“Oh my God, Chells! That isn’t even close to the truth! I never thought of you as an easy lay! If anything, I let my guard down faster because I thought that we had really connected on a deeper level. I never thought of you as a slut because, in my mind, you had decided to skip past the bullshit and just cut straight to the chase.” There was a certain sadness and tears in her eyes as I looked down on her face.
“Every time that I was your wing man, after you left with your newest conquest I would go home and polish off a whole quart of Bluebell Mint Chocolate Chip! There were tears on my pillow the next morning. But I did it all for you, asshole!”
“Holy shit! What the hell, Chells? Are you still in love with me?” When she didn’t immediately reply to my query, I changed my approach. “Why did you never speak up and tell me that I was hurting you?”
“Because shit for brains, I loved you so much that I would rather be forced to share you with another woman than to totally lose you forever! You’re a fucking moron!”
I hugged her close as she had a minor meltdown. She buried the side of her face into my chest and held onto me fiercely, almost as if her life depended on it while she shuddered and whimpered. As I stood there holding on to Chelsea in an effort to comfort her, I pondered my life. Everything was so simple just a few weeks ago. And now, in the blink of an eye, my whole world had been turned upside down and become extremely complicated. I honestly had no idea which way to turn from here. Chelsea has always been emotionally strong and she demonstrated that to me once again by regaining her composure in only a few moments. She dug in her purse and came up with some tissues for her eyes and nose.
“Come on Blockhead,” she muttered after she had cleaned herself up. “Let’s just get through tonight and we will play out the rest by ear.”
The drive home was quiet and subdued for me. I had to turn my radio off because the music playing was the song “So Caught Up In You” by .38 Special. All this time, I had no clue whatsoever that Chelsea’s feelings for me ran so deep. I searched my mind trying to remember what it was that was the original cause for our problems. Exactly, why did we drift apart in the first place?
The only reason that it mattered so much to me is that Chelsea was still a very important part of my life. But in my blind ignorance, I had pushed her to the back of my mind once Hannah entered the picture. Just what in the fuck was I supposed to do now? The more that I thought about it all, the more I was prepared to admit that the word ‘complicated’ was a fucking understatement.
“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive,” I muttered to myself as I was turning the corner for the street that my house was located on. At that moment, I could certainly identify with the character of Sir Ralph de Wilton. I stood accused of treason, but I was certain of my innocence.
When I pulled into my driveway, I pulled all the way through the carport and parked in front of my ramshackle garage. Rocky was waiting by the side door, anxious to get outside as soon as I unlocked it. He was just a blurred streak of Orange and White when he shot past my ankles in his bid for freedom.
“Don’t stay out all night!” I hollered after his disappearing phantasm.
Chelsea parked her Shelby on the curb in front of the house. She was walking up the driveway just in time to see Rocky make his mad dash for independence. Recognizing that some things never change, she laughed at my fur baby and shook her head. Thinking about how Hannah was going to make an appearance in a little more than an hour or so, I thought to myself, ‘You wouldn’t be running off to find your Minnie Cat if you knew that my girlfriend was on her way over!’
I turned towards my kitchen and began washing up my hands and forearms in my big kitchen sink after we had made our way inside. Chelsea elected to head for the guest bathroom to freshen up. I had the butcher shop down the street fix up some special cuts of boneless Pork Chops for me. Each one was at least an inch thick and probably weighed nearly a half of a pound apiece. I went into my refrigerator and grabbed the white butcher paper package that contained those along with the fixings for the sides. Tonight’s menu would consist of Breaded Pork Chops (Baked), Brussels Sprouts, Potatoes Au Gratin, and Baked Cinnamon Apple slices.
I kept a recipe book of sorts on my word processor. If I happened to find one online that I wanted to try or that I knew would be good just from the ingredients listed, then I would copy it and save it for later. I had printed out the 4 recipes that I would be using tonight. Chelsea wanted to help, so I handed her one of my extra aprons as well as the two recipes for the Brussels Sprouts and the Potatoes. Those two were the stove top recipes and the other two that I was working on were going to be in the oven.
