Pieces of Rhys (22 page)

“What do you say with your eyes and facial expressions?”

“Depends on what you said to me with that hole you call a mouth.” Another shot was put before me and I took it like a trooper. “Are you going to drink that or are you going to make love to it?”

He gave me a full blown smile now. I had never seen anything like it on his face before and was a little taken aback.

“You’re drunk,” he stated the obvious.

“Yeah, and my intoxication makes you only a little less of a dick.”

He looked at me, and I looked at him. I had no mute button tonight. He had pushed me to the edge earlier in the day, barking more orders at me than I could keep up with, and then barking some more when I didn’t complete them in a “timely manner” and then barked some more, just to hear himself be a man yelling at a woman.

“I guess I can’t argue with you. I can’t deny it.” His smile faded and for a moment he looked sad and I felt bad, but only for a moment. He swallowed his Hennessey and his expression had changed.

“I guess you’re not a drinker,” I said, watching his face contort from the burn.

“Not much. Bartender, can you keep them coming? For both of us.”

“You better eat some nuts or something, or you’re going to puke, for sure.”

Two hours later, I was mopping puke off of my jeans in the parking lot. At least it wasn’t chunky, and I said as much.

“I’m so sorry,” Kyle slurred. He was looking a little on the purple side.

“You can’t hold your liquor!” I slurred back. I threw the bar mop in a nearby trash can. I seriously doubted that Lilly, the perturbed bartender wanted the towel back. “I told you to eat some nuts!”

“Then I’d just be throwing up nuts.”

“That sounds funny.”

“It sounds funny when you say nuts, too.” He dug his keys out of his pocket.

“You can’t drive, Kyle. You’ll kill someone, maybe yourself.” I was pretty drunk, but he was way worse off than me.

“You hate me anyway. Would it matter if I died in a fiery crash?”

“I don’t hate you…much. But you can’t drive. I may be drunk, but I know you can’t drive.”

“Well, how did you get here?”

“I walked. Just come to my house for a little while until you are sober enough to drive.”

He thought about it for a moment, and then agreed.

Walking, I found, can be almost as dangerous as driving intoxicated. Twice Kyle stepped into the street without looking, almost getting hit by angry drivers (in New Jersey,
all
drivers are angry). He fell in my driveway, and when I tried to help him up, I fell down with him. I wanted to be angry, but I found myself rolling on the gravel, laughing with him, at nothing in particular. It took us a long time to get up and make it the rest of the way to the house.

We stumbled through the foyer, down a hall, and into the family room. I didn’t turn on the light, because I was too intoxicated to think of something as brilliant as that, and both of us tripped over the coffee table and ran into the couch before collapsing onto it, giggling like little school girls.

His head rested on my shoulder. His hair smelled edible, like strawberries. In sober times, I would have never allowed
any
physical contact from a tool like Kyle.

“You’re such a tool,” I said more to myself, than to him, but he heard me anyway.

“I know,” he sighed deeply. “But I’ve been okay tonight, though, right?” I could feel his eyes looking up at me, searching for approval.

“Yeah, you’ve been okay. Almost normal.”

“I don’t mean to be. I mean I guess obviously I mean to be a dick
some
times, but sometimes I just can’t help it. Life has just molded me that way.”

“That’s a load of crap Kyle Sterling. You make choices in life. You can choose to be a dick, or not to be a dick.”

He was quiet. I didn’t know if he passed out or if he was thinking about what I said. After a few minutes he said “You never talk this much at work.”

“I told you, I say a lot with my eyes and my facial expressions.”

“You know what I mean.”

“You keep me too busy for conversation.”

“You’re different now than you are at work. You barely object to me, let alone call me a dick.”

“Work is work. Outside of work is outside of work. I know how to be professional.” At that moment, I remembered that I was wearing puke pants. I jumped up and started to undo my jeans.

“What are you doing?” He asked. Even though there weren’t any lights on in the family room, light from the foyer gave the living room an eerie glow, and we could see each other a little bit.

“I’m wearing puke pants!” I stripped out of the jeans and turned the light on. I wanted to make sure I didn’t get any puke on my Mom’s couch. She would kill me and bury me inside of the thing.

After thoroughly searching the couch for traces of puke, I looked at Kyle, who was looking at my underwear with a stupid smile on his face.

“Who lives in a pineapple under your jeans?” He sang softly. “SpongeBob booty pants!” He ended his little song with a soft slap to my rear.

I stared down at him, a hand on my hip.

“You’re a pig.”

“I thought I was a dick.”

“You’re a pig dick.”

“Now we’re going into new and crazy territory,” He laughed and I couldn’t help but to laugh with him.

I sat down beside him again. Why, I don’t know, when I could have sat on the loveseat, or in the big chair, or on the floor, or on the moon or anywhere else besides right next to an attractive drunk man when I was drunk and half naked myself. I wasn’t seated for more than a few seconds when he leaned over, grabbed the back of my head and kissed me. I kissed him back for a moment, before remembering who and what he was. I pulled away, and when he tried to pull me back, I put a hand on his chest.

“No, Kyle,” I was saying no, but his kiss was awesome. My lips were getting all pissy with me because I stopped and said no. “It’s the alcohol that’s making you like this. You’ll regret it in a few hours.”

“Give me more to regret then.” He pushed me back on the couch and kissed me again. I should have stopped him again. I didn’t think he was going to make me do anything I didn’t want to do, but I didn’t stop him. I kissed back and didn’t stop his hands from roaming wherever they wanted to.

“You’re still a dick,” I whispered into his ear, and then he proved to me what a dick he really was and I hoped my mom would never find out what we did on her couch that night.

Find Accidentally On Purpose in the Kindle Store!