Page 32 of No More Bad Boys
NINE
Party Crasher
“I hate to tell you this,” I say as we climb into his truck. “But a night-picnic sounds like fun, too.”
He shakes his head. “Don’t worry. It won’t be. I just realized I don’t have any repellant with me, so the mosquitos are going to have all the fun.”
I laugh. “Oh, good. I was getting worried there for a minute.”
The Chattahoochie River is only a ten minute drive from Harry’s. There’s a seven-mile linear park running along its banks, featuring playgrounds, boat ramps, and fishing. And of course picnic areas.
Blake pulls into one of the river walk’s parking lots—empty at this hour. He spends a minute arranging the perishable items into one bag with the ice, then grabs the sack containing our food and gets out of the truck. He hands me the bag.
“Hold on to this for a minute. I’ve got a flashlight in here somewhere. If one of us trips on a tree root and breaks an ankle, we reallywon’thave any fun.”
He rummages through the storage box in the pickup’s bed and comes up with a flashlight, handing it to me and taking back the bag.
“Okay, let’s go.”
Switching on the light, I lead us to a picnic table near the water’s edge. The flashlight is almost unnecessary, as there’s a large, nearly full moon out, and it’s quite bright in the clearing near the water.
A rustle of movement and soft quacking alerts me to the presence of a group of ducks, settled on the riverbank for the night. One of them lifts his head to check us out then folds it back against his wing.
When I was little and picnicked at the river with my family, I was terrified of the ducks. They could be quite aggressive in their quest for breadcrumbs, and one even pecked at my sandal-clad toes.
Remembering the long-ago incident, I’m relieved these are hibernating for the night.
Blake begins pulling our dinner supplies from the bag and setting them on the table. I shine the light on the containers to see what he chose.
“Potato salad, black-eyed peas. Yum. I hope there are some forks in there.”
“Ta da.” He pulls out plastic forks and rests them atop the carton lids. Then he draws the boxed chicken from the bag and produces a stack of napkins.
Shoving the bag aside, he invites me to sit on the table-top. “I’ll be right back. I left the wine in the truck.”
I climb onto the tabletop and wait for him, looking out over the dark river. It’s so quiet, peaceful. Beautiful actually.
The moon reflects off the river, which seems almost still tonight. In moments, Blake is back, holding the wine bottle in one hand and pulling a Swiss army knife out of his pocket with the other.
“Hope Chardonnay is okay with you,” he says, prying the cork from the bottle with the corkscrew part of his multi-tool. “I thought it would go well with the chicken.”
“Oh, you even thought of the wine-pairing huh?” I laugh. “What about glasses?”
Blake’s head drops back and he groans, staring up at the sky for a half-second before giving me an apologetic glance.
“No… glasses are reserved forpre-plannedpicnics. At impromptu no-fun picnics like this one, you just drink out of the bottle. You don’t have a thing about cooties, do you?”
“If I did, the wine would kill them all, so we’re good.” I reach for the bottle, and Blake hands it to me. I tip it and take a drink, then give it back to him. “Cheers.”
Grinning at me, he takes a drink from the bottle. “An excellent vintage,” he says in an effete wine-snob tone.
Sitting side by side on the tabletop, we dig into the potato salad and black-eyed peas, eating them right from the containers since we don’t have plates. Blake rips a chunk from the French bread stick for me and one for himself.
Since we have no clean knife for politely dividing the roasted chicken, we use our forks to stab it and pull shreds of succulent meat from the carcass.
“Meat good,” Blake grunts in a Neanderthal voice. “Do I know how to show a girl a bad time, or what?”
I giggle, having a ridiculouslygoodtime. Throughout the strange meal, we pass the wine bottle back and forth.
