Page 47 of Resting Grump Face
“You been sitting like this the entire time, boss?” his tiny eyes ask quietly. “Didn’t know you were this adorable.”
I try to wiggle my arm a little and am happy when my hand manages to flip my driver off.
He laughs quietly and closes the partition again.
Carefully, I slide out from underneath the drooling princess on top of me. I open the door, take her into my arms, and carry her inside. At the reception, I find the same guy I met earlier, Paul. Except now he is hunched over his desk and for a moment, I’m worried he might be dead. His steady snore lets me know that isn’t the case. I consider kicking him a little to wake him up when I see a list of names taped to the desk. Sienna’s name is written next to the number 113. That must be her apartment number. I do a little crab-walk to enter the elevator, then take us to the first floor. When we get there, I crab-walk us out of the elevator, take a left turn and, in doing so, inadvertently smash her head against the wall.
Shit.
She wails a little, balls up like a hurt little kitten in my arms, and rubs her head. Then she opens her eyes and looks up at me with a questioning expression on her face.
“What the fuck?” she mouths.
“Sorry about that.” I carefully let her to her feet. “I guess we’re lucky there’s not much in there that could break.”
Sienna looks around, obviously wondering how she got here.
“You fell asleep because you can’t hold your liquor, so I was carrying you home.”
She hiccups and yawns at the same time, then straightens her dress. “Thanks for that… and for not taking advantage of, or killing me, I guess.”
“Oh, I took advantage,” I say and follow her to her door. “I took advantage of you not talking to me the entire ride here. It was great, all that peace and quiet.”
She grins a little and lets her forehead smack against the front door. “Bumping my head over there was the murder attempt then?”
I observe as she pulls her dress up and rummages through her nether regions. She almost looks like a drunk guy trying to take a leak in an alley. A second later, she pulls a jingling set of keys from the kangaroo pocket of her hoodie, but instead of opening the door, she drops them to the ground and groans.
I think I like drunk Sienna. She hasn’t hurled an insult at me once in the last hour. Unless her last comment was supposed to be an insult. I can’t even tell anymore. Then again, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find her actual insults riveting as well.
I bend down, put her arm over my shoulder, unlock the door, and help her inside. Sienna plunges down on her bed and I get a chance to take in our surroundings. The apartment is small and full of crap. The first thing I notice is the abundance of useless decoration: pillows, plants, more pillows, blankets, and trinkets all around. It looks like a unicorn threw up in here.
“Alright,” I say, unsure of what to do next. “Do you need anything before I go?”
“Well,” Sienna sighs and spins around on the bed, “I guess not.” The dress is now covering her head. An arm and a leg are hanging off the mattress. “Wait, yes. Maybe you can help me take this off?”
“Right.” I walk the two steps back to the bed, grab the extended leg and arm, and, without hesitation, flip her back over onto her belly.
She makes a wheeee-sound like a kid on a roller coaster, followed by a little retching.
“See, told you that you’d make me puke,” she says. “It just took a while.”
I stifle a laugh and stare down at her ass. It’s being hugged tightly by her yoga pants and I don’t think I have ever seen anything more slappable. It’s round, and plump, and annoyingly perfect.
It takes all my willpower and then some for me to ignore it. But I have to. I really, really have to. Quickly, I bend down to unzip her dress, then reach my arms around her, and, careful not to actually make her puke, lift her to her feet. Sienna steps out of the dress and walks into her bathroom.
Before she closes the door, she turns around. “He—” another hiccup cuts the y off. “Hey, would it be weird if I asked you to stay and read a bedtime story to me?”
I stare back at her. By now, the beer is getting to my head too, and it takes me a moment to process her question. I nod decidedly. “Definitely. That would be very weird.”
“Right,” she says curtly and closes the door.
I remain standing among the cacophony of colors in her room and listen to her brush her teeth. It’s like I’m glued to the ground. She’s humming along to some imaginary tune that sounds a lot like a song by Rick Astley. Then the door opens back up, and she lets out a scream when she sees me standing in the middle of her room still.
“You didn’t leave.”
“I said it would be weird, not that I wouldn’t do it. Plus, I didn’t think you could hear the bedtime story through the door.”
Sienna smiles and lets out an undecipherable sound before taking off her hoodie and jumping into bed. Her sports bra is tight, but there’s still some significant bouncing that makes it hard to have a clear thought. From across the room, Gordon Ramsey is giving me the side-eye.
