Page 108 of Intoxicated
I don’t need my sunglasses to blot out the sun any longer. Not when I roll them so hard I might go blind. Yet the scent of my favorite food truck fare lures me to sit down at the bistro table with my dumbass beloved. He’s lucky he looks so good in that shirt and those jeans. Every time I feel like snapping at him, I simply remember the joys of riding that lap and I’m back to Placation Vacation.
What? You think that’s nothealthy?Honey, where have you been for the last 200 pages? Little Drew and I do is healthy. That’s why we’re in therapy together. Therapy! Together! Fuck me with a razor-sharp saw, I’m actually in couple’s counseling with a guy who intends to hang around for a good long while. I make no promises about forever. Things are set up that we can cleanly breakup. I’m not financially invested in his business, and I haven’t given up my cute Portland apartment. I may have clothes and toothbrushes at both ofhisapartments, but I value my independence, you know. Maybe there’s a night I’d rather be by myself, singing along to Nina Simone while cleaning out my closet. Maybe I need a break. Maybeheneeds a break.
Our therapist agrees that it’s good for us, so there.
“Please tell me you got us some ladies.” Drew slides a drink in my direction. I don’t sniff it before having a generous sip. Good. There’s alcohol in it. Barely, but it’s enough to take the edge off my afternoon. “Because I just nabbed Klein as our first official client.”
I suck some sauce off my thumb and tip my head back in my seat. “We need to adjust our PR. Everyone I interviewed today thinks we’re an escort agency.”
Drew sighs. “To be fair, a lot of them call themselvesmatchmakingagencies these days.”
“Don’t I know it.”
He flips back the lid of his lunch and stabs a pile of noodles with wooden chopsticks. I rest my chin on my hand andbaskin the mundane reality we now occupy. Me. This man. Our humble business of hooking up rich people with the poors of their dreams. I’m in freakin’ Seattle instead of Portland. This time next week we’ll be in a different Pioneer Square.
What if I told you this is a calm before a storm? Tonight we’re hobnobbing at a gala. Drew will dress in his little tux while I cram into a golden cocktail dress I bought two days ago. When I wasn’t bloating. I amdefinitelybloating now, so this will be fun.
It’s been about two months since Drew officially pranced me around as his girlfriend. His father was stone-cold silent when I first came to visit, probably because he recognized me from the soiree where I was some other guy’s girl. And, you know, he’s heard about me from his buddies. Yet his mother merely looked me up and down and said, “At least it’s not the maid.”
Drew and I had a nice, long chat after that. Especially when I found out the maidstill worked for the Bentons.
He hasn’t met my family yet, but it won’t be long. We’re having Thanksgiving dinner with my parents, who still can’t quite believe I’m actually bringing someone home. Irene, the grandmother nobody in the Benton family wants to talk about, figured out how to text on her phone to send me daily reminders to “keep the boy in line.” Drew says that’s a sign she’ll ruin his life should we ever break up. It’s cute that Irene makes a million mistakes when she texts me. It’s like deciphering ancient code when she says,“if he talks back to u, tell him u know he used to pee his pants until he was 7.”
Is this what love feels like? When we’re not being too passionate for our body parts’ own good, we’re sitting quietly at lunch, looking through our phones and occasionally laughing loudly enough to garner the other’s attention. We hold hands when we walk around town. We talk about trips we’re inevitably going to take, starting with a romp in Hawaii in two weeks. Trust me, we’re not planning a weddinganytimesoon. I don’t think Drew is ready for that kind of talk yet. We’re still young in this relationship. Just because you’re pretty sure thatthis is the one,doesn’t mean you rush into things, right? We’re taking our time, making sure this is what we really want, and examining our long-term options. Maybe we’ll get married five years from now after a nice, long engagement. Maybe we’ll never get engaged and simply cohabitate for thirty years. Maybe we’ll never officially live together, but sleep together every night. Hell, maybe I’ll have five of his kids over the next decade.
Haha! Kidding about that last one! He’ll be lucky if I agree to cat. Definitely no dogs.
I will, however, most certainly agree to him taking my hand and giving me the kind of look that suggests he wouldn’t mind eating me alive right here. Drew Benton knows how to press my buttons in all the right ways.
“So I hear the gala will be full of your exes,” he says with a gleam in his eyes. “I’m thinking you dress nice and sexy so I can parade you around with my hand up your ass all night.”
“What am I? Your puppet?”
“Nooo, you’re my girlfriend, and that’s what I need to make sure everyone at the gala knows. That I’m the lucky bastard who actually won your heart.”
I look at him as if he’s lost his mind. Because he probably has. “Who said anything about my heart? This whole time I thought you were owning my pussy.”
“Same diff.” He snaps two fingers before pointing them in my direction. “Because this is you we’re talking about.”
“Uhhuh.”
“Come on now, babe, I save the fun words for the bedroom.”
“You sure do.” Wooo boy, does he. Drew has nailed more than me in the past few weeks. He is now a master dirty-wordsmith who knows how to get me going in about two seconds flat. All he has to do is give me a virile look, call me one of the magic words, and I’m hopping in bed faster than a kid who found out it’s a snow day. Our therapist thinks we’re nuts, but hey, if it helps usbondor whatever, so be it. I’d much rather have a boyfriend who calls me a slut because he loves me and not because I’m breaking up with him.
What? I don’t care how twisted that sounds! I’m happy! Fuck off!
I’m happy…
Who knew that this would be my life earlier this year? Drew Benton wasn’t on my radar. Yet there he was, sweeping into my lounge and seducing me like it was his job. (Turns out, it was.) If I had known we would go on the whirlwind of sex and emotions we’ve experienced this year, I may have turned around and invested in time traveling machinations. Go back to high school, when things were much simpler and I thought it possible to be happy the old-fashioned way. Whatever that meant.
Embracing who I really am and not taking any shit from those who would deride me for it has made me such a happier, stronger person. I don’t how many times I’ve looked at myself in the mirror and thought,Yup, that’s confidence.Or how many times Drew’s reflection approached me in the mirror and said,“Yup, that’s my sexy woman.”
One step at a time.
Do I still have doubts? Absolutely. Do I wish I was a little different, or thathewas a little different? I suppose that’s natural. But I’m a realist. I work with what I’ve got, and to do that, you have to admit what you have.
We’ve got two toxic fuckwads who may be in love with each other. Hm. Sounds kinda messed up when I put it that way.
