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I pointed things out to Jack as we walked the two and a half blocks to my building. “There are two Thai restaurants on this block. Don’t ask me why because one of them should be condemned. No one ever goes there. Maybe it’s a front for the mafia.” I whispered the last word in a mock dramatic voice.
“You know how those mafia dons love their Panang,” Jack teased.
“You hungry? We could grab something to take home. I think all I have in my apartment is the ingredients for pancakes.”
He bumped my shoulder with his. “I love pancakes. But I’m not hungry after I ate my way through that hospitality suite.”
“Yeah. Those dogs are good. I can’t ever help myself when I’m there.” I sighed. “There’s just something about a hot dog and beer at a Cubs game.”
I could feel the inane nervous chatter coming on the closer we got to my apartment. It was a sign I was nervous about being alone with him which was weird because I freaking loved being alone with him. Being alone with Jack meant naked and orgasming. And I loved orgasming. With Jack. Naked.
I let out a little squeak by accident.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing. I was talking about dogs. And cats. You’re not allergic, are you? It’s only… I have two cats, and I should have asked first. Honestly, I should have reminded you about them, really. It was rude of me not to because I have… two cats.”
Jack stopped and stared at me. I looked at the side of the building, the chipped piece of broken curb, the weeds on the nearby front steps, and anything else except Jack’s eyes.
His finger lifted my chin up until I was forced to look at him. “I know about the cats. Take a breath. It’s just me. You know me.” His voice was low and soothing. “All I want to do is go into your place and meet your babies. Waffles used to be your neighbor’s and has a tortoiseshell coat while Socrates is black with one white sock. And that’s why people mistakenly call him Socks, and it drives you crazy since the real reason he was named Socrates was because you saw a stupid quote at a store and it made you laugh.”
“It might as well have said Live, Laugh, Love,” I said, throwing up my hands. “It was this giant parchment framed with like… shipwreck timber. And it said in bold script, ‘Happiness is unrepentant pleasure.’ It was a Socrates quote, and all I could think was if Socrates had been standing right there at Anthropologie Barn or whatever the fuck the name of the place was, he would have keeled over laughing.”
I led him up the stairs to my building and then looked back over my shoulder at him before unlocking the door. “The fact you remember that makes me feel… fizzy and light, like a can of fruity pop.” I felt my face heat, so I turned back around quickly and unlocked the door. Jack’s arms came around my front, and his deep voice slid into my ears.
“I feel like there’s a joke to be made about popping open a fruity can—”
“Oh my god stop,” I blurted with a laugh. “Gross.”
“Babe, you seriously handed that one to me on a silver platter. A fruit platter.”
I thought maybe my face was going to melt right off from embarrassment. “I’m not a poet, okay? I just…”
As soon as we stepped into the tiled entryway of the building, Jack turned me around and pressed his lips to mine.
He tasted so sweet, I forgot all about my nerves and just enjoyed the fruity fizz.
When we finally separated long enough to make it to my apartment, I opened the door to discover a giant mess. Somehow, a giant bag of popcorn I had safely put away in a closed kitchen cabinet had been retrieved and scattered all over the studio apartment. I groaned and looked for the culprit. Waffles was nowhere to be found. Meanwhile Socrates was curled up in a tight ball on my neatly made bed as if nothing had happened.
Typical.
“Crap, I’m so sorry,” I began, stooping to begin the cleanup. “She’s such a jackass sometimes. I don’t know how she does it, but Waffles is like… she’s like goddamn Houdini or something, but only with snacks and toilet paper rolls.”
Jack began picking up the spilled popcorn next to me, making a little tsk sound with his mouth periodically until Waffles, the jackass snacker, came slinking out from under my bed.
“C’mere, baby,” Jack murmured, holding out a hand toward Waffles. For a split second, my stomach did that little flippy thing it always did when he spoke to me in that tender voice. But he wasn’t talking to me, he was talking to the destroyer.
