“I probably took a cab. Or walked. I don’t know, the evening got a little fuzzy after I found produce stickers on my penis when I went to take a piss,” he replies in all seriousness as he gets up from his knees and turns to face me. The wrinkled and stained shirt he wears that states, “Ask me about my huge penis,” has one of the sleeves torn off and proves he had a rough night.
I don’t even bother trying to tell him that if he didn’t have his keys when he left the club or wherever he ended up last night, it stands to reason they won’t be hibernating in my couch. I have other things on my mind at the moment though. I walk away from Drew and into the kitchen, making my way to my coat that's hanging on the back of one of the chairs. I reach into the inside pocket, pull out the small, black velvet box, and open the lid to look inside for the ten thousandth time since I picked it up last week.
The sight of the one and a half carat, platinum, diamond ring nestled in the white satin makes my heart pound with excitement. And I’m not going to lie; it also makes me want to throw up in my mouth. Just a little bit. I stare down at the precious metal that that took me eight days and six trips to the jewelry store to pick out. The main diamond is princess cut and framed by twelve, three-quarter carat round diamonds. The ring is complimented by lines of round diamonds along the band. It's elegant and beautiful.
Yes, I know I sound like a walking advertisement for a jewelry store and men everywhere are humming the tune of “Taps” right now and brain screaming, “MAN DOWN!” but I feel a little fist pump is in order due to the fact that Claire will be able to look over at her friends all smug-like and say, “He went to Jared!”
If she says yes. Which she totally will, ha ha! I’m not nervous at all. I don’t feel all itchy and ball-sweaty thinking about popping the question and the possibility that she just might laugh in my face and tell me I’m bat shit crazy. Who gets married after only being together a few months? Who has a one-night-stand in college and finds out five years later it resulted in a child? Who spends all those years turning into a creeper that stalks bath and body shops every time they get a new chocolate-scented lotion line and gets a hard-on at work when some guy, whose wife just had a baby girl, passed out Hershey bars with the cutesy little wrapper that says, “HERESHEIS!”
This guy right here. Don’t even ask how I explained away the boner and how I am NOT a child molester and that it’s totally natural to get turned on when a co-worker is talking about a baby.
That sentence sounded much better in my head, so let’s just pretend I never said it and move on.
The fact is, I spent years wishing I could see my one-night-stand again and find out if she was real, hoping I could one day meet her again and see if she could still make me laugh and turn me on with just a brush of her hand or the smell of her skin.
I had tried to fill the void with a woman whose mouth could hold more balls than a Hungry, Hungry Hippo, but walking in on her playing hide the salami with our neighbor made me realize two things. One, I should have never tried to blot out the memory of my dream girl with someone else. And by “someone else” I meant a whore. And two, our neighbor had Elephantitis of the ball and should seriously get that looked at by a medical professional of some sort. And no, that wasn’t a mistake. I really meant ball, as in singular. Dude only had one ball and it was the size of a coconut.
Seriously. Google a picture of a coconut. I’ll wait. Because you really need to get the full effect of what I saw dangling there for the twenty seconds it took for me to get my head out of my ass and scream insults at both of them.
All of this, while nightmare inducing, had made me realize that when I found Claire, I knew I would do whatever it took to never lose her again.
We may have done everything ass backwards, but I wouldn’t change a thing. Claire and Gavin are my whole world and I want to make it official. I want her to know that nothing could tear me away from them and that I am in it for the long haul. Pushing the nerves aside, I smile as I stare at my future and a big chunk of my savings account tucked into the small, velvet box. I close the lid with a snap just as Drew walks into the kitchen dangling his keys from the tip of his index finger, holding them out away from his body as far as possible.
“So you’re really going to do it, huh? You’re going to make an honest woman out of Claire?” he asks as he runs water in the sink, dumps in about a half a bottle of liquid soap, and throws his keys into the growing pile of bubbles. He shuts the water off and turns around to lean against the counter. I give him and the sink a questioning look and he just shrugs his shoulders.
“I found them in the tank of the toilet. Better to be safe than sorry.”
Gavin chooses that moment to run into the room and I lift him up into my arms before I can ask Drew why this is the second time in a month he’s lost his keys in my toilet.
“Why is Uncle Drew washing dishes?” Gavin asks as he wrapped his arms around my neck.
“I’m not washing dishes. I’m washing my keys,” Drew explains with his back to us as he splashes in the water trying to retrieve them. He flings them out of the sink as he turns back around, splattering Gavin and I with suds.
“You don’t wash keys. That’s dumb,” Gavin replies seriously.
“Um, hello? You do too wash keys. Especially if they have your poop on them because they were in your toilet,” Drew replies as he shakes the excess suds off of his key ring.
“I don’t poop on keys! YOU poop on keys!” Gavin yells angrily. “I’m going to stick your head in the toilet!”