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After unlocking my front door, I lead my lilting boyfriend inside, and we laughingly kick our way through the morass of fallen “I love you!” balloons on my living room floor, their helium magic long gone by now.
“We’re in a giant snow globe!” Henn booms, as he gleefully kicks another balloon.
I’m not surprised he’s such a happy drunk. In my experience, alcohol is like truth serum—it only brings to the surface whatever lies beneath. I barely remember living with my father, since my parents divorced when I was seven, but I distinctly remember him becoming a total prick whenever he drank. Angus was like that, too, although I thankfully didn’t know him long enough to witness the phenomenon more than once. How lovely to find out the only thing buried deep inside Peter Hennessey is even more sweetness and silliness.
Although . . .
T-Rod’s comment about Henn finding Sarah for Jonas suddenly pops into my buzzed brain, along with that same icky feeling I had on karaoke night. I meant to ask Henn about the subject earlier tonight, but I forgot about it when we started throwing back another round of shots.
“Should I make us a snack?” Henn says, veering toward the kitchen.
“No, love, we’re going to bed. That’s where drunk people who have to leave for the airport at noon should go.”
“I’m not drunk,” Henn insists, but he lets me guide him toward the bedroom. “I’m purr-fectly buzzed. Like a tipsy cat with a buzzing bee in his bonnet.” He winks. “You’re the only bee in my bonnet, Hannah Banana.”
I believe he’s referencing a lyric from “Birdhouse in Your Soul”—the song Henn and I discussed during one of our earliest dates. But even if he’s not thinking consciously of that particular song, it’s still an adorable thing for him to say to me.
“You’re the only bee in my bonnet, too,” I reply. “Now, come on, sweetie. This way.”
“This is why Hannah Banana Montana Milliken is my Bert and I’m her Ernie. Because she looks out for me.”
“Yes, she does.” I guide him to my bed and onto his back. “I’m Hannah, by the way. There’s no need to talk about me in third person.”
He looks around, thoroughly confused. “Where’s Josh? Is he still here?”
“He was never here.”
“Yes, he was.”
“No. He helped you into the Uber and that was that. I’ve been the only one with you, ever since.”
“That’s a false statement, sir. You’re forgetting about Earl.”
I chuckle. “You mean our Uber driver?”
“Yes, Earl. A very nice bloke, was he.”
For some reason, Henn’s using a British accent again. The same way he did during the Uber ride. “Yes, he was. But Earl wasn’t British.”
Henn scoffs. “Then why did he talk to me in a British accent the entire ride home?”
“That was you, love. You talked in a British accent. The whole damned ride.”
Henn snorts. “Why’d I do that, if Earl wasn’t British?”
“God only knows. So, listen, honey. I have a question for you. When I was taking to T-Rod tonight—”
“I have question for you, too, Banana. Do you know how to say your name in Spanish?” He grins proudly. “It’s Plátano. That means banana, according to Sarah. She also joked, since you’re a female banana, I should call you Plátana. Isn’t that cute? By the way, did you know Reed told me not to propose to Hannah Banana la Plátana Milliken tonight? Yup. Man, I should have listened to him, huh?”
My eyebrows are jutting up against my hairline by now. “So . . . when you kneeled down after I caught the—”
“Yep. That was the plan. But when Hannah looked like she wanted to barf, I quickly decided to pivot.” He grins. “Pivot!” As I well know, it’s a reference to one of our favorite episodes of Friends—the one where Ross, Rachel, and Chandler try to maneuver a big couch through a tight stairwell. Henn and I have watched the episode together and laughed through the whole thing. But right now, I don’t have time for any kind of detour. Even a pleasant one. On the contrary, while the tequila-infused truth serum in Henn’s veins is still working its magic, I need to lure Henn into spilling every detail about his aborted proposal tonight.
“Back to what you said before,” I coax. “Tell me more, honey.”
Henn adopts a British accent again. “Compared to a Qwerty keyboard, a Dvork keyboard enables the typist to type twenty times faster.” Jesus Christ. It’s the same thing he did during our Uber ride, when he regaled the driver and me with non-stop computer-related trivia.
“No, no, tell me more about your plan to propose to Hannah tonight. Tell me everything about that.”
“Oh, that. Why are you talking about yourself in third person?” Another snort. “Well, first off, plan is too strong a word. It was more of a spur-of-the-moment idea. A notion, you might say, that popped into my bean when the lady with the microphone called all the single ladies to the dance floor. I told Jonas and Reed, ‘If Sarah can somehow get her bouquet into Hannah’s hands, then I’ll do it. If not, then it’s not meant to be, and I’ll wait for fate to take the wheel another time.”
