My dad smacks me on the back and tells me he’ll start his recon this evening when Jenny is supposedly going to be running errands after she gets off of work.
We finish watching the Browns game while dad explains to me every few minutes what he’ll be doing to try and catch Jenny in a lie. I feel really bad about the fact that I’m going behind her back, but I need to figure out what is wrong before I can figure out how to fix it.
As the game ends and my dad and I part ways, I get in my car, turn on the radio and the song “I Would Walk 500 Miles” comes on, and I’m immediately transported back in time six years ago when Jenny and I went on our first date.
“I may have had too much to drink,” I had admitted with a big smile to Jenny as I leaned my chair back on two legs.
She had smiled back at me and the beauty of it forced me to lose my balance and start windmilling my arms as I began to tip backwards.
Jenny immediately reached out, grabbed onto the front of my shirt with her fist, and yanked my chair back on four legs. The act caused the chair to slide closer to her and suddenly for the first time that night, I was close enough to run my nose against her cheek and smell her hair.
“Did you just smell my hair?” she asked.
I pulled back and gave her a sheepish look. “That depends. If I say yes, will you stick your stiletto up my ass?”
She smiled and shook her head “No”.
“Then yes, yes I was sniffing your hair. It smells like mangoes.”
“That is so hot,” she whispered.
We stared into each other’s eyes for a few minutes, and I had to mentally smack myself out of the trance she put me in before I threw her down on the table and banged her right there in front of God and everyone.
“So, I realized I’m not even close to sober when a few minutes ago, when I piss a take…I mean took a piss, I screamed when the automatic toilet flushed. I probably won’t be able to drive you home,” I told her honestly.
“Oh my God, I hate those automatic flushers! Sometimes they flush before I’m even finished and it creeps me out. Like it knows and can see me and just wants to mess with me,” she said.
“Holy hell, I always tell people that. I really think there is a camera in the toilet bowl with some pervy little man in another room watching and laughing when he hits the button early.”
We stared at each other for a few minutes and once again, there was nothing I’d rather do right then than to lean in and do dirty things with her mouth. But that wasn't something I wanted to do in the middle of a crowded bar. When it finally happened, we needed to be alone. Preferably in a bed. Or on a picnic table in a random park.
“Come on, give me the keys, I’ll drive you home,” she said as she held her hand out in front of me. I pull the keys out of my pocket and drop them in her hand.
~
Jenny insisted on stopping at Denny’s on the way home because she was hungry and always wanted to order Moons Over My Hammy because it was funny to say. I almost asked her to marry me on the spot.
“Funny you mention ham. I have issues with ham when I’m really, really drunk,” I told her, shoveling a mouthful of scrambled eggs in my mouth. “The past few times Carter and I have gone out, we always wind up at the grocery store at the end of the night so I can go to the deli counter and order five pounds of ham.”
Jenny laughed and wiped her mouth on a napkin. “Why would you order five pounds of ham?” she asked.
“Well, I’ve only heard this story from Carter so I’m not absolutely sure it’s true since I have no recollection of the events. But according to him, I always buy ham and then walk down the sidewalk tossing ham at people, calling myself the Meat Fairy.”
Jenny continued to laugh and when my cell phone buzzed on the table in front of me, I ignored it. She picked it up and started scrolling through the apps. Normally, this would make me want to smack a chick in the ovaries, but with Jenny, I didn’t mind at all. I leaned over and saw she was clicking on the Facebook app.
“Check and see if my status still says, ‘I suck big cocks.' Carter got a hold of my phone the other day and I haven’t figured out how to change it.”
Jenny leaned slightly away and typed something into the phone with a smile on her face. I let her do her thing as I finished my food.
While we waited to pay the bill, we continued talking about stupid shit we’d done when we were drunk. Jenny’s story about sending an email to her grandmother that said “I finger-banged an orangutan. It was a party at the zoo!” because she’ll do anything people dare her to do when she’s drunk had my Meat Fairy story beat by a long shot.
Jenny started up the car and I leaned over the console and rested my head on her shoulder, turned on the radio, and flipped through the stations. The g*y ass song “I Would Walk 500 Miles” came on and I snorted a laugh.
“There are only two things I would walk 500 miles for: beef jerky and you,” I admitted.
Jenny immediately flipped the blinker from turning right, toward my house, to left. I didn’t say a word as she pulled out of the parking lot and away from the direction I lived. I was praying to the Meat Fairy that she was taking me back to her place and I wouldn't want to say anything and spook her into turning around.
A few minutes later, we pulled into the driveway of a cute little blue bungalow with a front porch and flower boxes under the windows.
“So, this is my place. I hope it’s okay we came here,” she said quietly.