Neanderthal Seeks Human(110)

Elizabeth was sitting on the couch, her eyes wide and watchful, as she patted the seat next to her, “I asked if you wanted to sit down but you just- you just stood there…”

“Oh! Yes. Yes, sure.” I ducked my head and moved to claim the seat beside her, letting my purse drop from my shoulder to my feet.

“Where is your travel bag? Did you drop it off at the apartment already?” Elizabeth eyed me suspiciously but her tone was light, conversational.

“Oh- no. Not yet. I went to the office after I landed.”

Marie handed me a plate with potato chips and onion dip and shared a look with Fiona over my head, “How was your trip?”

“It was…” I blushed uncontrollably; a giant grin mounted a hostile takeover of my face; I tucked my chin to my chest. I allowed my hair to fall forward and shield my expression.

There was a sharp intake of breath then, “You didn’t! Oh my God!” Elizabeth’s voice sounded to my right.

“Wait- what? What happened?” Ashley’s voice sounded from my left.

I squeezed my eyes shut as the room erupted in voices, I felt Elizabeth bouncing up and down on the couch next to me, my potato chips spilled all over the place; she was chanting:

“You did it! You did it!”

“What? What did she do?” Kat’s quiet but curious words cut through the noise.

“She had hot monkey sex with McHotpants!” Reverberations from Elizabeth’s bouncing almost made me topple off the sofa on to the floor, I abandoned the paper plate to my lap and gripped the cushion on either side of me, which proved to be a very good thing when I was, a moment later, tackled by a bear hug.

“Praise the Lord!” Sandra had me in a death squeeze, one of her legs was over my lap; a split second later greasy potato chip fingers were on my cheeks and she lifted my face to hers; her Texas drawl even more pronounced than usual, “When Elizabeth told us you were giving him the cold shoulder I was terribly afraid I’d never be able to live vicariously through your sexcapades.” She gave me a sudden, fast, closed mouth kiss then held my head to her breast as one would do with a child, “If you didn’t climb that man like a tree I was going to have to get all lumberjack on his ass.”

At this point I was laughing and, admittedly, snorted.

“What does that even mean?” Marie, also laughing, was trying to detangle Sandra from my limbs, “And give the poor girl some space so she can tell us everything, and I do mean everything.” Marie succeeded in pulling Sandra off me and began gathering the littered chips. I tried to help.

Elizabeth squeeeeeed again and shifted on the couch so that she was facing me; she hugged a pillow to her chest, her eyes lit with excited merriment, “Start from the beginning, leave nothing out, tell us exactly what happened.”

“And make sure to describe the size of everything in inches, I can’t do the metric conversion in my head.” Ashley added, leaning back and sipping her red wine.

I covered my face with my hands and shook my head, “Gah! I don’t even know where to start!”

“Start with the taking off of the clothes!” Kat’s suggestion made me burn a brighter shade of red.

“You don’t understand, a lot has happened.” I sighed, my hands dropped to my skirt and I picked at the hem, “I found out that Quinn is not- well he is my- and then there is Jon and my sister and then Kat- and the reason I was laid off-”

“Give her a minute!” Fiona scolded the group, then added, “Let her gather her thoughts otherwise she might leave out the best parts.”



~*~



I tried to tell them what happened but I was a woefully inadequate story teller.

I managed to relay the facts: the real reason I was laid off from my last job; the confrontation with Jon regarding his involvement in the aforementioned job loss; Jon sleeping with Jem; Quinn knowing about why I was fired; Quinn turning out to be my boss’ boss, this drew a lot of shocked and bewildered expressions; the meeting in Vegas; Quinn’s explanation about his disappearance and sudden trip to Boston; Quinn’s previous acquaintance with Jem, although I may have glossed over his criminal past; and, finally, Quinn’s assertion that he wanted to date me along with the proceeding game of strip poker.

At one point Ashley said, “Oh my God, Janie. How can you make everything sound like a police report?”

“Oh geeze…” Maria bit her lip, her blue eyes pinning me with concern, “Are you ok, hon? I can’t believe that all happened this last week.”

“Obviously she’s ok.” Sandra interrupted, setting her knitting on the table and taking a gulp of her beer, “What I want to know is: who won the game of strip poker?”