for Samantha. You had to have seen her around the house. You've got to be kidding, right?"

Vaguely, she recalled a creature named Sam lurking about the house with Will. It was a while ago though, and still, even after she brought the image to mind, she wasn't certain of Sam's gender. She had no idea that her brother had been in a relationship with it.

"I remember Sam, but that was really your girlfriend? Oh man, I'm sorry."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"That means I'm sorry. Anyway, Mandy's about a hundred times farther up the hot list than Sam. Do you want to hear what I have to say, or not?"

Will thought about it for a moment. He was almost sure that this had to be some sort of a vile trick, but there was still a slim chance that his sister wasn't lying to him. "Okay, I'll bite. What is it that will make Mandy fall madly in love with me?"

Tawnee scoffed. "Probably nothing. My guess is that she'll get to know you better and drop you like a hot potato. But there is something you can do to make her a little less sick when she looks at you. One is get a hair cut, the other is shave that shit that you have growing on your chin. You look like you've been shipwrecked on an island or something."

"That's it?" he asked. As far as tricks went, the drawbacks to getting a haircut didn't seem that bad.

"That's it. I can take you right now, if you want."

Still skeptical, Will raised an eyebrow. "What's in it for you? Why are you doing this?"

His sister sighed and threw her arms in the air again. "God, I'm trying to do something nice for you and all you can do is bitch and moan! I want to help you get ready to go out with Mandy because if she's dumb enough to ask you out, then I want it to work out for both of you. She's my best friend and I really like her. You, well, if anything's going to make you miserable, I want it to be me and not because you got your heart broke from some girl you've been dreaming about for years."

"I guess that makes sense, not wanting to share my pain with anyone. I suppose it's not the worst thing I've ever done, getting a haircut. At least Mom will like it."

Tawnee drove her brother to a place at the mall that accepted walk-ins. She really had no real idea of how much money she owed Will, somewhere around a hundred dollars, she guessed. She mentally subtracted the cost of the haircut and shave from her debt, feeling better that she owed him a little less after paying for it. Flipping through some old magazines, she waited patiently for him in the designated area. When he emerged, she was pleased to see that he cleaned up nicely.

"Hey, you look more like a real person," she commented, leading him from the shop.

"That's good, I guess. Did you pay for it?"

"Yeah. I know I still owe you, you don't have to remind me."

"Well, uh, I tell you what. If I really do get to go out with Mandy, let's just call it even. I'm still not convinced that I'm not being led into some sort of trap," he said.

"I know you probably don't trust me, and hey, why would you? All I can say is that I'm not trying to screw with you. And for all I know, Mandy might have changed her mind and decided not to ask you out, I don't know, we haven't talked about you since last night. I still think she's going to, though. She might be scared of me, but I'll try to take care of that," she said as they made their way back to her car.

"Take care of it?"

"Well, just let her know that I don't have a problem with whatever it is her plans for you are. That kind of thing. I already told her, but I don't know if she believed me or not."

"That's the nicest thing you've ever done for me, Tawnee."

"I'm pretty nice, that's for sure," she agreed.

Will laughed as they pulled away from the lot, then turned more somber. "So, uh, how did it go with Doug last night?" He knew that she was supposed to go out with him and that after their little meeting she stayed in for the rest of the night.

"Doug and I are no longer together, and I don't think that we ever will be again," she replied.

"Are you upset about it?" he asked, venturing into dangerous territory.

"Not really. A little. Went out with him for a long time."

"You're tough. You'll be fine, right?"

She cast a quick glance in his direction, flashing a small, but genuine smile. That didn't sound like something he would normally say. She expected to hear some mushy bullshit about her feelings. "Right." They made the rest of the trip home in silence until she parked in front of the house. "Okay. Mandy's going to come over in a little while. Just let her come to you and do most of the talking, otherwise, you'll more than likely fuck things up before you even get started. If she asks you what you're planning on doing this weekend, for god's sake, don't tell her the truth. She doesn't want to hear about Star Trek marathons and jerking off. Just tell her that you don't have any plans and agree to do whatever it is that she wants to do. Got it?"

