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“I mean, can you believe that he tried to get with my sister? That’s just not right,” your friend exclaimed, clearly deeply upset by her situation.
Wine nights had been a sacred ritual between you and your friends since your college days. Between routine catch-ups, book clubs, and emergency meetings, you could always rely on a wine night to pull you out of whatever funk you were in. Wine nights were a safe space to share whatever had been on your mind–whether it was juicy gossip you’d heard while attending a HOA meeting, or whatever personal drama had been plaguing you. All done under the influence, of course, so that the words you may have been holding back flowed off your tongue with far more ease.
Tonight fell more into a routine catch-up than any of the other categories. Although, given that you’d been swamped with work for the past few wine nights, there was much for you to catch up on.
“He’s a dick,” Andrea said sympathetically, setting a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “You deserve better, and I have complete faith that you will find someone better.”
A chorus of agreements went on around the room, as you all attempted to uplift your saddened friend.
“If you ever need anyone to talk to outside of wine nights, you know you can call any of us,” you expressed. “I mean, we all kinda hit the lottery with shitty exes. No one understands you more than us, and we all have your back!”
“Hey, speaking of shitty exes, how’s Chlo?” Jennifer asked, swirling her drink as she turned to face you.
You lit up at the mention of your daughter, although one might argue that with the amount of glasses of wine you’d had, you were already quite lit up. “She’s good! Her and her friend just had to do this ridiculous science project. Here, I’ll show you.”
You fumbled typing your phone’s password in, the flowing drinks making your fingers loosely flow as well.
In the video you pulled up, Chloe and Sarah began to explain their experiment while the torso and arms of Joel carried out the experiment. You smiled to yourself as you recalled the night; thankfully the girls had given you enough of a heads up before their project was due that you were able to plan a nice night around it, having a little family dinner before setting up and filming their project. After that, the children insisted on doing something fun which led to doing horrible karaoke. What a good night.
“Cool right? Aren’t they so cute?” you gushed, beginning to flip through your camera roll through pictures of your daughter—some by herself, some with Sarah, a few from the night you, Joel, and the kids attempted to make pasta from scratch, a few group photos you’d taken on your weekend road trip to San Antonio. Looking at each picture, you began to realize more and more just how much you missed your little family, and your heart yearned more and more to be with them.
“Are you soft-launching your boyfriend to us right now?” Andrea asked with a giggle, flipping back a photo to a picture of you and Joel on a picnic.
“No!” you laughed. “Boyfriend?”
“The one who’s in half of these pictures?” Michelle laughed, taking your phone and scrolling through for herself. “The one who’s checking in on you right now? ‘Let me know if you need a ride home, heart emoji?’” your friend imitated a deep voice and you laughed out loud.
“Ugh, ‘boyfriend’ just feels so juvenile,” you sighed. “But yeah. We’ve been seeing each other for a while now. Now gimme my phone back. I need to text back so he doesn’t think I’m dead or anything.”
“What?! You can’t just say that and not tell us more!” Heather gasped, leaning in closer to you as if she were afraid to miss out on any details.
“Well, our daughters are best friends, which is very convenient. He’s also just a really good dad. I mean, you should just see the way he interacts with Sarah, but he also treats Chloe like she’s one of his own. He’s just a really good, sweet guy, who treats me really well. He actually punched Nathan once, and I’m not even joking. He also happens to eat pussy like it’s his last meal on Earth. Did I mention that he’s gorgeous? I couldn’t ask for more,” you shrugged.
There was a collective ‘ooooh’ throughout the room, a clear indicator that your friends were interested.
“So when can we meet him? You’ve obviously been together for a while, but you’ve also been keeping it from us… So is this even serious enough to warrant a meeting?” Michelle poured herself a little more rosé and offered you some, which you politely declined. Your brain was already too fuzzy from the amount you’d drank throughout the night.
“Did you see that camera roll? Of course it’s serious enough.”
“Well, what’s with the secretiveness? Is there a catch or something?”
“Is he married?” Andrea sighed, exasperated.
“Oh my God. That would make so much sense. He has a daughter, so...” Michelle attempted to piece together
“That was once and it was an accident. I broke things off with him as soon as I found out,” you huffed, crossing your arms. “And for the record, he’s a single dad.”
“That’s hot,” Jennifer remarked, the words seemingly slipping away from her before she could catch them.
“You’re gross,” you countered before getting back to the topic on hand. “I guess… I don’t know. It feels weird to be in such a serious relationship after my last serious relationship. I just keep wondering if I’m gonna fuck it up or something, and I don’t wanna lose half my friends again because they all like Joel more than me.”
“Hey! We could never love a man more than we love you,” Jennifer explained.
“I don’t know. He’s pretty damn charming,” you hung your head and Michelle set her glass down to give you a hug.
“Babe, I swear, nothing will ever get in between our friendship. Especially a man. What would any of us ever do without you?”
Now that your friends had really reassured you, you were feeling slightly better about the whole situation. Maybe, just maybe, you’d let them meet Joel. They’d certainly approve of him, which was a plus. You glanced down at your device, which now had one unopened notification from the man of the hour.
