Well, considering one wasn’t even a lube, I wasn’t looking to get pregnant, and most importantly, absolutely neither of us were going to smell like a fucking fruit cocktail, I left the store with a mostly unfulfilled list.
While walking back to our building, I opened my texts, chose the one person in my contacts list who, to be honest, would probably answer me truthfully, and sent a message to my buddy Aubrey Grant:If smeone suggst room-temp buttter fr lube what would you say.
That’s when I realized I’d tapped Neil, whose name was one above Aubrey’s in the list of recent text conversations.
I quickly sent:Sry wrong person.
I received a reply before I could even close out of his name:Never text me again.
Geez. What a grouch.
After sending the question to the correct recipient, I pocketed my cell, unlocked the front door of our building, and slipped inside. The laundry was definitely done at this point, so I made a quick detour to the basement. Asshole’s wet clothes were still on the table. I set my CVS bag aside, opened the front-loading washer, and an entire drum of dirty, soapy, freezing cold water gushed out, soaking my pants, shoes—going absolutelyeverywhere.
I stood there for a moment, hand still on the door, staring at the sopping wet clothes hanging out of the washer and then down at my nice shoes. Yes, they were loafers, but they were, like, a classy loafer, and now they were full of dirty Tide water. Calmly, I bent down and took the handles of my paper bag, because I was going to consider this a lost cause, run away, and maybe live out the remainder of my life in the wilds of Central Park. But as I lifted the bag, its soaked bottom tore and everything I’d bought dropped to the floor.
I’d put in a call to the super and left him in the basement to fix the shitshow that’d just transpired. I carried my purchases upstairs,shlop,shlop,shlopping up all four flights, and let myself into the apartment. After kicking the door shut, I heard it.
A screech from inside the wall, like a dying old woman.
I dropped my shit, spun on one heel, and stared at the wall Dillon and I had both heard the rustling in earlier.
“Hello?” I called loudly.
She screeched again, even louder.
“No one in the wallmy ass,” I snapped, throwing the apartment door open once more and storming into the hall. My phone buzzed in my pocket as I marched back down to the basement. The super had a maintenance room off the laundry, and after a Monday of 4A, Gertrude, Dave, and whoever the hell else was at fault for driving me to drink before noon, I was going to handle this Someone in the Wall situation myself. “What?” I snapped upon answering my phone.
“Oh my God,” Aubrey said. “You didn’t use the butter already, did you?”
“Butter?”
“Never text me sex questions. Those are important. You call me, Sebastian. You need to go clean your ass right now.”
“I didn’t use butter. I’m not even having sex,” I said, making my way back down the creaking basement staircase.
“Thank goodness,” Aubrey mumbled. “Because it’s dairy, you know? And it can go rancid, and then you’ve got a bacterial infection in your—”
“Please stop.”
“If you’re looking to get kinky in the bedroom—”
“I don’t want to get kinky,” I replied, opening the maintenance room door and flipping the light switch.
“You need to ask an expert. I love you, Seb, but you’re too vanilla. Your X-rays would end up on BuzzFeed and the entire internet would be laughing about whatever you stuck up your butt.”
“I’m not vanilla. And you need to lay off my butt.”
“I bet you only have sex with the lights off, below the covers.”
“I don’t.” I found what I needed propped against a worktable and grabbed the handle of a ten-pound sledgehammer. “Just because you have a—what’s the dick piercing called?”
“Prince Albert.”
“Just because you have a Prince Albert—”
“I don’t have a Prince Albert,” Aubrey interrupted. “Ears, nose, nipples, and belly, darling.”
I grunted while smacking the light switch with my elbow and walking out.
