May 8 - Single Ladies

The worst part about the girl's music bleeding out of her earbuds was that he recognized the song and couldn't not sing along with it in his head: All the single ladies, all the single ladies. And the worst part about that was that it was such a catchy song--the kind that drills through your ear and burrows into the snuggest, most secure part of your brain and sets up camp there and starts a family--that he knew he'd be singing it for days, weeks.
Everybody else on the bus was quiet. Everybody except the girl he was sitting next to. Her and her iPod and her nose ring and her spiky black hair. Her mascara and jeans skirt and black bra strap peaking out from under her tank top. He tried to focus on his book, but it was no use.
He glanced over her way briefly in the hopes that she would see him looking at her and immediately understand why he was looking at her and offer to turn down her music and then apologize to him and introduce herself to him and tell him that she was only listening to the song ironically and that the rest of the music on her iPod was much more in tune (ha ha) with his musical tastes, and what are we doing wasting our time on this bus when we could be having hot, wet sex in that skanky dive hotel right over there, yes, that one, and grab his hand and off they'd go.
And that's what it came down to: Yes her tinny, trebbly music was annoying as hell, but the bottom line was that she was hot. Actually doing anything to make her turn her music down--giving her an annoyed face and pointing at her earbuds, miming the act of turning a volume knob down, or just asking her--would only result in her turning him down as well. So he did nothing and said nothing, and sat there feigning aloofness as he read the same sentence yet again and tried to convince himself that that was the best shot he had with her. Play it cool.
The old lady on the other side of the girl tapped her on the shoulder and asked her to please turn her music down.
After the girl gave the old lady a half smile and dialed the volume down, he gave the girl a Can you believe that old crow? look and rolled his eyes, but she didn't notice him. He looked around the bus and glanced back at her a few more times and then went back to his book.
At least it was quiet.