“Um... J. T., as you can see, you have more drawers than you can possibly use for your various cooking implements and... Scotch tape and cat toys and... er... batteries.”
She had just inadvertently revealed what she kept in her own kitchen drawers.
“It’s amazing what you can keep in drawers these days.” He humored her. He was frowning ever so faintly.
And then he turned and wandered out of the room to inspect one of the bedrooms. “Want to guess what’s in here?” he called. “More carpet, that’s what.”
Britt didn’t follow him in there. Because even though there wasn’t a bed in it currently, which really made it more of just a room than a bedroom, the implication was still there.
He popped out of the room. “So how old is your nephew?”
She was startled. “Er... nine. Nine and three-quarters, he’d tell you immediately.”
“He likes the Muppets, eh?”
“The Muppets, Minecraft, computers, and anything butt-related.”
His smile grew bigger as she recited this. “Yeah, most guys never really outgrow any of that.”
“I guess I kind of understand it,” she said, hesitantly. “I mean, the first time you discover your own body and everyone else’s can make a sound like a vuvuzela it’s kind of a cause for celebration.”
The smile dropped off his face.
He froze as if she’d pulled a gun on him.
He stared at her. This time, absolutely thunderstruck.
Silence ensued, during which Britt marinated in horror and wished she could vacuum the words from the air right back into her mouth.
She could hear her sister’s voice in her head: What did I tell you about needing to socialize with adults? Now you’ve gone and made a fart joke to John Tennessee McCord.
She was never, ever going to tell her sister she was right, though.
“Vuvuzela?” he finally choked out.
“Yeah. Um... stadium horns?” The shame had scorched her voice right down to a thread. She mimed holding one up and blowing into it.
She was nearly floating up out of her body watching herself mime blowing a freaking stadium horn to John Tennessee McCord.
This wasn’t just a fart joke. It was a never-ending fart joke.
“I know,” he said dazedly. “It’s just... that... that... that might literally be the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.”
He looked awestruck. Almost beyond laughter.
His face was lit up like a sun.
He was staring at her as if she were better than Cirque du Soleil.
Her face, on the other hand, felt hotter than the sun and there was no way she wasn’t tomato red.
“I guess... I guess if they sounded like wind chimes he wouldn’t find them as funny,” she expounded desperately.
He threw back his head and shouted with laughter. It echoed all around the place and the hideous knot in her stomach unwound and she felt light as a helium balloon.
Damn. Oh, man. She loved his laugh. It was the freest sound she’d ever heard.
And then he sighed happily, finally, and shook his head.
