A Little Like Fate (Robin and Tyler 1)

There’s a countdown from three and then a loud bang. Miranda pops her roach in her mouth and I do the same. At first it’s a weird feeling, not at all what I expected. The roach is cold and its feet prickle my tongue. And it’s moving. A lot.

Oh shit. Everything comes back to me now, as if the mere existence of a filthy insect in my mouth is the cure to drunkenness. It wriggles around and tickles the hanging thing in the back of my throat. I hear a few peh, peh’s and other people spit their roach onto the white tarp.

But I’m only aware of one thing as my heart races so quickly it burns. I’m going to throw up. Thank god I will never see these people again.

I open my mouth hoping the thing will jump out, but it doesn’t. It just buries itself in the side of my cheek. With one flailing ounce of panic, I hop up and down, willing the thing to get the fuck out of my mouth.

“Spit it!” Miranda hisses in my ear. “You can do it! Just spit like it’s a watermelon seed.”

Oh right, spitting. That’s probably more effective than jumping up and down and flailing like a chicken with its head cut off. The roach stops wriggling in my mouth. Maybe it’s dead. For some reason the thought of a dead roach in my mouth is even worse than the thought of a live one. People are cheering and clapping and I think Miranda starts chanting my name.

“Rob-bin! Rob-bin! Rob-in!” Other people join in on the chant. “You can do it, mama-sita!” That was definitely Marcus’ voice.

Because it’s now or never—because it’s now or it’s drop dead from embarrassment with a roach that may or may not be dead in your mouth—I suck in a deep breath of air through my nose, position my tongue in the spitting position, purse my lips, spit and—

Trip over my heels, topple off the two-foot tall stage and soar through the air at the same speed as my roach. I don’t know where the roach lands, but I land on a pair of cowboy boots. A hand touches my back, and my arm and my hair. Either someone with three hands is helping me up, or several people are. Opening my eyes, I scramble to stand up, using the cowboy boots and the legs attached to them to gain my balance.

I think maybe I am still drunk. Roach sobriety only lasts so long as the roach is in your mouth. And now my cheek hurts.

A voice sounds in my ear as a hand wraps around my upper arm and helps me into a standing position. “First time at the Bug Bowl?” His voice is deep, with a hint of that country twang just like Elizabeth the waitress. Only this deep masculine twang isn’t as annoying.

“Er, yeah,” I say, surprised that my voice still works. My right cheek stings and burns and feels like it’s covered in dirt.

He laughs and releases my arms. “You smell like Big Rob’s margaritas.”

A burp rises to my throat and I try to play it off as lady-like as possible by covering my fist over my mouth as I stand on wobbly legs. “Also correct.”

I brush the dirt off my side, my back, my jeans and—well basically everywhere. With a cautious glance, I check my surroundings and find to my relief that the crowd has turned their attention to a young boy who is smiling from ear to ear as the milkman puts a gold medal around his neck. Miranda appears at my side, her lips tight in concentration as she picks grass and hay out of my hair.

“I’m taking you home,” she says.

I feel a sad puppy frown pull at my lips. “Are you mad at me?” My voice is child-like and weak. She should be mad at me. I’m the grown up here and I’m drunk and making an embarrassment of myself.

She shakes her head and mouths something to the guy behind me. Something that looks like, “Sheshoo ally dink,” but is probably more like, “She doesn’t usually drink.”

“My roach went eleven feet,” s

he says, gripping my shoulders and talking directly to me. I nod and burp again. “Okay, okay,” she laughs. “We need to get you home.”

I spin around to thank the guy who helped me stand up. “Thanks for the help.”

“Naw, it’s no problem,” he says. I get a good look at him now. He’s wearing tight cowboy type jeans that stretch over his massive, cheek-hurting cowboy boots and a white pearl snap long sleeved shirt with the sleeves shoved up to his elbows. His hair is dark brown and really short and his eyebrows are kind of severely shaped arches, but it works on him.

Okay, so I know I’m seeing double, and I’m wearing extra strength beer goggles tonight, thanks to Big Rob’s margaritas but—damn. Hot damn.

Some sliver of my self-preservation still lives in the back of my subconscious and it’s telling me to stop staring at this guy like he’s the shirtless Gap jeans billboard model guy off Interstate 45. So I look down.

And I scream.

“Get it!” I point to his jeans, where my still very much alive cockroach has begun the ascent up Cowboy’s leg. “Oh my god, get it off! It’s going to get you!”

Cowboy scoops it off his jeans with his hand, and then sets it on the ground. “There ya go,” he says soothingly to the roach. “You’re still alive. Not surprisingly.”

“Ugh, my spit is on that. Don’t touch it.”

“It’s a cockroach.” He lifts one of his perfectly shaped man eyebrows. “Your spit is the least gross thing about it.”

“Heh, haah,” I say, in an attempt to laugh, but it sounds like I’m some kind of helium balloon with a small leak in it.