I knew exactly what would be in the box and my hands shook and my eyes filled with tears as I closed the front door and opened the lid. Sure enough, the box was filled to the brim with purple and red Skittles. Not only was he stepping up his game around the house before I even had a chance to sit down and talk to him, he was starting to do the little things that I loved the most like giving me my favorite treats.

And tonight, he had given me another favorite treat: kissing my collarbone.

I can’t wipe the smile off of my face as I enter the kitchen and find Liz and Claire seated at the table, arguing over who is going to win the game.

“Ladies, ladies! No more arguing. The winner has just entered the room,” I tell them with a smile as I sit down at the table with them.

“Well, it’s about f**king time you got your confidence back!” Liz tells me. “Bartender, pour us a round of shots!”

Jackson laughs and turns toward the counter, filling up drinking glasses with a few inches of black cherry vodka.

“You know he’s not a bartender, right? He’s a carpenter,” I whisper to Liz.

Jackson comes back over to the table and places a glass in front of each of us.

“Shut up and do your shot!” Liz tells me.

We down our shots, let out a cheer, and Jackson begins our questions.

~

“Alright, for five points, making your score a grand total of forty-five, Drew – what would Jenny say is her favorite place to make love?” Jackson asks.

“VAGINA! IN HER VAGINA!” Drew screams excitedly.

Jackson looks over at me and nods, and I flip over my card for everyone to see my answer.

Jim and Liz groan from their spots on the floor, and Carter and Claire start to laugh while Drew bounces up and down and gives me a high five when he sees the word “vagina” written really big on my card.

“WOOOHOOO! We are kicking ALL of your asses!” Drew shouts as I throw my card down to the discard pile on the floor.

I don’t know why I was so worried about this game. No matter what, Drew and I know each other very well. It doesn’t matter if we aren’t on the same page or even reading the same book. Which we never are anyway because I like romances and Drew only reads the funny pages, and it just occurred to me that that statement is kind of dumb. Who reads the same book at the same time? I takes me months to read a book and other people might read fast. That’s just weird.

Anyway, we were really kicking everyone’s ass and unfortunately, poor Jim wasn’t going to be plowing the back field tonight since he and Liz are currently in last place with only ten points.

“Jim, who did Liz say is better at handling money?” Jackson asks him.

Jim chuckles and finishes off his drink, setting the glass on the coffee table next to him.

“Man, this is an easy one. Me!”

Liz flips her card over and then smacks Jim in the chest with it.

“Are you kidding me? You went to the store two weeks ago and bought seventy-two bottles of Windex. Who the f**k even USES seventy-two bottles of Windex in their entire life?” Liz complains, throwing her card down on the floor.

“IT WAS ON SALE!” Jim yells at her. “I saved money in the long run!”

“We will DIE before even half of that is used. You WASTED money!” Liz yells back.

“Alrighty then, moving on. Carter, for five points, bringing your score up to thirty-five, if you told Claire that tomorrow you would do one item from her ‘Honey-Do List’, what would she pick?” Jackson asks.

Carter leans over and kisses Claire on the cheek and answers confidently, “Install the new sink in the guest bathroom.”

Claire leans away from him and gives him a dirty look before flipping her card over.

“I installed the sink myself three weeks ago. What did I tell you JUST THIS MORNING that you needed to fix before I smothered you in your sleep and set fire to your Sopranos DVD collection?”

Carter leans forward and looks at her card.

“Ohhhhhh, right. Move the heavy bag I hung in the middle of the garage because now you can’t park in there. My bad,” Carter says apologetically.

“Okay, final question and for the win. - Drew, you’ve run out to the corner store late at night to pick up milk. You decide while you’re there to get a treat for Jenny. What did she say you would buy her?” Jackson asks.

I look over at Drew and he looks over at me and we both smile.

“Skittles, Funyons and a Chinese finger trap!” Drew says without looking away from me.

I flip my card over and everyone voices their complaints when they see Skittles, Funyons, and a Chinese finger trap written on my card.

