“No, every real man has superglue, duct tape, and a power drill in his house.” Bo added, “Women should have superglue in their house. Or a man who’s going to buy it for them.”
I scoffed. “Well, I not only have duct tape, but I have a superior form of an adhesive that has displaced superglue. Women, you see, are looking for efficient and multipurpose products that are full of advancement while you men are stuck in your caveman superglue ways.”
Unthinkingly, I went on, “Maybe after this, you can get an invitation to see my superior home improvement idea. It’s moldable rubber.” As the words came out of my mouth, I realized how suggestive they sounded, but rather than come back with a super salacious comment, Bo looked at me and burst out laughing.
I got out of the car with a huff. “It’s a product that dries into flexible rubber. It’s very cool.” I didn’t reveal that I had some because Brian had given it to us.
As we were walking in through the side door, Bo leaned down and said, “You stick with me, sweetheart, and you won’t need moldable rubber anymore.”
“Took you five minutes to come up with that reply, did it?”
Bo howled with laughter.
We went straight to the kitchen and Bo proceeded to open the refrigerator and make us two sandwiches. He whispered to me that this was going to “prime the pump.”
After finishing the sandwich prep, Bo put everything away except the mayonnaise, which he glued shut, and then proceeded to place our sandwiches and bags on a long wooden table that separated the kitchen from a large, open-spaced entertainment center. Two guys sat on the sofa with their backs to us, playing a video game on a giant flat-screen TV. Bo gestured for me to sit and I did. We sat at the table with a clear view of the kitchen and then Bo picked up his sandwich. At the same time, he pushed his bag off the table so it made a loud thud on the floor.
The sound made the two guys, Mal and Finn, look up and one of them zeroed in on Bo’s sandwich.
“Hey, is there meat left?” Mal asked.
Bo nodded, his mouth wrapped around the sandwich. Mal got up and went into the kitchen.
“You guys remember AM,” he said. “She, like me, failed to take the science requirement her first year and agreed to be my lab partner.”
In the fading light of the afternoon, Bo, Finn, and Mal looked like they were readying for a men’s cologne or underwear ad. Finn and Mal were contrasts, pale skin against darker skin, but both sported blinding white, perfect smiles. I wondered if there was a dentist in one of their families. Finn was the more conventionally beautiful of the three, but Mal was hot; his dark eyes seemed to promise all sorts of naughty things. Looking at them, remembering Noah, I realized that the real draw at the Woodlands wasn’t the parties, but the hosts—and the hope that you could spend the night upstairs with one of these guys.
Mal interrupted my reverie. “Leave it to you to find the hottest girl in class and make her your lab partner.”
“Nice to see you again, Mal,” I grinned. “I can tell I’m going to like you a lot.”
“Hey, hey,” interjected Finn. “I think you’re hot, too.”
“You’d never guess from talking to Bo that he would have such charming roommates,” I teased. Bo spread out our books and we pretended to study but instead watched surreptitiously as Mal walked into the kitchen and proceeded toward the sandwich makings. For at least a minute, Mal attempted to open the mayonnaise jar but failed. He finally slapped together bread, meat, cheese, and butter, making two sandwiches, and grabbed both to return to the living room where he handed one to Finn.
It was the sorriest sandwich ever. Finn must have agreed because he took one bite and said, “What the hell is this?”
Mal said “butter” as his mouth engulfed his own sandwich. Finn got up and stomped into the kitchen. Once there, he tried to open the mayo jar. Finn worked on the jar longer and in more creative ways that Mal. He used his shirt and tapped it against the counter but with no success. Bo was trying hard to keep from crying with the laughter he was swallowing back.
The tapping sound alerted Mal because he yelled out, “The mayonnaise jar is broken, asshole, or I would have put it on.”
Finn cursed a bit and put the jar back into the refrigerator. He ate his sandwich but was clearly unhappy about it.
I watched this whole debacle with open-mouthed amazement. Bo had to cover his mouth with his arm to prevent his snickers from giving him away.
“Two more,” Bo said to me and pulled out his phone. He texted something to someone and when I heard his phone ping, I knew he’d received a reply.