She just laughed and rolled her eyes.
“You’re kidding, right? You’ve never seen this before?”
“I’ve seen this before but …”
“Butt … very funny. I see what you did there.”
It was my turn to roll my eyes.
“I’m four glasses deep. Any attempted witticisms on my part would be best in that thing.” I just pointed because couldn’t think of the word.
“I mean that thing is better than the leather chairs in the lobby. I hear it gets you cleaner.”
Something about Karen and movie night had caught me off guard. The friendship always had and always would come first. As nice as it would be to explore more, the tradeoff is usually a friendship lost.
The Derich thing was different. The friendship might not be over but there was a bit of nastiness that had been explosive and, seemingly necessary. He was struggling with the fact that he wasn’t where he wanted to be. His life was a complete success by most standards. He had a great job where he, until recently, did nothing. His wife made enough money so, if he wanted to, he could just sit at home and play Mr. Mom.
In his mind the man was supposed to be the bread winner. He wasn’t. He was mad at me because, my life wasn’t where he felt it should be, either. We still hadn’t spoken since the blow up at the bar. His daughter Riley was almost two and I still hadn’t met her.
At some point I would have to find time to fix what was fucked. Tonight was not that night.
“You’re pretty articulate for four glances of wine,” she laughed at herself.
“Glances. It would be so much less expensive if we could just glance at bottles and get buzzed.” She was amused and she was amusing herself.
She told me to call her Abby. Her goal was to disappear into something different. She had just sat down at the bar and started talking. I was convinced she thought I was someone else.
My goal was to wash away the world then work off the hangover from home the next day. I would drown the machines in just enough alcohol to take the edge off but not so much that I couldn’t safely get home.
She was funny, attractive, and interested with no strings and nothing to lose. That’s a combination that wins every time. She also had the presidential suite at the hotel.
“It’s the executive bidet,” she said wrapping her hair back in to a ready for fun bun. “Or as I like to call it, an ‘Oh Hey!’, because that’s how I feel every time I use it.” Her voice slowed.
“I like it because I know what’s about to happen,” she smiled.
“I know when it’s about to happen,” the smile disappeared and she pulled me closer.
“And if you aim just right, it feels pretty damn good.” Her kiss was deep and deliberate.
The rest of her conference had been canceled and everyone was scrambling to get home before everything shutdown. She had found a five a.m. flight and was looking to kill some time before she got back to her life.
The machines were running rampant. The job was just a job. There was another option on the horizon, that was just a job, too.
Metaphors have never been a great aphrodisiac. I mean, the world was falling to shit. Maybe it was more than just a metaphor. Maybe this was just the distraction we needed. There was no question of Karen. There was no fighting with friends. Her history was a mystery.
We washed the world away for the next few hours. We didn’t really know what was going to happen. We didn’t really know when it was going to happen. We did know that if we aimed just right everything would feel pretty damn good.
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