Seduction and Snacks by Tara Sivec Page B

irritably as I flicked my beer bottle cap across the table.
    Understanding seemed to wash over Jim’s face and he nodded his head. The anger I swore I saw flash in and out of his features during this entire exchange suddenly vanished.
    "Okay, now that you got all the touchy-feely shit out of the way, tell him about the creepy stalker shit you do," Drew said pointedly.
    "Fuck you. It's not stalker shit."
    "Right, because dragging my ass into every single fucking girly store and making me stand there while you smell everything that's made with chocolate, made near chocolate or made by something that shits chocolate isn't weird at all. And don't think I haven't forgotten about that last time a few months ago when the clerk asked us how long we'd been dating and you put your arm around me and said, "Well, sugar plum, this big, strong, sexy beast and I have been together for ages now," he said, mimicking the high-pitched voice I used at the time.
    Jim threw his head back and laughed and even I had to snicker at the memory. When Drew turned to run out of the store I smacked him on the ass. It really was priceless.
    "Alright, so after five years I can't get the smell of her out of my head. Big fucking deal. And it's not like I Google every store that sells lotion and just go down the list every weekend. If I happen to be in a store that sells lotions or soap, I go and smell a few to see if by some off chance I’ll find the one that smells like she did. I just can't pass up the chance to find that smell again. It drives me God damn crazy."
    Both men sat there staring at me. Fuck, I really was growing a vagina.
    "You, my friend need to bang this chick out of your system once and for all. We really need to find you a nice girl that won't fuck you over and will make you forget about the Count Chocula Cooter," Drew said with a sad shake of his head.
    "I may have just the girl for you," Jim said with a smirk.
    "Perfect!” Drew proclaimed with a hard smack to my back. “You see, little buddy? There just might be hope for you yet. Hey, maybe we can even convince her to slather some Three Musketeers on her vagina. We'll just tell her you have a Willy Wonka fetish," Drew said with a laugh, finishing off his beer.
    I kicked the leg of his chair while he leaned back on two of them. While I watched him windmill his arms to get his balance and not fall backwards onto the hardwood floor, I thought I heard Jim whisper something that sounded like, "That won't be necessary."
    ***
    When we got to Jim’ house, his fiancé came out of the kitchen to greet us and Drew and I both stopped dead in our tracks.
    "Hey, aren't you the girl from the bar last night?" I asked. It was the woman with blonde hair that hadn’t been afraid to call Drew out on his lame attempt at trying to get in her pants. "Liz, right?"
    As soon as she saw us her eyes got wide and her mouth flew open. But she gained her composure quickly and smiled.
    "Wow, I'm surprised you remembered. When you left the bar you were crying and singing at the top of your lungs ‘I got ninety-nine problems and the bitch is all of them’."
    I grimaced at the memory that frankly, I didn't remember at all.
    "Really, don't worry about it," she laughed when she saw my discomfort. "It was quite fun pointing and laughing at you all night," she teased.
    "Remind me never to get drunk around you again. I might wake up with my head shaved," I said with a laugh. Liz motioned for us to follow her the rest of the way into the living room.
    "Don't worry, I'd never do something like that," she promised with a smile as we all found a place to sit and she relaxed next to Jim on the couch.
    "Don't lie, sweetie," Jim laughed as he swung his arm around Liz and rested it on the back of the couch. "The night I met you, I had to pry a black Sharpie marker out of your hand because you were going to write "insert penis here" on some guy's cheek with an arrow pointing to his mouth. Wasn’t he passed out in some room in a