The Randy Romance Novelist (31 page)

Her right index finger ran up my neck to my chin where she ran it up and down my lips, as if I was Bugs Bunny looking at a rather attractive bunny for the first time. What was happening?

“There is always time to try something new.” She leaned over and got in my face. “Let’s get erotic, Henry. Let’s spice things up. Men like forward women, so take off my underwear and smell them.”

This wasn’t going to go well; I could feel it in the pit of my stomach. There was no way I was going to take off her underwear and smell them, even though she was dead set on the idea.

Not moving to remove said underwear, I gripped her tighter and forced her to sit on my lap. I turned her chin so she met my eyes. “Love, we don’t need to get erotic. It’s been a long night; why don’t we just cuddle up and turn on some
I Love Lucy
or something? I can make you some hot chocolate.”

“I don’t want hot chocolate!” she snapped, standing up from my lap.

Oh, shit.

“I want your dick, served to me on a silver platter of orgasmic pleasure. I want you to want to rip my underwear off like all the men in the books I’ve read, but not give me crack burn this time. I want the same kind of passion I write about, that I read about. It’s not there with us anymore. There is no passion. You don’t want me.” She started to tear up, and I wondered if I should come clean with my plans of proposing. Should I just go to my drawer and pull out the ring?

The thought was at the forefront of my mind when she took off her underwear and waved it in the air. “Smell them, for the love of Christian Grey, smell them. You watched the movie with me; remember how sensual it was when he did that?”

“That was my least favorite part,” I answered, forgetting about being sensitive.

“It was one of the best parts! He cares enough about her to smell the crotch of her panties. Do you care enough about me to smell my underwear?”

I stood there, frozen, not quite sure what to say. I grabbed the back of my neck and said, “I’m a little confused as to why smelling someone’s day old underwear means you care about them.”

Rosie tossed her hands in the air, throwing the underwear in frustration. “You don’t get it! It’s not about smelling underwear, it’s about wanting to smell it.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

Why was I poking the bear? I just didn’t understand why we were fighting over sniffing underwear.

“Fine, don’t smell it, don’t smell anything of mine. For the rest of your life, just stop smelling anything that is ever associated with me. You know what?” she pointed her finger at me. “Stop breathing through your nose right now, because you’re too close to smelling any of my essence and APPARENTLY YOU WANT NOTHING TO DO WITH MY ESSENSE!” she screamed, scaring Sir Licks-a-Lot, causing him to run in place on the hardwood floor until he gained grip and shot under the bed, hiding for cover. I wanted desperately to join him.

“Rosie.” She walked away from me and headed to the closet.

“Don’t you Rosie me.” Clothes were flung from the closest, decorating the room with prints, plaids, and jeans. “I was trying to spice things up for us, Henry. It’s like we’re just roommates; people who live together and occasionally kiss because . . . why the hell not? We’re not even in a relationship. You barely talk to me anymore. I had to find out at the party that you were working on some dick sleeve campaign.”

I walked over to the closet where she was packing a bag, and my heart seized in my chest. “What are you doing?”

“Leaving. What does it look like? We are not compatible anymore. If you didn’t want to be with me, then you should have just said it instead of doing this hot and cold relationship with me.”

“I want to be with you, Rosie.”

“Really?” she asked, lifting her tear-streaked face to look in my eye. “When we first got together, you wanted nothing more than to be inside of me, to be a part of me, but now I feel like I don’t even know you. You’re living some second life at work, doing Lord knows what . . .”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked, insulted.

She zipped up her bag and went to the bathroom, grabbing her cosmetics. “You know exactly what it means. How can a man just quit having sex with his girlfriend cold turkey after the amount of times we were doing it? You can’t. So you had to be getting it somewhere.” She shoved her toiletries in her bag and then spun around to look at me, hand on hip. “So, what is it?”

“What is what?”

“Are you having an affair with someone else or are you addicted to porn and would rather pump your own penis than be with me? Those are the only two things I can think of that would prevent you from . . .” She paused as an idea hit her. Her lips trembled and more tears fell from her eyes. “Oh, my God.”

This wasn’t going well . . . at all.

