Page 61 of Love, Luck & Clusterf*ck

“If it’s no big deal just tell me.”

She sighed, then went over and dumped her cup in the sink. She didn’t seem up for this, and honestly, I was about ready to curb the conversation myself. I was feeling too shitty to try and force it out of her.

“We squirted some on his truck.” She shrugged. “Yeah, it was childish, but as I said, we were just messing around. A little harmless revenge.”

Right. Revenge for cheating. I wanted to feel more turmoil but figured I didn’t because there wasn’t any definitive proof yet.

“Trust me, Perry. It’s no big deal.”

Christa was wrong. It was a big deal. A big fucking deal, apparently.

“How could you let this happen, Perry?”

It was early Sunday morning, Dre was standing in my kitchen, Christa was still in her bedroom, and I was scattered in all different directions.

“I asked you to watch her for me, so what the hell happened? Why does my truck smell like a fucking outhouse?”

He was holding it together. Barely. I could see the veins starting to pop out of his forehead. He was both pissing me off and making me feel guilty.

“What did you think, Dre? That I would set up a tent and camp out there?”

He tugged at his hair and paced around. “Look, I’m sorry that I had to cancel our weekend, but all I asked was that you keep an eyeon her, keep her safe. When I got dropped off here this morning, I never expected anything like this.”

Ugh. First of all, it was anit, not a fuckingher. Second…. “Who did drop you off, anyway?”

“Joey. What does that matter?”

“It matters because I want to know who you stood me up for. Is that also who you were with all weekend?”

His shoulders dropped. “Yeah, it was. I said I was sorry for that. I just…. You know what? Don’t worry about the truck. I’m sure a mouse just crawled into the exhaust or something. You couldn’t have prevented that. I’ll just get her cleaned up.”

I nodded. I couldn’t exactly explain to Dre that instead of a mouse, it was a deer, and that the stench wasn’t caused by a crawling animal but by a concentrated brew ofeau de piss. It was curious, though…. I would’ve thought the smell would have dissipated by now, and if it had messed with the paint, I sure as hell would’ve heard about it.

“Can I use your car? I’m already late and need to get over to the gym. I’ll call someone to come out and get her taken care of today.”

“It’s that bad that you can’t even drive it?”

He raked his hand over his head. “Whatever happened permeated everything. I can’t even open the door without retching. There’s no way I can sit in there, much less drive twenty miles.”

“Oh okay.” I handed him my keys. I’d assumed that just the outside was affected. Now I was leaning more towards guilty.

“Thanks, babe.” He gave me a quick peck on the cheek. “I’ll have these back to you tonight.”

As soon as he left, I was knocking on Christa’s door.

“Come in.” I pushed it open to see her sitting at the edge of her bed, stretching. “Hey, Perry. Good morning.” She yawned. “Man, what a difference a day makes. I can’t believe I’m the same person as yesterday.”

“Dre was just here to pick up his truck.”

“Okay.”

“He ended up taking my car instead. His smelled like shit. Or rather piss.”

“Don’t worry about it, Perry. He just needs to give it a good scrub down. If you ask me, he got off easy.”

“He said he can’t even drive it.”

She put her hands on my shoulders. “Again, don’t worry about it.” She smiled before walking to the closet. “I’m jumping in the shower, then going to the mall. I need to return that dress I bought last week. Want to come along?”

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