“With fifty points, the winners are Drew and Jenny!” Jackson shouts.

Drew and I both jump up from the couch and start hugging and jumping up and down. Before I know it, his lips are on mine and his hands are pressed against my lower back, pulling my body up against his. I don’t even think twice before sliding my tongue past his lips and swirl it around his. He tastes like whiskey and a hint of the peppermint toothpaste he used earlier, and I want to swallow him whole. I clutch the front of his shirt in my fists and pull him even closer, sucking on his tongue just the way he likes. Drew groans into my mouth, his hands sliding down toward my ass. I bend my knees slightly and prepare to jump up and wrap my legs around his waist when the sound of throats clearing and Jim yelling, “GET A ROOM!” breaks through our haze of lust.

We pull apart, righting our clothes and fixing our hair.

“Now that I’m thoroughly disgusted, tell me what the deal with the Chinese finger trap is,” Carter says as he starts collecting all of the answer cards into one big pile.

“Oh, it’s just this thing we do every once in a while,” Drew explains as he leans down to grab his drink from the table and take a sip. “I put it on my penis and Jenny tries to take it off without using her hands. It gets a little dicey there every once in a while and I’ve gotten some killer paper cuts on my taint, but she gets it off every single time.”

Carter starts howling with laughter and pointing at Drew. “Dude, do you have a teeny tiny weenie?! Those things aren’t any bigger than my pinkie finger!”

Everyone joins in on the laughter, and I pat Drew’s back in sympathy.

“FUCK YOU! THEY COME IN DIFFERENT SIZES!” Drew yells at them.

“Yeah, needle dick and pinky peen!” Jim says with a laugh.

“Jenny, baby, tell them I don’t have a small penis,” Drew wails.

“Oh, he totally doesn’t. I get c**k jaw when I give him bl*w j*bs,” I tell them.

“Don’t you mean lock jaw?” Liz asks.

“No, c**k jaw. When you’re giving a bl*w j*b and you have to open your mouth so wide your jaw cocks,” I explain to them.

“You c**k a gun, you don’t c**k your jaw,” Claire laughs.

“You don’t lock your jaw either! Who the hell has a lock on their cheek? That’s just stupid. Drew has a big penis. That is a fact.”

Jim shakes his head and smacks Carter in the arm. “You had to ask the story behind the Chinese finger trap. Now my wife is going to have nightmares tonight about those things and jaws with pad locks stuck through them.”

“And my giant penis. Don’t forget my giant penis,” Drew says, looking over at me and beaming proudly.

Chapter 27 – Irish Car Bombs

“Am I dreaming? Somebody pinch me!” Drew exclaims as we walk through the doors of the local strip club, Bare Naked Ladies. “It’s been, one week since you cooked for me. Rocked your head to the side and said I’m hungry.”

Drew’s off-key singing makes everyone groan and tell him to shut up. He’s been singing that song the whole way to the strip club.

“For the love of all that is holy, stop singing that f**king song! Especially if you don’t know the words,” Jim tells him as we all stand in the doorway.

I don’t remember exactly whose idea it was to go to a strip club. After the game, we all had started doing shots and everything got really funny. When someone suggested a strip club, we thought it sounded hilarious. So we had called for a taxi, piled in, and had it take us into town.

“Oh my God, why is the floor sticky?” Liz asks with a disgusted look on her face as she gently picks her foot up and looks at the bottom of her shoe.

“Do you really want me to answer that?” Jim asks her as he throws his arm over her shoulder and they lead the way into the club.

Drew and I have been to plenty of strip club’s before so this is old news to us. It’s been a really long time since we’ve been to one though. Just seeing the flashing, colorful lights and hearing the loud music brings back so many good memories, and it makes me sad that things between us have been so strainered lately.

As soon as I have that thought though, I feel Drew’s hand slide into my own and we lace our fingers together, following behind Jim and Liz as they find a table close to the stage and we all take seats.

