Halfway through the second pitcher, Maude went up on stage to have her photo taken with the men who were now done with their show. As they picked her up and held her so that she was laying across four of them, she screamed, “Now this is the happiest moment of my life.”
After she’d had about twenty photos taken in different poses, we paid the tab and the men helped us out to the cars. Because she lived close to Jose, Ellis was driving Maude home, so with dramatic farewells where we acted like we wouldn’t see each other for five years – i.e. “Oh my god I’m going to miss you.” “You better call me, ok? Don’t leave it as long as you did this time.” “I can’t believe I’m not going to be sitting across the table from you anymore. This sucks so hard!” - Jarrod put me in his Explorer, and off we went with us all waving at each other until we were too far away to continue.
That’s when I realized exactly how drunk I was.
“I can’t feel my lips,” I giggled, making ‘puh, puh, puh’ noises.
“Exactly how drunk are you, honey?” Jarrod asked, thankfully sounding amused by it all, but this was Jarrod – he found most things amusing.
“I’m sloppy.”
Shooting me a quick glance, watching me play with a button that made my chair back go down, then come back up again, then down again. I’d thought it was the one for the window, so this was even more confusing for me. “Sloppy?”
“The sloppiest sloppy in the history of slop,” I muttered, pressing harder on the button. Then something hit me and I burst out laughing, with the seatbelt digging into me because my seat back was so far forward. “I’m a slopapotamus.”
And then I did something I didn’t even know was possible – I laughed myself to sleep. The next morning he’d describe how he looked over and there I was, face hanging down as I used the seatbelt to support my body because of the forward position of the back of the seat. In fact, apparently I’d let out a giggle every so often, too, even though I was out cold. Because he was afraid I’d be sick in my sleep or fall down the stairs for some reason, Jarrod slept beside me again. This time I didn’t sleep on top of him, but I did wake up the next morning lying on my back sideways across the bed, with my feet on his chest and my head hanging off the bed.ThirteenJarrodOne week later…
It had been two weeks since our first date, and since then I’d spent pretty much all of my time with Katy. Working together and living next to each other might have been a problem if we weren’t so busy with our families and friends.
On Wednesday, her uncle had dropped Elodie back because he’d gotten called away on business. Katy had discussed the bear thing with him prior to him coming over and he’d been onboard with our idea, preferably ASAP. So, after work we’d gone back to her place, and I’d sat on the couch waiting for them to arrive. Normally he carried her in, but this time she wanted to walk in on her own, which she did, carrying the bear under her arm the whole way.
Duke had been stoked to have his little buddy back, which was great to see because he’d been acting weird lately, almost like he was on guard, and we’d found some blood around his mouth but couldn’t see any injuries on him anywhere. Apparently, having his bud back was what he needed because he turned back into the happy dog he was, instead of the tense dog who lay down watching the door all the time.
When she’d seen me sitting there, Elodie let out a little shriek and had run over to me, something that I absolutely loved and had shown her the same excitement at seeing her back when I’d picked her up and blown a raspberry on her stomach. Like all kids, she’d noticed the box immediately, so with Leo and Katy watching, I’d let her open it and held my breath for her reaction.
I really needn’t have worried because she looked at her bear, down at my bear, back to hers, and then she’d lifted the new one out of the box, placed the old one in it, and had wrapped her arms around the new bear with her head resting on top of it. With those innocent actions, she’d stolen my heart all over again.
The bear issue was still getting to me, and I guess I felt guilty about taking her mom’s bear away from her. I really wasn’t doing that, it was just that it was rough, as in scratchy rough, and even though Leo had his friend fix the eyes, I was still scared she’d swallow one or it would fall apart and she’d be left with nothing of her mom’s. Doing it this way guaranteed that she had a bear she loved to cuddle, she wasn’t at risk of choking, and we could put the other bear somewhere safe so that nothing happened to it. Until Katy figured out where that was, it was in the box the Steiff bear had come in on top of the shelves in Elodie’s room.