Whatever was brewing in her head wasn’t good; this whole conversation was a clusterfuck. I was mad, she was mad; I was insulted . . . clearly, she was insulted for some reason. How she could still think I didn’t think she was my entire world was beyond me.

“What are you thinking now?” My tone was annoyed, I wasn’t sweet, I wasn’t kind. Everything coming out of my mouth was completely wrong, but I couldn’t stop it.

“You’ve noticed, haven’t you?”

“Noticed what?”

“Oh, don’t you dare pretend!” She was completely irrational at this point. With a hefty hoist, she picked up her bag and headed for the front door, Sir Licks-a-Lot poking his head out from under the bed just in time to give her the middle claw before she walked away.

I shooed him with my foot and chased after Rosie. “Noticed what?” I repeated myself.

The entryway was still dark, so I was almost unable to see her put on her Uggs and grab her purse and keys.

“Rosie, stop. Tell me what the hell is going on. I’m so confused right now. Why can’t we just sit and watch a movie together? Not everything is about sex.”

“I know that, Henry, but sex is a big part. If you don’t desire me, then we are just glorified roommates, and honestly, I could go and live with Delaney if I wanted that. I’m sure she would spoon me when I needed it. What I want is a man who wants me, not one who judges me for putting on some weight.”

Slapped across the face, I stood there, shocked. “Are you fucking crazy? Do I not tell you every day how beautiful you are? How much I love you?”

“Words are just that, Henry. They are words; they mean nothing. It’s your actions that tell me everything. Don’t follow me.”

“Rosie, you can’t just run away from the problem.”

She opened the door and turned around to face me one last time.

“I’m not running, Henry. I’m finally giving you the out you wanted. This relationship was too fast and too sudden for someone like you. I see that now. I hope you had your fun at least, got what you were looking for.”

With that she left me, my heart shattered on the floor and my mind completely blank.

***

“Hello?”

“Derk, it’s Henry.”

“She’s here,” Derk said, not even having to hear me ask the question. “Delaney is passed out, so she went straight to bed. I take it you didn’t propose.”

“Not so much,” I sighed and slouched on the couch, Sir Licks-a-Lot at my feet. I ran my hand over my face, not sure where to go from here. “I don’t even know what happened. I wanted to have a simple night with her, but she wanted more than that. Something about sniffing her underwear . . .”

“Fifty Shades of Grey, nice.”

“I didn’t do it,” I interrupted Derk before he could go any further. “I’m not the kind of guy who can stand there, sniff a pair of panties and pull it off. I’m not alpha enough, even though I like to think I am at times.”

“You didn’t sniff the underwear?”

“No, I didn’t sniff the underwear.”

“Dude, you should have sniffed the underwear.”

What was with people?

“Why on earth would I have sniffed the underwear? Have you sniffed Delaney’s underwear? I wouldn’t rip my boxers off and ask Rosie to sniff my trunks. You just don’t do that.”

Derk sighed on the other end of the phone, as if to say, this stupid, stupid man.

“We’ve known each other for a while, Henry, and I’ve always admired your ability to read the situation and act appropriately, but you fucked up.”

“Because I didn’t sniff her underwear?” I shouted, so confused as to why this was even a thing.

“Not because of the act of not sniffing, but because you didn’t show that you cared enough to sniff.”

If I was animated, my head would have detached from my body and spun around five times right about now.

“Let me get this straight.” I pinched the bridge of my nose as I spoke. “By sniffing her underwear, I would have showed that I cared about her?”

“Exactly.”

Never would this ever make sense to me. Not even if the Pope told me it was God’s way of showing appreciation. Sniffing underwear to show you care? Were people going to make shirts with sniffing taglines on them now?

I sniff, therefore I care.

*Underwear Symbol* + *Nose Symbol* = 4EVA *heart symbol*

Sniff, sniff, kiss, kiss, ways to love your little miss.

“This is so fucked up. What happened to telling a girl you loved her? Why isn’t that enough? Why can’t we just do this the old fashioned way, believe in each other’s words and know they mean more than any action I could ever perform?”

“Not in our generation, man. Words are taken for granted. Back in the day, you told someone you loved them, you married them, and you died next to them. There are so many people out there now who use those three sacred words loosely. They’ve lost their meaning.”

