Then I remembered something as I pulled on my nonsexy underwear. I hated sleeping naked, especially since I’d be sleeping next to my version of a walking orgasm. “Hey, what happened to my present?”
I climbed onto the bed, testing out the mattress with my hands and legs instead of my face this time. When I didn’t get a response, I glanced over at him to find him looking down at his hands. “What’s wrong?”
He shrugged. “It’s stupid now.”
“Huh?”
He wouldn’t look at me. “You went out and bought me a freaking bike. My present isn’t that great. You probably won’t even like it. It was pretty dumb.”
“Dude. Stop being a labia. I bought you a bike because you didn’t watch where you were going and crashed yours into my car. I felt sorry for you, and that’s the only reason you got a new bike. You’re lucky you didn’t get the one I originally picked out for you. Let’s just say you probably would have needed to have pigtails when you rode it.”
He snorted. “It probably would have been cheaper.”
“You think? You should have seen the look on my face when the little midget friend of yours, Jennifer Lopez, told me it was a billion dollars. I think I probably can’t ever go back there because everyone will know me as that guy who shit himself in the bike store. So yes, I want my fucking present. I’ve earned my fucking present. Go get it.”
He rolled his eyes, but I could see the small smile on his face. “Bossy bastard,” he mumbled and walked out of the room. I pulled up the comforter and did a really lame thing by putting my face down on the pillow and inhaling deeply, delighted that it smelled like him. I figured I was either a sappy romantic or a creepy stalker. Then I decided (though it did not stop me) that sniffing pillows is never romantic, just creepy. Or maybe creepily romantic to the point where soon, I’d probably want a lock of his hair that I could put on the shrine I’d make to him that I’d hide in the back of my closet that I’d take out on alternating Tuesdays to light candles to while I made out with a picture of him with the lips cut out. Yeesh.
He came back into the room, refusing to look at me as he clutched a large flat envelope to his chest. “You don’t have to like it,” he mumbled. “If you don’t, it’s not going to hurt my feelings at all.”
And that was bullshit, and I knew it as soon as he said it. He wanted me to like his gift, and he was nervous about giving it to me. I felt a bit weird seeing him act like that; there was this syrupy, queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach that made me want to get out of the bed and wrap myself around him and protect him from all the stupid shit in the world. Once again, I marveled at the fact that I’d known the man in front of me for only a week, had heard his voice for the first time only five days before. I pushed the thought of my parents and their quickie marriage out of my head (because, really, not only was it a frightening thought, but I didn’t want to think about my parents while my ass still felt stretched and I was sitting half naked in my boyfriend’s bed; sort of killed the mood that way).
“Can’t decide if I like it if you’re not going to give it to me,” I told him lightly, like I was talking to a skittish animal. He clutched at the envelope a bit more tightly, scrunching it up against his chest. He looked horrified that it had gotten wrinkled and quickly smoothed it back down again, worrying his bottom lip a bit. “Vince.”
He sighed and crawled into the bed next to me, sitting up against the headboard, his long body stretched out next to mine. It was all I could do to not reach out and rub my hands along his stomach.
He handed over the envelope, still without looking at me. He started gnawing on a fingernail, tapping his other hand nervously against his chest. I was curious as to the contents of the envelope that had gotten him so keyed up. I wondered if I’d open it to find something evil, like he was actually trying to blackmail me, and I would find photographs inside of myself in some kind of compromising position with hookers and a pile of cocaine (never mind the fact that I didn’t know any hookers and did not own a pile of cocaine). Then I realized I didn’t hold any kind of political office, but his father did, and then I wondered if it would be photographs of his father with hookers and cocaine and that Vince needed my help to bring down the corrupt Tucsonan government because Vince really worked for the FBI and then we’d have to go on the run and there’d be gunfights and explosions and sex on sun-drenched private beaches where we’d be in hiding for the rest of our lives….