I start drooling.
Between the fight our fathers just had, Marie’s inappropriate dressing down of my dad, Shannon spraying my father and the revelation that Dad is fucking his nineteen-year-old admin, I’d say having a quickie on my desktop is the highlight of the day.
Week.
Month.
Okay...week.
And now she’s talking about never doing this again? C’mon. You don’t give a guy a taste of the forbidden and expect him to forget it.
She scooches off the desk and looks presentable in seconds. The kiss she plants on my jaw is too chaste. Too perfunctory.
Too little.
As she turns to walk out of the room I grab her. She spins and falls against me, sighing deeply. I know it’s not that she has any less desire—she’s just freaking out on the inside, overwhelmed by too much input.
Same here, except I deal with these emotions by pounding them out.
Shannon eats ice cream.
I like my coping mechanism better.
“Dec, I seriously have to go.”
I kiss her.
“Mmmm, mmmph serious!” she says.
I kiss her again.
She steps on my foot. Ooooo, pain. I like pain.
Now, let me say for a moment here that I know I’m being an ass. And if she demanded I let her go, I would. I just feel like a thousand BBs from a BB gun all shoved inside a large glass jar, being shaken by a hyperactive seven-year-old boy. All that kinetic emotional energy makes me feel the impulse to do something, but I lack the coherent emotional centeredness to know what to do.
Doing Shannon is pretty much the only tool in my toolbox.
Well, I have another tool, but—
SPRITZ!
A mist of water smacks my cheek and ear.
“What the hell?” I shout, my palm wet as I reach up and wipe my cheek. Stubble greets me. Damn. It’s after five, isn’t it? Time for my second shave. My eyes register a spray nozzle and then—
SPRITZ!
“Are you spraying me?” I choke out, dodging her before she can get me again.
Shannon’s face is determined, her jaw set in self-righteous anger. “You won’t stop wrestling with my body, you get the spray bottle.”
I’m a little too turned on, suddenly. “I’ve been a bad, bad dog.”
She throws the bottle at my head. I dodge that, too (thank you, Milton Academy fencing instructors...) and laugh.
“You are impossible!” she hisses as she edges toward the door.
BZZZZZ.
I don’t want to answer Grace’s intercom. I know it’s someone in Madagascar ready to scream at me because a website widget is three pixels out of order. Or the New Zealanders complaining the exchange rate isn’t favorable and that people don’t want to spend $212 for their foreskin-based youth cream but are fine with $199.
“That’s why you love me,” is all I can say to Shannon as I kick the spray bottle under my desk.
Her back faces me as she storms out, but she pauses in the doorway, manicured hand grabbing the threshold, her other hand on the doorknob. I have so much I want to say right now.
Thank you.
I love you.
You’re awesome.
You told my father that I matter.
I have never met a soul as incredible as you.
Your tits are the best I’ve ever—
Yeah. A lot of emotions inside.
“I do love you,” she says under her breath. Turning slowly, she faces me, face flushed, eyes wild. Her body’s perfectly composed now, and you’d never guessed that two minutes ago I was between those lovely, creamy thighs.
Her eyes narrow but her mouth widens with a smile that could blind the sun.
And then she’s gone, leaving me with a matching grin.
If all goes according to plan, I get that woman for the rest of my life.
What the hell did I do to deserve her?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
One day before the proposal...
I’m driving home when the dreaded Text of Doom arrives.
Want to come over?
I text back:
No. I refuse to sleep with you in your apartment any more. I’ll have the driver come and get you, though.
I’m in the limo and we’re stuck in traffic. Construction in Boston is like a fifth major sport. You have the Patriots, the Bruins, the Celtics, the Red Sox and the Orange Cones.
Shannon texts back:
I don’t want to come to your apartment. Too boring. And who said I offered to sleep with you? Amy and Amanda and I are playing Rock Band. Come on.
She really knows how to make it so appealing. Three women with the vocal skills of a paralyzed moose singing songs from the 1980s.
Makes a fundraiser for clean water in the Sudan chaired by Jessica Coffin look like fun.
Plus there’s that whole not sleeping with me part.
My phone rings. It’s Shannon.
“Why won’t you come over?” Her words have a sloppy feeling to them.
“Are you drunk?” I ask, perking up. Hmmm. Hope. “Is this a drunken booty call?”
“No. I mean, yeah, I’ve been drinking, but no. Not a booty call. We just want you to pick up some Thai food and ice cream. This is a lazy call.”
Wait a minute. “We” means Shannon, Amy, and—of course—Amanda. Two women who live together and their third arm want me to pick up Thai takeout and ice cream?
I suddenly realize I’m definitely not getting any tonight. This is a Period Errand.
Any man who has been in a relationship with a woman long enough goes through the initiation of The Period Errand. It starts with a sudden craving for ice cream and ends with the Purchase of Shame. You know the one.
Ibuprofen, the super-size box of tampons that is bigger than an NFL linebacker, Reese’s cups, and two pints of ice cream. (And neither of those pints is for you).