We won the game! We really do know each other, and I’m starting to forget all of the reasons why I haven’t been in the mood for dirty sex lately. Even though he can act like a big child most of the time, he loves me and he takes good care of me.

“Drew, Jenny! Oh my gosh! I haven’t seen you guys in ages!”

We turn and see Candy, the server whose section we always used to sit in when we would come here.

“Candy! We were hoping you’d be here tonight,” Drew tells her as she gives me a quick hug. “I wore your favorite shirt just in case.”

Drew turns and holds his shirt out for her so she's a picture of a woman upside down on a stripper pole with the words: I support single moms.

He had made the taxi driver run by our house on the way to the club just so he could change.

Drew makes introductions and when everyone else orders beers, Drew and I look at each other and then at them.

“Oh no. You aren’t drinking just beer at a strip club. Shots only, folks!” Drew tells them before giving Candy an order for six Little Beers.

“It’s okay, you guys can look at the chick dancing on the stage. You won’t go blind or anything,” I tell Liz and Claire with a laugh.

Ever since we sat down they have looked everywhere but at the topless woman gyrating on the pole four feet in front of them.

It feels good to finally know more about something than my friends.

Claire is the first to turn and look and Carter rubs his hand in soothing circles on her back.

“I really should be a lot drunker for this right now,” she mutters.

As soon as she says that, Candy is back with the shots we ordered, along with another round of shots and six dark beers that she sets in front of each of us.

“You two look like you could use a little more alcohol to get through this night,” she says to Liz and Claire with a smile. “The Little Beers are the ones on the left and to your right is everything you need for an Irish Car Bomb. Drop that shot glass with the amber liquid into the beer and immediately start chugging. Enjoy!”

Candy walks away and we all pick up our Little Beers.

“What the hell are in these?” Jim asks.

“It’s called Liquor 43 with a splash of cream on top to make it look like foam,” Drew tells them.

“It looks like jizz,” Carter says, bringing the shot to his nose and sniffing it.

“Don’t worry. It doesn’t taste like jizz. It’s sweeter,” I tell him. “Well, except for that one time we went to a bulk candy store and Drew ate two pounds of gummy worms. It tasted like cherry-lime then.”

Drew grabs the seat of my chair and pulls it closer to his so he can put his arm on the back of my chair.

“Remember we played that fishing game with the gummy worms? We used my old fishing line from when I was little that we found in the basement, and I tied the worm to the end and shoved it-”

“No! Please God, no,” Claire says as she puts her hand up to stop Drew from going any further. “Hurry up and make a f**king toast before I puke on this table.”

We all raise our arms in the air and Drew clears his throat.

“To na**d chicks on poles and putting our poles into na**d chicks!”

Claire and Liz let out disgusted sounds before we all do our shots.

We immediately follow them up with the Irish Car bombs and then order two more rounds of car bombs right after since everyone loves them.

Fifteen minutes later we are all beyond buzzed and Claire and Liz are finally enjoying their environment.

“Oooooh, she’s pretty. I wonder if her boobs are real,” Claire says, pointing to a blonde that just got off of the stage. “Excuse me, can I touch your boobs?”

Carter clutches on to the front of Drew’s t-shirt and stares as Claire calls the blonde stripper over, and she immediately agrees to let Claire touch her boobs.

“If this is a dream, never, ever wake me up,” Carter mumbles as he watches wide eyed while Claire cups the girl’s boobs.

“Welcome to the dark side, my friend,” Drew says, clapping him on the back.

Liz suddenly gets up from her chair, walks around the table, and straddles my lap, resting her elbows on my shoulders and pushing her boobs into my face.

“I’m really drunk,” Liz tells me.

“I know, honey,” I reply with a laugh as I wrap my arms around her and pat her back.

“I think I should give you a lap dance,” she says as if she’s discussing painting her nails.

“Yes, yes you should. What a super idea!” Jim says, pulling his chair around the table and sitting right next to us.

“Okay. I’m gonna do it. Don’t ask me to have sex with you though, Jenny. Even though this is gonna be awesome, I like penis,” Liz informs me.