“Big date tonight.”
I nod. “Yup. Big date.”
“Where’s it at?”
Thinking nothing of it, I supply him with the information. “Just a bar in the city.”
“Why you drivin’ to the city? Shouldn’t he come to the suburbs?”
“Shouldn’t you mind your business?”
He is so annoying!
Duke shrugs. “Just sayin’.” Pauses. “Little advice, maybe you should make him work at it a little harder. He sounds like one of them fuck boys who expect to sit there while the ladies all fight for him.”
“I’m sure he’s past the stage of being a fuck boy,” I declare. “Besides, I told you this a million times—I know Brian. We went to high school together.”
“Ah. So he couldn’t have turned into a douche. Got it.”
Waving the spatula in the air, I turn toward him. “Okay, smart-ass, tell me this. Are you a bigger douche than you were in high school, or were you douchier back then?”
Did that question even make sense?
“Are you askin’ me if I think I’m a douche?”
“Sure.”
“No.” He reaches over and steals a pancake from the griddle before it’s even done cooking, teeth tearing into it. “I don’t think I’m a douche—fuck,this is hot!”
“Serves you right for stealing that before I’m ready to serve it!”
Duke waves the pancake in my direction; it flops between us. “Just because I don’t sugarcoat things and don’t mince words—and don’t have a tolerance for snowflakes—doesn’t make me a douche. It makes me a man who values his time.”
I mull that over in my mind. “So you’re rude to save time?”
He nods, seemingly proud that I got his gist. “Exactly.”
Oh, brother.
“What’s it like when you’re not rude?”
Duke stares me down, biting into the pancake. “What do you mean?”
“I mean—you broke into my house, you eat things that aren’t yours.” I blankly stare at the pancake in his hand. “You barged into my room last night.”
He shifts on his heels. “I’m fun. What in tarnation are you tawkin’ ’bout?”
What in tarnation are you tawkin’ ’bout.
I stifle my laughter. He sounds like a cowboy from a Wild West movie set in the sixties.
“I’m just saying—you’re like a bull in a boutique.”
Duke studies me, reaching around for another pancake. He folds it and puts the entire thing in his mouth.
“Don’t you want butter and syrup?”
He shakes his head. “Too much sugar.”