The Humdrum Life of a Hero

Chapter 25

"He asked you to formal by writing it in the steam?" Bridgette asks, reassuring herself that she heard me correctly. Maybe hoping she hadn't heard me right.

"What's so bad about it?" I challenge whilst taking a bite of my apple. "If I'm not mistaken, your girlfriend asked you by writing it on her ass."

Bridgette smiles happily, whether touched by the memory of being asked to formal or by the image of her girlfriend's ass. I'm kind of hoping for the former.

"You have me there," she shoves a forkful of green beans into her mouth. She swallows, distaste displayed across her face as she follows with a long gulp of water. "But I at least didn't have sex directly after. I mean, Sarah, come on. You wasted a perfectly good shower."

I roll my eyes at her even though she's correct. I did trade a perfectly good shower for some above-average sexual intercourse with my boyfriend, but it was totally worth it. "You should be proud of me, though. I wouldn't let him see the dress."

"Good," she grins. "The magic would be ruined if you let him see you in it beforehand."

"Those were my thoughts when he asked about it," I reply.

I was rebuttoning his shirt for him when I caught his eyes staring at my partially open closet door. For a moment, I couldn't figure out what was so intriguing in my closet. He'd already busted me about taking down all of the family photos. Ugh, that conversation wasn't fun at all. He acted like a therapist the entire time, asking me why I did it and if it helped.

But then the thought of the dress still zipped up in the dust cover occurred to me.

"When did you get a dress?" he said, confirming my suspicions. He turned back to face me when I buttoned the last button. I smoothed the front of his shirt down, using that as an excuse just to run my hands over his chest again. That's a thing that will never get old.

"Last weekend," I had said, my hands slowly working their way down to his belt. Even though we had just gotten redressed, I was realizing that I liked Jay better without a shirt. "Bridge and I went shopping."

He had noticed my complete disinterest in conversing, and he lowered his lips onto mine. It was a sweet kiss, nothing like the kisses we were exchanging just a few minutes ago under the covers. Those were chaste and passionate. Unexpectedly, he broke away and asked, "Do I get a preview?"

"Nope," I had said hurriedly, impatiently waiting for him to go back to what we had begun. His fragmented breathing halted for just a second in order for him to say, "Why not?"

"Because it'd ruin the magic," I planted a kiss on his nose, "And I paid a lot of money to obtain that magic."

He rolled his eyes, no longer pushing the subject, and we didn't talk much after that. Mostly just kissing with the occasional interruption when an explosion from the movie shook the house.

"I found the shoes I was looking for," Bridge says, pulling me out of my wonderful, wonderful memory.

After we found my dress the other day, it was Bridgette's turn. We combed those racks for three hours. She complained how it wasn't fair that I found my dress the moment we exited the escalator. Eventually, after painstakingly rummaging through those racks at least four times over, she found the dress.

A forest green, strapless, A-line, floorlength dress stole Bridge's heart and attention. That's all she talked about while we payed and drove home. Once home, though, her attention flitted from the dress to the accessories. She claimed she had the perfect necklace and earrings, but she had "no fucking acceptable shoes."

"Where'd you find them?" I ask half-heartedly, knowing that Bridge is going to give me every specification of the pair of heels she bought to match. Every dimension, every fleck of color, and even how the damn things feel on her feet. She's a very descriptive person, which explains why she writes for the newspaper and dreams of someday anchoring the nightly news. National news, of course. None of that "local shit."