Chelsea was up to her usual mischief. When two people are working in confined quarters, it is inevitable that they will get in each other’s way now and then. That’s not to say that my kitchen is small, because it isn’t. I think that when the home was originally built that the lady of the house envisioned having a breakfast table inside of the kitchen area. There was certainly enough room to put a table with four chairs in the center of the room and a little off to the side. As for myself, I couldn’t decide on having the small table or building an island in the middle with additional cabinet space. I really liked both ideas.
But getting back to Chelsea, any time that she wanted me to make room for her at the stove, instead of just speaking politely to me and asking me to move aside, she would come up beside me and give me a hip bump to shove me out of her way. We both giggled at her antics. Once I had battered and breaded the pork chops, I made up a casserole dish full of the Granny Smith Apple wedges, brown sugar and cinnamon. One of my favorite kitchen tools was my device that cored apples while simultaneously slicing them into 8 wedges. Depending on the variety of apple, I would sometimes have to follow up with a paring knife to clean up any hulls that were missed. But it sure would make fast work of a dozen apples in no time flat!
One of the great things about doing the Cinnamon Apples when you’re baking the pork is that they both use the same oven temperature setting. I had everything into the oven and baking away while Chelsea was still tending to her two dishes. I bussed her cheek and in a soft voice let her know that I was going to go change out of my work clothes into my button up shirt and jeans. After she acknowledged me, I went into my bedroom to freshen up my appearance.
Once I was in my comfortable clothing, I went into the Living Room and turned on my TV. My mood for the evening was totally out of whack. I had multiple problems plaguing me and no idea on how to resolve any of it. Chelsea’s revelations about her deep seated feelings for me had successfully thrown a monkey wrench into the machinery. Hannah claimed that she had everything with Haley in hand, but I was still uncertain of the outcome. Maybe having Chelsea over would keep Haley from freaking out on me all over again. But it could work against me as well. I was killing two birds with one stone as it were because I was hoping that Haley would keep a good grip on herself in front of a total stranger while also introducing Chelsea to my girlfriend and her sister.
I came across “Galaxy Quest” as I was flipping through the channels. Normally, a good comedy like that would have been right up my alley. But as I had mentioned just a moment ago, I wasn’t in the best of moods just then. As I continued searching though, I stumbled across a pot of gold. Some network executive had decided to do a “Horse Racing Movie Marathon” of sorts. The first movie in the rotation was “Seabiscuit”, followed by “Secretariat”. Then thrown in for comedic effect was “Let It Ride”. I paused Seabiscuit when the oven dinged, but Chelsea waved me away. She turned off the oven and the timer, but left the food inside to keep it warm.
She finished up her two dishes a moment later, then after kicking off her heels by the front door she joined me on the couch. She snuggled up to me and possessively looped her arm through mine as she leaned up against me, knees bent and both feet on the sofa. To a total stranger, you would have thought that we were a married couple lounging in our living room just before eating dinner. I should have thought about the consequences of Hannah and Haley catching the two of us in such an intimate, albeit innocent pose. But sometimes I’m just a dumb-ass and things like that just don’t ever occur to me.
Sure enough, at about a quarter till 7:00, I heard a car outside come up the driveway and park under the carport. Several minutes passed until I heard a key trying to work the lock on the side door. I felt like yelling out that it was already unlocked, but changed my mind and didn’t bother. It was too late for that warning anyway. Hannah stepped inside carrying a Revere Ware 8 quart Copper Bottom Stock Pot. Haley entered right on her heels carrying a brown paper bag that was emitting glass like clinking sounds as she walked.
Hannah briefly looked over at the two of us on the couch catching a good view of Chelsea snuggling me before setting the pot on the dining room table. Haley never made it to the table with her paper bag. She turned towards us and her bottom jaw dropped open in amazement. If looks could kill, Chelsea and I would already be dead and buried. I suddenly had a case of Déjà Vu hit me, but it wasn’t from a dream this time. The fire and the fury on Haley’s face was an instant repeat of the morning after I had rescued her and brought her safely home. She had just opened her mouth in preparation for one of her infamous tirades when Hannah grabbed her by the arm and spun her around.
“B.b.but.t.t,” she stuttered while pointing in our direction.
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