“They haven’t to me. When Rosie tells me she loves me, it’s like she sucker punches me every time, because I still can’t believe I could ever deserve such commitment from her, such trust. When she tells me she loves me, she’s handing me her fucking heart. I would never do anything to fuck that up.”

“Besides not sniffing her underwear,” Derk chuckled.

“Not the time, man. So not that time.”

“Sorry,” he sobered up. “Listen, you have to think about who you’re dealing with here. Rosie has had such huge expectations of love her entire life because of the amount of stories she’s read and movies she’s watched. Love to her is a grandiose emotion that needs to be expressed in a way only an eleven-million-dollar production can accomplish. Tack on the fact that she’s hormonal and super emotional, and that only adds onto her expectations.”

“You’re right about that.”

“Was this fight just about sniffing the underwear?”

I walked to the kitchen and grabbed a beer; it was going to be a long night and a little liquid encouragement would help me get through this talk.

“No, it just started with that. I’ve been holding out on her until I was able to get through this promotion and go see a doctor with her. She’s been complaining about . . . lady things down there, so I wanted to make sure all was right. She took that as I didn’t want to have sex with her.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. Why didn’t you just talk to her, confront her about being pregnant, tell her about the promotion? Kind of like I told you in the first place. You know, communication goes a long way in relationships.”

If we were sitting next to each other, I would have dick-tapped him by now. I wasn’t an idiot; I knew what I was doing was backwards, I just didn’t think it would backfire this badly.

“Wow, thanks, Captain Obvious.”

“Don’t get mad at me. If it was so obvious to talk to your girlfriend, then why the hell didn’t you do it?”

“Because I was hoping I could take care of everything before it all got out of hand. Obviously, I was wrong. You know how long I’ve wanted to propose to her. I couldn’t do it before the promotion because I wasn’t sure if I would get it, and once I found out I got the promotion, I didn’t have any time to prepare. I didn’t want to propose after I talked to her about the baby, because in her state, she would assume I was only proposing because she was pregnant. Knowing her, she would say something asinine like I was just making sure our child wasn’t a bastard.”

“That sounds about right.”

“So, I’ve been kind of fucked in this whole situation.”

“You could always wait a year or so to propose, then it doesn’t look like a shotgun wedding.”

That wasn’t an option. Rosie needed to be my wife as soon as possible. I wanted her tied to my last name.

“No, would you want to wait that long to get married to Delaney?”

“Hell no. I can’t believe I’ve waited this long to tie her down. Then again, she was more of a wild one in college. I had to tame her first, and I’ve barely done that.”

Delaney definitely needed taming. I remember when I first met her in college; I couldn’t understand how she and Rosie were such good friends. Rosie was soft spoken and Delaney didn’t care what flew out of her mouth. Derk had a real hard time trying to get her to settle. If he had proposed to her right off the bat, there was no doubt in my mind he would have freaked her out, and she would have sent him packing.

Rosie was the opposite. She was a lover, a believer in commitment, in the happily ever after. She believed in soulmates; I just hoped she still believed I was the one for her.

“I don’t even know what to do now. If I propose, she’s going to think it’s my way of making up to her, not something meaningful. Before she left, she said actions are more important than words. Proposing is an action, but I want it to be an action that is remembered for the love I have for that woman, not for making up after a fight.”

“Man, you’re in a real pickle.”

“You’re helpful,” I replied, sarcastically. “You don’t have any words of wisdom?”

Silence stretched across the line while Derk thought about what he was going to say. “I would have sniffed the underwear.”

“You’re the absolute fucking worst right now.”

He chuckled and then said, “Listen, let me feel her out tomorrow, and I’ll report back. Take tonight to think of some plans. We’ll convene later.”

“Okay.” I paused for a second, not wanting to get all girly on Derk, but nervous about my future. “Do you think Rosie and I are done? She left me, Derk.”

“That she did,” Derk confirmed. “But Rosie is also dramatic, and I think she wants a dramatic response. Think big, think books. From knowing her, I will tell you this right now, you will always be chasing after the happily ever after with her.”