Will sat with wide eyes in the passenger seat while he listened to his sister's speech. It certainly didn't seem like she had much confidence in him. Granted, he wasn't what anyone would consider to be a lady's man by any stretch of the imagination, but he wished that she would give him a little more credit than that. Still, he got the feeling that she was trying to be helpful, so he didn't argue. "Got it."

"Good. Now's the hard part. You're gonna have to sit around and wait. I know you probably don't have any reason to, but trust me. Have patience. I'll try to make sure that she talks to you tonight, but she might not. Don't freak out if she doesn't."

"Okay. I trust you," he replied. In the back of his mind he still felt like he was rolling the dice. There remained a chance that this was still some sort of diabolical plan that his sister had hatched to play with his emotions for her own amusement. In other words, he wasn't getting his hopes up too high.

*****

"So, how ya doin'? Didn't get to talk to you much today," Mandy said, throwing her bag down in the corner of the room.

"Not bad," Tawnee replied.

"No mourning over the loss of Doug? Anybody new catching your eye?"

"I haven't done much mourning, and no, I haven't set my sights on anyone new. I may just take it easy for a little bit. I've got a heavy schedule this semester, anyway. How 'bout you? Still getting ready to set your hooks into my brother?"

"God, when you ask like that I'm not sure. I've thought about it."

Tawnee laughed. "Relax. I already said you could, it's up to you. Besides, he may or may not have been tipped off that you could possibly be interested in him."

Amanda looked at her friend cautiously. "What did you do?"

"I casually mentioned that the girl of his dreams might want to get to know him better. And I might have taken him to go get a haircut."

"You didn't! Now he thinks I plan on asking him out!"

"Isn't that what you planned on doing?"

"Well...yeah, I guess. What's he look like?"

"He looks like a dork, only with short hair now," Tawnee replied.

"I bet he looks real cute." Tawnee noticed that Amanda was blushing slightly while speaking of her brother. Considering the amount of men that she had dated since Tawnee had known her, it was amazing to see that she was capable of blushing about anything. Also, she found it amusing to think that the girl was actually attracted to Will. She never would have guessed it.

"You actually like him, don't you? You're like excited and shit. Go talk to him, I don't mind. He's in his room. Don't be surprised if he faints or something. I'll just be here, alone with my broken heart, wondering what it's like to be young and in love."

"Tee! You're awful. Sure it's okay?"

"Go ahead. He's probably pulling what's left of his hair out waiting for you."

Tawnee smiled as she watched her friend head down the hall. It kind of felt good to see her excited and happy. She knew that her brother was probably pretty excited as well. It would be interesting to see what was going to happen. She didn't have a lot of faith that her brother knew what he was doing, but Mandy sure did. Maybe too much so now that she thought about it...best not to think about it.

Mandy was in Will's room for a quite a while. So long, in fact, that Tawnee was beginning to wonder if they didn't just skip the dating part and head straight into making Will a man. She supposed that it really wasn't any of her business, but Tawnee found herself dying to know just what it was that they were doing in there. It didn't seem like they could just be sitting around talking, not for two hours. No one was that interesting.

At long last, Mandy came trotting back to her room. She grabbed her bag from the corner. "I'm sorry, I can't talk, I forgot that I had to pick up my sister from ballet, and I'm already late. My parents are gonna kill me. I'll call you when I get home, okay?"

"Sure. Don't drive too fast."

"Heh, I won't. Will's fun to talk to, by the way. You should try it. See ya!" Mandy went running from the room, leaving Tawnee with more questions than answers. She decided that she'd take Mandy's advice and go talk to Will, she was just too curious not to.

Unlike most other times when she approached her brother in his room, she knocked on his door first, giving him at least a few seconds before she walked in on him. He was just standing there by his bed, not surprised at all by the intrusion.

"Hey," he greeted.

"Hey. So what happened? Mandy said she couldn't talk, she practically jumped out my window to get away."

