My eyes flitted to the ceiling. I hoped my dad wasn’t watching me right now. Or, if he was, I wished for him to have a sense of humor about his daughter’s life. Because things were about to get even more interesting.
CHAPTER 26
DUSTIN
A weekafter the greatnaked maid in my kitchendebacle, Jenny was already posting pictures on social media with her new beau—who apparentlywasn’ta douche. I still felt good about my decision to send him and his buddy packing, because what kind of guys are that hammer slammed on a Sunday afternoon?
Okay, I’ve been there, done that, so I shouldn’t judgetoo hard.Anyway, I didn’t usually go on social media, but I had some time to kill while I waited for my wife to get home from her shift at the hospital.
So here I was, flipping through Instagram and lounging on her couch.
Since our game tomorrow evening was in D.C., Coach Slanch cleared me to fly here early and stay at Cat’s place, and, I quote “do what you gotta do, Dusty Boy.”
Do what I had to domeant acing our immigration interview tomorrow morning with Mr. Winterboner, as I liked to call him. I mean, come on, we had signed the papers, we were making public appearances, what more did the man want from us?
Cat and I had been texting all week like we were getting ready for an extreme version ofThe Newlywed Showwhere one of ourlivelihoods depended on getting the answers right. Actually, that wasn’t far from the truth.
I didn’t research ‘immigration marriage fraud’ much that night in Vegas. I know, shocking. Typical Dustin. Shoot first. Do research later. But itdoesturn out you can go to prison for five years if they have ‘reason to believe you’ve been intentionally evading U.S. immigration law.’
Now, I’m no law expert, but that doesn’t sound like something we should be playing around with. Prison time wasn’t something I was interested in, and neither was Cat.
Still, I wasn’t worried. If any crazy couple was going to be able to pull this off, it was Kit Cat and me. She had the brains, and I had the brawn. The brawn didn’t especially help us in this situation, but no matter.
More than that, after last week’s fight, and the ensuing rambunctious make-up sex, we were starting to feel more and more like a real couple. I didn’t know anymore if it was necessarily ‘acting’ that I was pretending to be insanely attracted to my spouse. If it was, I was one hell of a method actor. We both were.
Attracted to, and in love. Well, maybe.
Though I had whispered them silently that one night, I still stumbled over those three words.I love you. I could say them when I knew she wasn’t listening, or quietly enough that she wouldn’t hear me. ‘What did you just say?’ she would ask, and I would think quick.
Like the other day when I whispered it on the phone before she picked up.
‘No, I didn’t sayI love you,I was just saying ‘My. Nice view!’
‘Oh. Uh, okay. Where are you?’
‘The locker room in Nashville. Trust me, uh, it’s just got a great view here.’Of the towels. Really nice towel rack here.
Luckily, she didn’t press the issue.
I wondered if she could feel it, too. We fucked with reckless abandon, and each time we did, and she trembled and came and rode me until I did too, she would collapse in a sweaty heap on my chest. Sometimes we would fall asleep, sometimes she would just lie there with her eyes closed, and I wondered what was going through that pretty little head of hers.
And I would think the three words, but not say them out loud, because that would mean she would have to say them back, and if she didn’t, well, we all know how that feels.
At least, I do.
The woman in question that Cat was inquiring about?
The one-night stand that Jenny mentioned?
Yeah. It’s a true story. And it’s true that I still think about her. I tried for years to forget that night, but I just couldn’t.
One, it was an embarrassing night for me. I broke my rule of just sharing my feelings outright with a woman, and it came back to bite me. You never tell a one-night stand you’re in love with her. That’s just bad policy. Hey, live and learn, right?
Her name was Fiorella. I never got a last name from her. And after we shared the hottest night of sexual encounters I’d had up until that point in my short life—three of them, to be exact—with her collapsed in a sweaty post-coital heap on my chest, I muttered those three words every woman wants to hear. She said, ‘what did you just say?’
I said,“I love you, Fio.”
She shook her head.“How can you know that? You barely know me.”
