“You’re… you… you’re Dominic!”
“I suppose I should be relieved you can remember my name,” he said, eating more erotic butter noodles with that dirty, filthy mouth of his.
I couldn’t figure out the words to explain to him that in all the years I’d known him, I’d never heard him say the word “fuck,” and for some reason, it was making this whole situation that much worse because if he could eat erotic butter noodles and say the word “fuck,” what chance did I, a mere mortal, have of not thinking of him in any way other than wearing nothing but the pants of his police uniform and twirling a pair of handcuffs on his finger?
“We’re not fuck buddies,” I said weakly. You can’t be fuck buddies with someone whose death you’re plotting in your head. Well, not in good conscience, anyway.
“Could have fooled me,” he said, sitting back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. He watched me, and I knew he was turning on the whole “cop stare” again.
“That was….” What was that? What Corey did?
“That was?”
“Corey,” I finished lamely. “He’s… odd.”
“Seems like a nice guy.”
“Oh, he is.”
“Great.”
“Yeah, great.”
Excruciatingly long, evil silence. We just stared.
“So,” I said for lack of anything better to say.
“So,” he said.
“I guess I’m no longer a teenager, huh?”
“Guess not. Twenty years old.”
“Yeah.”
“Not quite legal, yet.”
“For all the things that count,” I said without thinking.
“Oh?” he asked maddeningly. “What things would those be?”
“War.” FUCKING! “Smoking.” FUCKING!
Dominic frowned. “You going to join the army?”
“No.”
“You going to start smoking?”
“No.”
“And if I catch you with alcohol,” he growled, “you’re in for a world of hurt.”
Yes, officer. “I won’t!” I squeaked, as if puberty and I had just become casual acquaintances.
“Good to know.”
He paid for lunch while I prayed to Jesus or Buddha or Krishna (I’ve found when in a high stage of panic, you really don’t care, just as long as someone listens) or any deity at all to send a meteor the size of North Carolina to smite me from this earth to save me from myself. Unfortunately, Jesus and Buddha and Krishna all seemed to be away on some kind of God Retreat a