"Yeah, she said she was pretty late. Not much happened. We sat around and talked. We're gonna go out tomorrow," he replied with a cheesy grin.

"Are you sure that's all you did was talk? You were in here a long time."

"Yeah. We never had a chance to before and we were getting to know each other a little. We have a lot more in common than I thought. We're going to the aerospace museum tomorrow."

"That sounds lame. I thought I told you to do whatever she wanted. You're going to bore her to death."

"That's what she wanted. She brought it up. She loves airplanes and spaceships," he explained.

"Really? I didn't know that. Maybe you two are a better match than I thought. So you still like her as much after you've gotten to know her a little?"

"She's pretty amazing, Tawnee. I owe you."

"Ah, well, normally I'd agree with you, but you don't, not really. Just let me know any juicy gossip and we'll call it even."

"Sure, I guess I could. You probably know just about everything about her anyway," he pointed out.

"Apparently not. I had no idea she had any interest in space and airplanes and stuff. Until yesterday, I had no idea that she had any interest in you. I guess I don't know much about you, either. You really go out with that girl for six months?"

Will flopped down on his bed while Tawnee sat in his computer chair. "Yeah, I did, really. A real live girl."

"I thought you were totally new at this sort of thing. I don't mean to be rude, but from what I remember of Sam, she wasn't much to look at."

"You might not mean to be rude, that's still kind of rude. You probably only seen her around here when she was still dressed for work. She worked last summer at the zoo, cleaning cages mostly. She loved the animals."

"That explains it," Tawnee began, "you found her in a cage at the zoo."

"Stop it," Will said. He rose from the bed and walked over to his computer. "Move over, let me show you some pictures." He brought up a few of a petite, dark haired girl. In some of them, she was smiling with Will. She certainly looked a lot better in the pictures than the grungy person that Tawnee remembered from around the house with a rag on her head.

"Yeah, I guess she doesn't look too bad," she said.

"I know she wasn't, you know, gorgeous like you, but she was pretty. And she was fun and smart."

Gorgeous like her? Was he trying to be a smart ass? A look at his face showed Will was not in a joking mood, he missed the girl. "How come you never introduced us?" she asked.

"I didn't...well, I was kind of afraid that you would hurt her feelings. She was kind of more of a nerd than me, if you can believe that. I'm used to you, and I can handle it. I wasn't sure if she would. Sorry."

Tawnee began to experience a pang of regret that she wasn't used to. Granted, he was probably right, she would have torn the poor girl apart without even having to try. "Am I that bad?"

Will could see that her feelings may have been hurt. Normally, she was an emotional rock, so it was strange to see her so open. He didn't know what the heck was going on with her. "Sometimes you can be pretty mean, I don't have to tell you that. Sometimes, like today, you can be pretty cool. I should have told you about her, I know it was kind of childish, I guess."

"I'm sorry. So what happened to her? I can tell that you liked her. She get eaten by a lion or something?" She just couldn't help herself.

"Heh, no, and I kind of loved her, I guess. I mean she was my first...everything. She's going to ASU. I get an email from her once in a while, but that's about it. We pretty much broke up before she left. We didn't think it would work out trying to stay together in one of those long distance relationships. Thought there'd be a pretty good chance that one of us would find someone else and break the other one's heart."

"That's the saddest fucking thing I've ever heard. Wasn't that hard for you?" Tawnee found it hard to believe that her brother would let his first real love go like that.

"It was freakin' terrible. I thought about running away to Arizona. You must know about what it's like, you just broke up with Doug and you've been going out with him for forever."

Tawnee sighed and spun a slow circle in the chair. It was a lot more fun discussing her brother's love life than it was hers. She had no problem talking about the occasional sex act with Mandy, but never really spoke much of her feelings. "Well, Doug and I weren't what you would call madly in love. Fuck-buddies, more like it."

Will frowned. "You mean to tell me after all that time that you didn't feel like you might have been falling in love with him? Even a little? You might pretend to be but I know you're not a robot."

