Page 47 of Perfect Date
“Over the sink,” Kimberly answers for me and I have no idea how she knows that, but I’m suddenly convinced she’s completely been nosing around my place when she’s been here.
Justin reaches up and grabs the bottle and shakes out a few and offers them for me to take what I want. Kimberly makes herself useful and gets a glass - from the correct cupboard - and fills it with water handing it to me as I place four pills in my mouth.
“I’m going to let you get some rest. I just wanted to make sure you were okay through the night, and you should be mostly out of the woods, though symptoms could come and go over the next few weeks even…and don’t do too much today, wouldn’t be wise. I’m so happy to see you’re ok, for the most part anyway this morning.”
“Thank you,” I tell him feeling a little uncomfortable with my audience of one and again a bit taken with his regurgitation of what I now know with certainty to be the contents of his Google search. Looking pointedly at Kimberly, I pull Justin to the side, feeling a little disappointed to see he has his shoes on and his shirt buttoned once more, clearly ready to be on his way.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know she was going to come over.”
“I know. It’s okay. I need to get going anyway.”
“I understand. Thank you so much for staying last night. Really. You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yeah, I did. I’m sorry that last night didn’t exactly go as expected.”
“Me too,” I nod.
“Would you be willing to give it another try? A date next weekend? I figure, you should be feeling better by then.”
Before I can give him an answer, Kimberly has placed herself just beyond Justin, standing to the side a bit so I can see her. She’s nodding up and down, trying to tell me to say yes, then thrusting her hips like a crazy person. She’s insane. It takes everything in me not to react.
“I’d really like that.”
“Good. Me too,” he says and I don’t know what it is… the look in his eyes, the way they seem to run over every plane of my face, the way I suddenly realize his hand is on my arm, and the tone of his voice, it all makes me feel like maybe, just maybe, he likes me as much as I like him.
“Thanks. Again.”
“I’ll be in touch soon, sweetheart. Oh, and by the way, your car is in the parking lot, keys on the counter.”
“What? But how?”
He winks, “I have my ways.”
With that, he kisses me on the forehead, his lips lingering, before he pulls away with a soft smile, opens the front door, and leaves.
Standing there, staring at the door wishing he would come back, or that his lips would have landed South, I’m pulled out of my thoughts by Kimberly opening her mouth, “Soooo, how much do you hate me right about now? Because wow. I know I saw him at the office, but he really is… wow.”
All I can do is glare at her. Because she hasnoidea how much I want to kill her, but given the fact she’s my only friend here, I decide to suppress the urge.
For now.
12
The next week is pretty uneventful. It’s full of teeth, plaque and enamel as per usual. And more ibuprofen than I’d typically use but most of my symptoms resolved; even the body aches and headache have significantly lessened. The first working day after Justin woke up at my apartment, he texted me to ask how I was feeling. I told him I was doing “okay.”
He replied, “Only okay?”
I don’t know what it was about that response he felt a need to counter respond to, but all I know is that he began sending me jokes by text, daily.
Horrible, stupid, jokes.
The first one was, “What did the evil chicken lay?”
I responded with, “Huh?” Very eloquent, I know.
He replied, “Deviled eggs. Do you like deviled eggs?” Which began a whole conversation about them wherein he bragged about “making the best.”
The following day, he texted another one. “Why are elevator jokes so good?”
