Basically, a life has many seasons.
My door seems nice and very door-like as I sidle up to it and give it a hug. For all my joking, I’m glad to have a home, and that seems like a good reason to give it a hug.
I get a little too cuddly, though, and the door bites back, smacking me right in the forehead.
Well, that wasn’t very nice.
“Ow!” I yell at my wooden friend. “Our relationship is never going to work if you can’t get past your intimacy issues. My other friends might start telling me to leave if you’re not careful.”
He doesn’t laugh, but I do enough for the both of us. I’m just getting ready to take the flirting to the next level with some keyhole penetration when my friend moves away on his own, swinging open…and right into my nemesis’s apartment.
Except, holy cotton balls, does he always look this good?
“Well, if it isn’t Trent Turner! Juney Junior! Turn the Burn! The Term-i-nator!” I greet him, reaching out with my hand and poking his bare chest with my index finger just to make sure he’s not some sort of mirage.
He’s real.
“Holy shit. You’re real,” I mutter, and I can’t stop my gaze from moving down his body.
He is in nothing but a towel, his hair is wet, beads of water roll down his perfect chest, and dear God…I might pass out.
I’m pretty sure I just saw the outline of my boss’s penis.
No skin action, no actual visual of the amount of purple power that thing gets when fully locked and loaded, but a penis blueprint, if you will.
And, apparently, the architect who drew up those penis plans didn’t hesitate to put in some serious square footage.
Immediately, I start thinking about what Trent’s boner would look like, and I giggle.
God, that’s such a funny word. Boner. The bones. Boneville. Boner Time.
“What about bones?” he asks, and my giggling comes to an abrupt halt.
Oh my God, WHAT? Did I just say that aloud?
“Did you just say something about bones?”
Oh, holy shit, I did. Someone. Help. Me.
“Don’t wah-y, about it Ah-nold.” I give him a friendly slap on his bare shoulder, and the smacking sound reverberates around us. “I’m just singing. A song. About bones. It’s an old one. You probably don’t know it. Almost no one knows it. No one but me. I know the big bone song.”
Nice save, Greer. Obviously, I do my very best thinking under the influence.
I should probably drink more often.
“What?” he asks again, before adding, “Are you drunk?” His eyebrows pinch together in what seems a whole lot like judgment.
My personality spawns another side—one with absolutely no sense of self-preservation.
“Don’t be so judgy, Junior. Everybody enjoys a little bit of wine every now and then. It might not cost one billion dollars a bottle like yours does—”
He rolls his eyes.
“But it’s flipping del-i-cious!” I singsong, even adding a bit of jazz hands to pizzazz it up a bit.
“Look, how about I help you get into your apartment, and we’ll talk in the morning?”
“Fine,” I agree. “We can talk in the morning. But you better put that lightsaber under some heavier fabric before we go to commune with the Lord. It’s impossible to focus when that thing is just swinging around like it owns the joint.”
Just one side of his mouth hitches up, but I think he might actually be smiling.
Wow. He looks goooood with a smile.
“Commune with the Lord? You go to church?”
“On Sunday? As in, tomorrow’s Sunday? Of course. It’s just that sometimes—most times,” I muffle under my breath, “I sleep in a little too late or get stuck in traffic or come down with a cold or—”
“So, you don’t actually attend church. You just pretend to plan to so you feel better about yourself.”
“I don’t know.” I shrug one lazy shoulder. “That was a lot of words that just came out of your mouth, but hey, they sounded good.”
“Come on,” he says with a laugh. I fall into a trance in his eyes like he’s the snake in The Jungle Book. “Let’s get you to bed.”
“Yes, sir,” I agree. Bed with him sounds mighty fine.
Trent
It’s funny how a night can start one way and end in completely another.
At seven p.m., fresh drink in hand, I settled onto the couch and stretched out an arm across the back, the plans for the hotel and a stack of expense sheets stretched across the surface of my coffee table.
I haven’t had time to get a TV for my apartment yet, and besides the grandfather clock ticking audibly from the corner of my living room, there wasn’t anything but the silence from next door to seep through the walls and into my place.
I hadn’t heard her all night, and against every ounce of my judgment, I couldn’t help but wonder where she was.