"Maybe, but I got over it pretty fast once I realized that he didn't want anything more than what we were doing." She continued to spin in the chair, trying to think of something to say to change the subject. Reflecting on her life was distracting, though.

"And you stayed with him. Why?"

"I don't know. Why not? Not like I could do much better. It was easy being with Doug." She stopped spinning and faced her brother. "Since when do I talk about this stuff with you, anyway?"

He chuckled. "Since today, I guess. You've been acting different since last night. I think you needed someone to talk to. I won't tell anyone you've gone all soft, don't worry. And you can do way, way better than that jerk Doug. You just need to look around a little."

"What the hell is wrong with me? Listening to advice from my brother. And what am I supposed to look for? Someone like you? All deep and sensitive? God!"

"You'll never find anyone like me, I'm special. You just need someone that makes you happy is all. I have no idea what they'd be like. You probably won't either, until you meet them."

"You're such a dork, Will. I guess I see why Mandy likes you, though. And you look so much better after your haircut. And if she ever gets the urge for some reason, she might be able to kiss you without puking."

"Why thank you. It's nice to hear that I've improved my look to such an extent that I no longer make women sick. I'll cross that one off my list."

"Well," Tawnee began, rising from the chair, "nice chat. I'll leave you alone. Mandy's supposedly going to be calling soon and you need your beauty sleep."

"Goodnight, Tawnee. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Night. Oh, and if you really want to make her happy, you should shave everywhere else that matters. From the looks of things the other day, you've got quite the jungle going on down there."

"Go away."

*****

Tawnee's life was pretty boring for the next couple of weeks. At first, she was more than happy with it, but now she was becoming restless. Not only was she minus a boyfriend, but she had also lost her study partner. Amanda still came over to the house quite often, but now she spent most of the time there in Will's room. To make matters worse, during the time that she did spend with Tawnee, she had to listen to stories about how wonderful her brother was. She was starting to get sick of it, though she was trying her best to be happy for them both.

After having dinner with her parents, she was back in her room debating whether or not to call someone to go out with when she heard the door close to her brother's room. She decided instead to go see what was up with him. It was a little early for him to be home if he had been out on a date. She barged right in, as was her usual custom.

"So, what are you doing home? Mandy not putting out tonight?"

Will was just sitting down at his desk and spun around in his chair to face his sister. "Heh, I don't know, I hope not. I wasn't with Mandy, I was over at John's playing Call of Duty."

"Oh. I thought she told me she was going out tonight, I just figured it was with you. Or maybe that was last night, I can't remember."

"Naw, she didn't feel like doing anything tonight, I guess she has something to do with her mother early in the morning."

"Hmm. Is it just me or has she been acting kind of funny since you two have been dating?" Tawnee asked.

"I don't know. She seems fine to me. I didn't really know her all that well before. Why do you think she's acting funny?"

"Seems like she's always trying to get away from me. Won't talk about you at all besides telling me how sweet you are. I get it, you're like a fucking candy cane. I want to hear the more interesting stuff. Just not like her."

"Well, she's probably not all that comfortable sharing all the details of her relationship with your brother. Is there something in particular that you want to know?" he asked.

"That could be it, I guess. And not in particular, no. I've already seen you without your pants on, so I don't really need that image described. How is she in bed?"

Will cringed, mentally kicking himself for opening the door. She would probably never let him forget that she had walked in on him while he was masturbating, he'd have to live with that for the rest of his life. As for Amanda in bed, well, he hadn't gotten that far yet. "We haven't slept together."

Tawnee raised an eyebrow in surprise. "You haven't slept together? Are you serious? We're talking about Mandy here. I don't mean to make her sound like a slut, but she's kind of a slut. You don't have to tell me the details, but you really haven't yet? Now I know she's acting funny."

Will huffed in annoyance. "We really haven't and I would appreciate it if you didn't call your best friend a slut. She probably would, too. We'll get to it, soon, if you must know. We've been waiting for a time when we can spend an entire night together."