Hard to believe that it’s only been one month since I met Jensen. My entire life has been turned upside-down because of it.
Two weeks ago, I was heading out the door for a night of debauchery. Last weekend, dinner for one had been just fine.
A few days ago, I became aware that the little pixie had gotten under my skin.
Yesterday, she burrowed into my heart.
And today, I realized that’s where I wanted her to stay.
I took a quick peek down the front of my sweatpants, just to make sure all this soft and squishy hadn’t transformed me into a girl.
Nope, the gear was intact. Almost too bad, really. It might have been easier to handle a surprise sex-change than come to terms with the end of my life as I’d always known it.
I heard a noise at the back door and realized that I had no idea where the dogs were. Wherever it was, they’d be together. The two of them had been traveling as a matched set since Angus arrived.
The scratching noise came again, this time with a very Angus-sounding bark. When I got up from the kitchen table to let them in, somebody tilted the floor on me. Very effin’ funny, whoever you are. I still managed to make it back to the wine without falling. So there.
“You know,” I said, looking over at the blurry dog-shapes, “you two are so lucky. You can just like eash other. Even though you’re total opposites, nobody cares. They don’t have espetations of how you’re s’posed to act, you don’t have some made-up persona to live up to. You can juss be.” I was finally as drunk as I’d been trying for.
And it didn’t help one damn iota. Yay me.
I opened the third bottle of wine, but the cork broke, so there’d be no juggling after all. I moved my private party into the living room and the dogs both climbed into my lap the minute I sat down. I noticed that I’d forgotten my glass in the kitchen. “Screw it,” I mumbled and put the bottle to my lips.
I don’t remember even finding the remote, but at some point before I fell asleep, I must have, because the TV was on when Jen’s ringtone woke me up.
I guess I sounded funny, because the first thing she said was, “Are you okay?”
Shouldn’t that have been my question?
“Right as rain. Me an’ the dogs are havin’ some wine.”
“You’re giving them wine?”
“Technally, no. I’m drinking the wine, and they’re layin’ all over me.”
“You sound like you’ve had more than just some.”
“Pffft. How’s your dad?” Deft change of subject, if I do say so myself.
“Griping that he wants to go home. They’re running tests and making him stay overnight.”
“So maybe it wasn’t a heart attack?”
“They’re not sure yet, but if you ask me, he’s fine. My mom actually looked relieved when he started in with his complaining.”
“Feisty’s always a good sign. Takes after his daughter.”
“What?”
“Nebbermind. Are you holding up okay, babe?”
She was quiet for so long that I began to wonder if my phone had dropped the call. “You have had a lot of wine.”
Was she laughing at me? “Thass irrevelant. You didn’t answer my question.”
I swear to God, I heard her eyes roll. “Yes, babe, I’m emotionally wiped out, and ready for bed, but I’m alright.”
That’s when I realized what I’d called her. “Should I have not said that? ‘Cause it just slipped out.”
“It’s okay,” she said on a laugh. “I kind of liked it.”
She said she’d call when she knew more, and we hung up. I stared at the screen on my phone until it went black and then went back to the wine.
Who turned up the sun, and why has my tongue been replaced with a dead ferret? Squinting against what surely had to be a nuclear blast outside my closed window blinds, I tested my ability to move without shattering my skull. Ugh. It felt like an axe to the brain, but at least my head still seemed to be attached. I ventured further upright ‘cause, God, I needed to get to the aspirin, and it was four hundred miles away in the kitchen.
Cursing myself for drinking a vat of wine and not having the foresight to bring the Excedrin bottle to bed with me, I schlepped my sorry ass down the hall.
And found three empties on the coffee table.
No wonder I felt like refurbished zombie shit.
“This,” I said out loud and immediately regretted, “is why I should stick to beer.” I’d switched to a mumble and even that wasn’t quiet enough.
I needed to get myself together before Jensen checked in.
I downed six aspirin with an entire icy can of Pepsi and left the kitchen, thinking that a shower should fix me right up.