Waiting for The Other Shoe to Drop--Part 14

By the time we ordered dinner, I was slightly drunk. Honestly, I’m a super lightweight when it comes to alcohol and tequila, forget about it. Rich seemed to enjoy my tipsy behavior, which included me sweating a lot.

            “I’m surprised you’re a nice drunk,” he said.

            “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked as took a bite of a crispy chicken tender. I don’t know if it was the alcohol or if that was the best chicken tender I’d ever eaten.

            Rich toyed with his pasta and watched me. I put the remainder of the chicken in my mouth and chewed slowly. My body was heating up under his gaze and that was definitely a result of the alcohol. I wiped my mouth with a napkin and said, “What?”

            “Hungry much?”

            “I’m sorry am I not supposed to eat?”

            “The way you looked eating that chicken tender and the things you were talking about before have me thinking of something else I’d rather do than sit here and eat dinner.”

            “And what does a chicken tender have to do with. . .” I stopped short, thinking how I must have looked with that juicy piece of chicken in my mouth.  “Is that so?”

            “But I was supposed to sit here and prove I want more than to just have sex with you.”

            Laughing, I nodded. “And I’m not trying to seduce you while I eat this food. I just want to soak up the alcohol. When’s the last time you had a real relationship and what do you consider a real relationship? Moreover, why do you think we could have something?”

            “Who uses ‘moreover’ in a regular conversation?” He laughed then leaned in to me. “I guess the start of a real relationship involves getting to know the other person and spending time together. You know, women make it hard to have real relationships.”

            Oh, really? I was about to sober up quickly. “How so?”

            “Because y’all have these lists that no one can live up to, then you expect men to be mind readers and . . .”

            “You should stop while you’re behind. Because what you’re saying right now is the same bullshit that a cheating man says when he gets caught.”

            “And what does a cheating woman say?”

            “Nothing, because we’re better at it than you men are.”

            Rich leaned back in the booth and folded his arms across his chest. “Now, who sounds like the cheater spouting bullshit?”