I couldn’t be bothered with trying to remind him that I needed the Heimlich maneuver, not CPR, because I was choking, not drowning. But his high-pitched damsel-in-distress wails brought attention to us from everyone in the damn restaurant, and I wanted to kick him in the nuts, but realized he’d taped them up enough that even that probably couldn’t hurt him anymore. Even as I choked, I glared at everyone who worked in the restaurant, making sure that they knew that this was their fault for having a vegetarian place when we, as humans, were so obviously made to eat meat. I told myself if I died here, I would haunt this place and make it look like pork chops were raining down from the ceiling. I would be such an awesome ghost.
And then I felt everything go dark and my breath stopped and my heart thudded lightly in my chest. I saw a white light and went into it. My body died, but I ascended into heaven, where a group of shirtless and way-hot angels waited for me and wanted nothing more than to cater to my every whim. My favorite was an angel named Esteban Ortega who whispered dirty words in Spanish in my ear and who I called “Papi.” I was happy, happy at last, and that’s where I stayed for all eternity, with a Latin angel and my ginormous penis. And a halo. And wings. And I also could make unlimited wishes.
The end.
Okay, I’m just fucking with you. I didn’t die. That’d been a bummer way to end the story, don’t you think? Gay people get happy endings too, Hollywood!
I was aware of my back getting pulled into a strong body, big arms wrapping around my waist. Oh, I thought, even as I choked. This is nice. Then it stopped being nice when the hands attached to the big arms joined at my midsection and jerked into my stomach, pushing in and up. I could feel my eyes bulge out of my head, and warm lips near my ear saying, “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” and then the hands thrust into me again. The action caused the remaining air in my body to expel out. The spinach that tried to kill me ejected from my mouth…
… and landed with a splat on the cheek of my best friend who was demanding that I be saved.
A hush fell over the room.
Sandy’s cheek twitched. The spinach slid slightly down his face.
Arms around my waist. Heat against my back. Breath against my ear.
My heart rapid in my chest. Salad stuck in my teeth.
Then Sandy started screaming, clawing at his face to get what had ejected from my mouth off him. He didn’t have a hard-core aversion to germs or anything like that, but I figured something that had once lodged in a throat and was now stuck to his face deserved a bit of hysterics. Hell, I’d have been shrieking had it been me, but since it wasn’t, I was just staring at him like he was overreacting. “Really,” I sniffed as he rubbed his cheek furiously with a napkin. “We’re in public, Sandy.”
He glared at me.
The people in the restaurant started going back to their own meals, the lunch theater starring the homosexuals now over.
“You okay?” our waitress asked. “Your color is coming back. Do I need to call for paramedics?”
I shook my head, feeling my face turn even redder. “I’m okay. Sorry for causing a scene. I will learn to chew my food before I come back here.” Not that I’m coming back to your vegetarian place of death ever again, you purveyor of killer spinach!
She smiled. “You’re lucky this gentleman was here and acted as he did. He doesn’t seem to want to let go of you now.” She winked and walked away.
And then.
Oh, boy.
And then. And then I realized who she was talking about, who I was still lying against, who still had his arms around me, rubbing one of his hands in a small circle on my stomach like he was trying to soothe me. And then I leaned back without any forethought and felt that broad chest against my back. A chuckle rose near my ear and my skin felt alight with little shocks of electricity.
And then I remembered who was behind me and who I was and stepped away quickly, keeping my head and eyes down, looking everywhere but at him. I heard him sigh quietly, sounding exasperated, but I thought I’d heard it wrong. After all, there were so many ways to interpret a sigh. He might have been sighing in relief, happy that he no longer had to have me pressed up against him like that. The jerk.
“Sorry,” I mumbled to Sandy. “I didn’t mean to project my throat spinach on your face.”
“You better not have,” he snapped at me, a little bit of Helena in his eyes. He dipped his napkin into my cup of water before dabbing it roughly across his cheek. “I wouldn’t be able to continue this decades-long friendship any further had you done it on purpose.”
I knew he was joking—kind of—but I was still mortified. “Sorry,” I mumbled.