Page 46 of Love Unavoidable
Chapter 12
ethan
If at any time in my life you told me that in the future I would conduct a stakeout to watch a girl—who I’m not together with, barely speaking to, and haven’t even fucked yet—on a date, I would have told you it was absolutely, positively impossible. But when Brad told me that Kat had texted him about Sadie having a date tonight, he came right over to tell me.
Because, bro code.
But the first thing he said after that was not to let it upset me. Second thing he told me was not to get involved.
Yet, here I am, upset and sitting on my bike with my helmet on and my visor down watching Sadie as she ooohs and aaahs over something her date is telling her. There is no way that this guy is that interesting. He’s wearing corduroy pants. Men who wear corduroy pants are never interesting. In fact, the only thing that is ever interesting about them is the little noise their pants make when their fleshy thighs rub together. Because guys who wear corduroy pants always have fleshy thighs that rub together.
As though to dispute my every thought, Sadie laughs out loud at something corduroy pants says. Like throws her head back and laughs. And he’s laughing too. Pleased with himself for having made her laugh.
What an asshole.
Their food arrives, Sadie had ordered some kind of burger, at least that’s what it looks like from here. And corduroy pants ordered something flat on his plate, I can’t see it. Probably fish. He looks like the kind of guy that would order fish at a burger joint.
I need to get closer. I can’t tell what’s going on. I can’t hear what they are saying. What he is saying that is so entertaining.
My phone buzzes with an incoming call. I answer it through the Bluetooth in my helmet.
“Yeah.”
“Tell me you didn’t do it,” Brad says.
“I didn’t do it.”
“Okay, but did you do it?”
“Do what exactly?”
His words are muffled, and I can barely hear what he is saying.
“Why are you whispering? Speak up I can’t hear you.”
“Well, if I speak up then you risk Kat hearing me, and you don’t want her knowing what you are up to, do you?”
“Good god, no. Whisper away my friend,” I say.
“Did you follow Sadie on her date? Are you staking it out now?”
“Yep.”
“Oh, E. This is a new low, even for you.”
“I can’t help it. I mean, she won’t date me, but she’ll date literally every other asshole in all of San Soloman? What’s that about?”
“Dude, you got me. I will never understand women. Not as long as I live. And each time I think I have one part figured out, it changes. Every bad mood is different even though they are all just bad moods. Every hormone fluctuation time of the month is different even though it’s the same thing month after month. Basically, every goddamn thing a woman does is different each time and you are still supposed to know how to decipher it.”
“Uh, everything okay, man?” I ask.
“Yeah. It’s just, I do most of the laundry, right? And even though week in and week out I wash the dish towels with all the other clothes and nothing has ever happened from it. Suddenly now that she knows that I do that, it’s like the end of the fucking world. Apparently, clothes that have touched your ass should never be in the same vicinity as towels that will dry your dishes. Even if all they are doing is oscillating together in a great big vat of hot soapy fucking water.”
“Damn, dude.”
“Oh, and don’t even get me started on how it was okay to put the gray towels in the guest bathroom last week, but this week it has to be the blue towels.”
“Women,” I say.
