Page 9 of Beautiful Crazy

“I ran into the lamp and broke it and then the lightbulb above the sink was burnt out. But wait a minute.” She cackles. “Were you seriously using an oldBatmanmovie quote to try and scare an intruder? And not just any old quote, but like…ourBatmanquote?” She snorts again and howls even harder.

Emily knows I used to watch the old Michael KeatonBatmanmovies with my dad and would recite that Jack Nicholson as the Joker quote all the time. I’ve made Emily watch it so much that she learned the entire scene and now it’s just something we do.

“Alright, alright, laugh all you want. You could’ve just said it was you. We have other light switches you know.”

She must finally find a switch because the light above the stove turns on shedding us both in a warm glow, but as soon as it comes on, it goes out again and Emily’s belly-laugh fills the room. “Oh, my God, I can’t breathe. My eyes! Are you punking me right now? Could this day get any weirder? My eyes! MY EYES!”

“Huh? What are you talking about? No, I’m not punking you. What’s wrong with your eyes? Did you get glass in them? Hold on. Don’t move.” I move around her to the stove and turn on the light but when I do her eyes are covered. And she’s mumbling.

“Don’t touch another man’s rhubarb. Don’t even look at it. Don’t touch it. Don’t look at it. Why is your rhubarb even out? Please don’t swing the rhubarb, oh, my God. I used to like rhubarb…like, actual rhubarb and now…my eyes! My eyes!”

“Emily, what on earth are you…oh fuck.”

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Realizing what the problem is, I grab a tea towel hanging off the stove and hold it in front of my junk. “Shit. I’m sorry Em. I’m so sorry. I wasn’t—”

“Naked. You’re totally whole ass naked and your rhubarb was showing.”

“It’s just a penis, Emily. I was asleep for God’s sake. Your crash woke me up.”

Usually, I would laugh at a situation like this, but the fact of the matter is, she’s laughing at the sight ofmypenis and my penis is no laughing matter.

Nobody laughs at Emmett Fox’s penis.

It is meant to be gawked at and marveled over.

Definitely not laughed at.

She nods, her eyes still covered by her hands. “Yeah, okay. No, wait.” She shakes her head. “You sleep naked? Who sleeps naked in the middle of January? I mean who sleeps naked at all? Why the hell don’t you wear pants? What if you fart while you’re sleeping only it’s not just a fart? You know a fart is basically like shit blowing you a kiss, right? You don’t want your bed full of shit kisses so why don’t you wear pants? It’s like a mask for your butthole.”

I have to chuckle because if she could see herself right now, standing here in front of me with her mittened hands over her eyes, still bundled up in her pink winter coat, withher matching pink hat still pulled down over her ears covering her chocolate brown hair and talking to me about butthole masks…she would tell me how crazy she thinks she is.

I think she’s adorable.

“First of all, my butthole is not up for discussion, but I’ll have you know I keep myself very clean. Also, sometimes I don’t like to wear pants to bed, Em, and you weren’t even here, so it wouldn’t have mattered except you came in and knocked shit all over the place and I thought you were a burglar and so I didn’t have time to pull on my pants!”

“But it’s your penis, Emmett and oh, my God, I respect you and all that, and you’re my very best friend, but there are some parts of you that I don’t need to see and I’m pretty sure your penis is one of them. Also, you totally broke rule number six.” She gestures to the refrigerator with her whole head since her hands are busy covering her face. “So, uh…if you could just, you know…” She waves one hand dismissively. “Tuck that in somewhere.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. Just give me a minute.” I move around her and run back to my bedroom to grab a pair of sweatpants. But not before I hear her response.

“Yes, even Jesus Christ himself covered his penis when he healed the sick, Emmett! And probably all the other times!”

When I reappear in the hallway, Emily has a dustpan and broom and is cleaning up broken shards of the fallen lamp she bumped in the dark. “I think there are lightbulbs in the cupboard near the sink. That’s where I put them last time, anyway.”

I open the cupboard and with the lights on, can easily spot the box of lightbulbs. While Emily continues to clean up the broken lamp, I take the moment to replace the blown bulb above the sink.

Because that’s something we do at two-thirty-ish in the morning.

“Why are you home so late…or…early anyway?”

“Ugh,” she groans. “Because a couple of Lyle’s friends just magically appeared at the bar, so we were there until almost one and then he took me back to his place and we were all giggly and I thought maybe I was at least going to get a happy ending out of the deal but then I had to open my mouth and tell him about the raccoons and all of a sudden he freaked out and said he had a meeting early in the morning and we should probably just go our separate ways.”

“Raccoons? What does that mean? Is that a sex thing?”

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