Having fun? he asked.
id be having more fun with yoh, you replied.
you
miss u :(
We miss you too.
Uno wasn’t the same without our favorite cheater
lies
Now we’re talking about you and im sad bc i miss you and im more sad i missed uno
I’m sorry.
We’ll play Uno some other time.
Soon.
Very soon.
As the conversation moved away from your life update, you began to evaluate the situation. You were far more drunk than you anticipated being tonight, and it felt like you were only becoming less and less sober with every minute that passed. At the moment, nothing sounded better than the idea of crawling in bed with Joel, and cuddling with him until you fell asleep.
Can u come pick me up? I miss you too much to stay
Sure! Are you going back to your home or want to stay at mine?
You’re home
*Your. I’ll be over soon
No i meant it
See you soon
“I gotta retire,” you faux yawned, stretching your arms above your head. “So sleepy.”
“Uh-huh,” Andrea looked over at you, then back at your phone skeptically. “Did you get a better offer than wine night?”
“Possibly.”
“Is your man coming to pick you up?”
“Possibly.”
“Tell him to come in and say hi! We want to see him at the very least. Don’t tell him that part, though.”
You agreed with less reluctance than you probably would have if you hadn’t been reassured by your friends that they were loyal to you, and let him know (somewhat incoherently) that your friends wanted to meet him.
When a few knocks at the door were heard from the living room, your friends immediately paused their conversations to listen in. Andrea got up, as she was currently the most sober—which wasn’t saying much—of the bunch, and opened the door for him.
“Hi,” she greeted in her best customer service voice. “How can I help you?”
They exchanged some back and forth that you couldn’t quite make out before he entered the living room and waved at your friends awkwardly, before beaming when his eyes fell upon you. He looked at you like you were the only person in the room, and maybe it was just the wine speaking, but you felt like it too.
“Ready to go?” he asked you, approaching the couch you were sitting on.
“Mhm,” you hummed affirmatively. “You want a cracker?” you asked, reaching over to the barren charcuterie board on the coffee table and holding one singular cracker up.
Joel clearly bit back a laugh, but leaned down so you could pop the cracker in his mouth. “Yum. Need any help getting up?”
You shook your head and stood up, legs a little wobbly from your inebriation and the fact that you’d been sitting for hours.
“Isn’t he just perfect?” you directed your statement towards your friends once you finally managed to pull your attention away from Joel. “So handsome and so kind,” you hugged his side. “My perfect man,” you murmured into his shirt. “Now you see why I’m scared to mess everything up.”
Joel blushed under the praise and awkwardly smiled at your friends. “Oh? Bye guys. We’ll have to catch up sometime. Nice meeting you all,” he said as he began to direct you towards the door.
“Bye!” you called out as you exited the room.
Once Joel got you situated in the car, double checking you were strapped in and whatnot, you sighed as you looked over at him.
“I missed you so much,” you sighed. “You’re not allowed to leave me alone ever again.”
Joel smiled to himself at your drunken words. Sure, he knew you cared about him, but it was sweet to hear your uninhibited thoughts.
You continued your drunken rambling on the drive back, giving him a play-by-play replay of the night, up to the point where he came in. By the time you’d finished your story, you were back at his place.
You held Joel’s hand as he led you up to his bedroom, you giggling behind him as you copped a quick feel of his ass.
“Shh,” he reminded you, gesturing to the room where your children were having a sleepover.
“Sorry,” you whispered apologetically before following him into his room and flopping onto his bed. “I just missed you. And that ass.”
“You’re funny,” he said quietly. “I’ll be right back.” As he disappeared, you rolled onto your stomach and buried your face into his pillows, deeply inhaling his smell. You would have his scent made into a candle if you could.
While Joel was gone, you realized that you weren’t particularly fond of the jeans you decided to wear to your friend’s place. By the time he was back, a large glass of water and bottle of Advil in hand, you were helplessly struggling to get out of the clothing article.
He set the items down on what you’d declared as your side of the bed’s nightstand, then moved away to rummage in his dresser, eventually finding a pair of athletic shorts you’d left behind at some point, and heading back over to you.
“Need some help?” he asked despite already knowing the answer as you ridiculously wiggled around in your jeans.
“Yes, please,” you stuck your legs out and Joel was clearly fighting laughter at just how incompetent you’d become. Despite your previous squirming around, you were happy to let him unbutton and unzip your uncomfortable pants.
“Lift,” he directed, tapping your hip. You did as you were told, eventually ending with your uncomfortable pants off and your cozy shorts on. You sighed out a sound of relief as you propped yourself up against the headboard, the gentle touch of Joel’s hand on your thigh only further soothing you. You were finally ready for bed.
Before Joel left your side, he reached over to your nightstand and set the glass of water in your hands. “Alright, drink up.”
“What would I do without you?” you mumbled, taking a few big gulps from the glass he’d placed in your hands.
