“What’s your boner want now, Thatcher?” she asked suspiciously.
Laughter no longer concealed, I told her a version of the truth, but I wrapped it in a multitude of flirting in an attempt to distract her.
“Oh, honey, I can assure you, it wants many, many things, a great number of them from you. But I’m actually not coming on to you right now, not trying to insult your intelligence, and not asking your tits to keep my boner company.”
“I don’t get it. What else is there from you?” she teased, and I laughed. Because for the first time ever, from maybe the least expected person ever, she didn’t sound serious when she said it. She sounded like she didn’t actually think my intelligence stopped at the head of my dick. That my titty talk and boner references were just a coating for everything underneath. It seemed like she could see it—without prodding or encouragement—and that wasn’t the norm. Most people never know more than a surface layer of each other’s personalities. They take the bolder characteristics of a first impression at face value because they’re lazy, and they carry those expectations and prejudices throughout the entire relationship. Maybe something about Cassie’s appetite for new experiences made her dig deeper than the rest.
“Please,” I begged, seeing the exit I needed approaching in the distance. “Just get off this exit and take me to the CVS a couple of blocks down.”
“I don’t know where I’m going—” she hedged, and I interrupted quickly so she didn’t have time to overthink it.
“I do. I come up here all the time. I’ll tell you where to go. Everybody wins. I’ll get to stretch my legs, and I’ll buy you a bag of Cheetos for your trouble.”
“And a Diet Mountain Dew.”
Bingo. I’d found a momentary weakness in her defenses.
“Yes,” I agreed. “And a Mountain Dew.”
“Diet!” she corrected.
“Yes. Diet. I promise. As long as the weight loss doesn’t come from your tits.”
She smiled and shook her head. “Sorry, bud. But the boobs are always the first to go.”
Regular, I thought. Definitely getting the regular.
“Turn right,” I instructed as we crested the hill of the exit ramp and approached the bottom.
As we got closer and closer, I kept expecting the car to slow, but it never did. Cruising at what had to be fifty, Cassie flew right out into traffic without even slowing amidst my screams.
“Jesus Christmas! Are you fucking nuts? Why the hell didn’t you stop back there?” I yelled, looking back over my shoulder and grabbing the “Oh shit” handle without shame now.
“Oh. You wanted me to stop?” she asked, all mock-innocence. “You didn’t say stop. You just said, ‘Turn right.’”
Holy hell, she is insane!
“The stop was implied by the giant red sign!”
Her face took on a Gru-like air—as in, evil genius. “Maybe next time you’ll be a little more specific and a lot more cordial.”
“Fuck, you’re a lunatic.”
“Uh-uh-uh,” she hummed. The red of her nail almost hypnotized me as it ticked back and forth in front of my face. Since my only choices seemed to be to concede or die, there was really no choice at all.
“Fuck, you’re a lunatic, Fair Queen Cassie?” I ventured.
“Better.”
“You scare me,” I told her with a point of my index finger. “And that’s saying something.”
She shrugged. There were no fucks for her to give. Absolutely zero. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d turned her pockets inside out just to prove it to me.
As the next turn approached, I carefully considered how to tell her. “Did you ever hear the story about Wei Wang?”
“No,” she answered. Which was no surprise since I was making it up.
“Well, all the Wangs had a history of hanging right down the middle, if you know what I mean.”
“Maybe you do only talk about cocks.”
“But not Wei. He lived up to his name, hooking way to the left,” I rushed on as we approached the fork in the road.
“Huh?”
“Stay to the left, hook left, this is your next direction, Luscious Cassie,” I speed-replied as we barreled toward the divide.
“What the fuck?” she asked, but she did what I said. She did it at high speed and quite possibly on two wheels, but she did it.
“You wanted specific directions.”
“Those weren’t specific, they were fucking convoluted and ridiculous.”
It was fair to say she was upset, but she had also been distracted, and in that moment, while trying to get her to do something she wouldn’t want to do, that was the more important of the two.
“Why the fuck are we in a neighborhood?” she asked, realizing I’d taken her off course.
I could see the house I wanted, three down on the left, and appropriately timed my response. “Just pull over right here.”
“Are you lost?” she accused and came to a screeching stop. “I thought you said you knew where you were going.”
I climbed out of the car carefully, sighing in relief when my back cracked at the moment it reached full height. If it hadn’t looked so dirty, I might have considered kissing the pavement.
The glass storm door was the only one closed on the front of the small, light blue, cape-style house, and my favorite little handprints decorated the otherwise pristine pane.
“Come on,” I said, leaning down into the car. “We’re here.”
“We’re here?” Cassie shrieked. “What do you mean we’re here? What in the ever-loving fuck is going on?”
I rounded the car and opened Cassie’s door, taking her by the hips and pulling her out of the car and onto the sidewalk myself. “Sorry, honey, but I couldn’t miss my best girl’s party.”
Her face dropped, and I swore she was a hot second away from completely mutilating my nuts. It was stupid, but I never even considered moving my hands off her to protect the goods. There’s a reason natural selection is the way it is. When I was around her, I wasn’t sure I’d be the fittest in a survival scenario. But I didn’t think other men would be either. It had to be a biological deficiency.
“A girl?” she yelped. “You made me drive you to another girl’s party?”
It was dangerous, but I nodded anyway as Mila approached behind her. “Only girl I’d ever use you to get to is this one,” I promised. And just because I wanted to, with a quick move forward, I pressed my lips to hers. The warmth of her mouth on mine spread immediately to my chest.
When I pulled back to look at her face and the shadow of a girl cast out in front of her, it was safe to say she was gearing up to tear into me for kissing her again without permission.
Until Mila’s voice made her pull up short.
“Uncle Thatch!”
I felt like I could actually see her brain pump the brakes.
“There’s my girl!” I greeted, dragging my eyes away from Cassie’s slowly. The transition of my focus took just long enough that I caught the change on her face.
Mila’s officially six-year-old little legs wrapped as far around my waist as they could go, and she grabbed me by the cheeks. “It’s my birthday and you’re here, la la la,” she sang.