On that, I opened my contacts, going down to “H,” finding Auggie’s name (I had his number because we had a group text string going, mostly funny GIFs, hangout invites, things like that, this would be the first time I used his number outside that string) and then hitting the little phone icon.
I’d read somewhere you never put your phone anywhere near your head (or left it resting in your lap, or in your pocket, or your bra—EMFs were a bitch).
So I hit speaker.
It rang once.
In that minuscule amount of time, I considered hanging up, rushing to the sliding glass door and throwing my phone in the backyard, so I not only couldn’t hear Auggie ringing me back, if he used some of his commando resources to locate my phone, he’d see it in the backyard and think I lost it there.
Sadly, as I contemplated this preposterous notion, he picked up.
“Pepper?”
God!
What did I do now?
I went for casual.
“Hey.”
“Is everything okay?”
He sounded worried.
He was so…totally…a mountain.
“Yes. Everything is…well, I just, you know, I dance at night so there won’t be a lot of time to grab a bite after Juno’s Thanksgiving thing.”
“Right,” he said softly.
“So I’m going to take a personal day. We have Holly in the show now, and she’s good at filling in.”
Holly was our new MC and house comedian.
Leave it to Dorian (the manager at the club where I worked, Smithie’s) to hire a gorgeous female comedian to MC a sexy revue that used to be a strip show.
She’d been a hit.
Then again, everything Dorian touched at the club seemed to turn to gold.
“You’re taking a personal day to go out with me,” Auggie said.
“Do you…I mean, do you still want to grab a bite?” I asked.
“Abso-fucking-lutely.”
At his response, I suddenly felt so giddy, I almost giggled.
What was the matter with me?
“You got a place you wanna go or do you want me to pick?” he inquired.
“You pick. And before you ask, I like practically everything,” I told him.
“Great.”
“Yeah, great.”
Okay.
What now?
“I’m glad you decided to say yes, sweetheart,” he said.
“I’m, uh…glad you’re glad. I’m glad too.”
He sounded amused when he replied, “Good we’re both at that place.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Man, I completely forgot how hard this was.
“So, did this decision happen over cinnamon rolls?” he asked.
I felt my eyes get big.
Then I started laughing, not giggling, but genuinely laughing, and I wandered to my pink couch and threw myself on it.
“My cinnamon rolls are magic,” I shared with no attempt whatsoever at humility.
“I’ve heard that about them.”
“I’ll, well…make you some sometime.”
God!
Did that sound like I was alluding to the fact he’d spend the night sometime?
“I’ll look forward to that,” he said, not sounding lewd, just like he was looking forward to it.
Okay, well…I was being a dork and he couldn’t miss it.
So, since I took this step, might as well face the rest head-on.
“You’re going to have to go easy on me,” I stated. “Because it has just occurred to me that I haven’t flirted for nearly a decade.”
I heard his chuckle, then, “Just be you, Pepper. I’ve been waiting for this call for three years. And that’s what I’ve been waiting for. To connect with you.”
How sweet.
“Three years?” I queried.
“Has it been five?” he teased. “It’s felt like five, but I didn’t want to go there.”
I laughed again. “It’s only been months.”
“A lot of months.”
He was right.
And I was still laughing. “Okay, a lot of months, but not three years.”
“No,” he agreed. “Not three years.” Then, “Juno back with her dad this week?”
I turned to my side to get more comfortable, set the phone on the cushion and started playing with my hair as I replied with a glum, “Yeah.”
“Sorry, baby. That sucks.”
“Every other Monday it’s hard not to throw myself a pity party.”
“I can imagine.”
And then…
It happened.
After that, Auggie and I talked for nearly two hours.
I knew what he was in the middle of on Netflix (Mindhunter). He knew I was doing an epic catch-up of a show my parents wouldn’t let me watch back in the day (Girlfriends).
I knew he was born and raised in Denver.
He knew I was too.
I knew he was renting his pad, a duplex in the Baker District, from some mutual friends/acquaintances, Indy and Lee Nightingale.
He knew I’d bought my place two years ago and just a few months back put the finishing touches on the décor (for now, there was never any true finish to décor, something else he knew since I told him).
I also spent a fair amount of time waxing on about how perfect Juno was.
He spent that time listening to me wax on, as well as agreeing.
And so it went.
It was only when he said, “Sorry, baby, but I got a thing I gotta do for Hawk that means I gotta be in the office at five tomorrow. I need to get a shower and hit the sack,” that I realized how long we’d been talking.