Page 46 of The Plus Ones
“You want to eat, or do you need to sleep?”
“Mmmph” is his answer.
“Okay, well, it’s a sandwich, so you can eat it later.”
I eat my sandwich on the daybed out on the veranda. I could use a nap myself, but I decide to text my parents to ask them if The Card Game they “invented” for me and my brother is actually Spades.
MOM: Who told you?
DAD: Took you long enough to figure it out, hon.
ME: You said you made it up for Paul and me!
MOM: We wanted you guys to think that you were special and that we were creative parents. Who told you?
ME: No one.
MOM: Well, we can’t wait to hear more about him.
ME: I’m in Antigua right now, btw.
DAD: Where?!
ME: The Caribbean. With Aimee and her husband and a few other friends. It’s a group vacation thing. It’s gorgeous here.
MOM: Roxanne, are you there with a boy?!
ME: Nope. Gotta go! Love you!
DAD: He sounds like trouble to me.
MOM: You say that about all the boys.
DAD: And I’m right every time.
MOM: Don’t listen to him! Have fun. Oh hey, Dad, bring me the big red salad bowl from the dining table.
DAD: Where is it?
MOM: On the dining table. In the dining room.
DAD: I don’t see it.
MOM: OMG never mind. I’ll get it.
ME: You guys. Stop.
MOM: Oh sorry, dear! Have fun!
DAD: Not too much fun.
When I wake up from the nap that I didn’t mean to take and the sex dream that I did not mean to have, Keaton is standing nearby, saying my name quietly, over and over again. Just like he did last night and sort of like he was doing in my sex dream just now but without all the heavy breathing.
“Hey.”
“Hi,” I say, rubbing my eyes and trying to look like someone who totally was not just dreaming about getting plowed by him. “Your shoulders feel better?”
“They really do. I can move and everything. That stuff is magic. Thank you.”