“Probably have a nasty hangover and shitty sleep in those jeans,” he sat back down next to you on his side of the bed, propping himself up right next to you.
“I mean, what would I do if I never met you?” you asked, rolling onto your side so you could get a good look at your partner. “If you never argued with me at games? Or never took us to that tournament? Or if our daughters never set us up?”
“That would be very sad,” Joel turned to face you as well, looking at you very earnestly as he humored your drunken ramble.
“Yeah,” you agreed, wiping at your eyes that had begun to well up. “I would be so sad without you.”
“Oh sweetheart,” Joel sighed, softly cradling your head and gently pulling you over to him as you began to bawl into his shirt. “You are so drunk.”
“No,” you protested, pulling away from some so that you could look up at your partner with watery eyes. “I just love you so much, and you mean so much to me. I hate imagining not knowing you.”
He gently thumbed away your tears. “Then don’t imagine not knowing me. I’m here with you right now, right?”
“Yeah,” you murmured. “I just missed you so much.”
“You’re sweet. I missed you too,” he rubbed small circles onto your back.
“Can we live together so I never have to miss you again?” you asked, burying your face back into his shirt.
“Someday, probably. I’m thinking this is a conversation we should have when you’re sober, yeah?”
“Maybe,” you agreed, sniffling and closing your eyes. “Joel?”
“Yes?” he asked, thumbing away the last of the tears on your cheeks.
“Do you know that I love you?”
“I do,” he confirmed.
“And that I wanna marry you someday?”
“Uh-“
“And you and our daughters are my favorite people, like, ever.”
“Well, I could say the same about you and our kids. I don’t know where I’d be without you.”
“I just love you so much,” you repeated.
“I know, honey. I love you too.”
“No, Joel. I love you. Like, I want to spend the rest of my life with you and grow old with you. Because that’s how much I love you. Do you understand?” you were almost worried you weren’t getting your point across. “I would swim across every ocean to be with you. ‘Cause I love you so much.”
Your words were definitely slurring at this point, both from the alcohol and the sleepiness setting in, but Joel didn’t seem too bothered by it.
“I do understand, and I would do the same for you,” Joel was clearly quite amused by your earnest, but inebriated sentiment, yet his fondness for you managed to shine through. “I’ll tell you all about how much I love you in the morning. Why don’t we try to sleep now?”
“Okay,” you agreed. “Only ‘cause I love you,” you didn’t protest as Joel hit the lamp on his bedside table. “I’m gonna miss you while I sleep.”
“I’ll be right here,” Joel assured you as you somehow managed to snuggle up even closer to him.
“I’m gonna try to dream about you,” you mumbled.
“Let me know how that goes,” Joel yawned.
“I will,” you promised before mirroring his yawn.
Joel fell silent and closed his eyes, something you could just barely make out in the dark. You attempted to fall asleep too, but failed. Your brain was simply too loud for you to will yourself to go to sleep.
“Joel,” you said quietly, testing to see if he was still awake.
“Mhm?” he hummed, not opening his eyes.
“Do you remember when we stayed at that hotel together?” you began to reminisce, thinking back to that first night the two of you shared a bed. If only you had known then what your tiny little crush would’ve turned into.
“Mhm,” he affirmed. “How could I forget?”
“I dreamed you held me all night. It was great,” you giggled, somehow being able to recall that moment despite your inebriation.
“I don’t think that was just a dream,” Joel admitted, figuring that you probably wouldn’t even remember this conversation in the morning. “I woke up with my arms around you, which was why I got out of bed so fast. Felt like I violated you.”
“You could never violate me,” you slurred. Of course, your mouth was moving faster than your brain, but in a way there was some backwards truth to your words. You would trust Joel with your life. Of course he could still do something awful to you, but you certainly trusted him enough to believe that he would not.
“Honey, that’s not as romantic as you think it sounds,” Joel responded, sounding somewhere between exasperated and exhausted.
“Oh. Oops,” you acknowledged. “Well, you know what is romantic? That I love you,” you countered.
“Love you too,” he mumbled sleepily, surely tired of repeating the phrase at that point.
“Good,” you nodded mostly to yourself, just checking in to confirm that your partner still loved you. “I’m going to sleep now,” you announced.
“Sounds good.”
“Goodnight.”
“‘Night.”
“Don’t let the bedbugs bite,” you murmured.
“I’ll try,” Joel said quietly.
“Joel.”
“Yes?”
“Ow,” you whined.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, sounding slightly more alert now that you might’ve been uncomfortable.
“Bed bug got me,” you explained, doing your best to keep your act of pain up.
“There are no bed bugs.”
“How do you know?”
“I asked them. Let’s get to sleep.”
“I am asleep.”
“Are you really?” Joel cracked open an eye and chuckled at the sight of you.
“Yes,” you declared, despite very obviously being nothing clearly wide awake. You made eye contact with Joel, who know was at least looking at you. “Have I ever told you how hot you are?” you asked.
“A few times, maybe.”
You reached out to the man across from you and pushed your fingers through his hair. “Hottest man in Austin.”
“Hottest woman in Austin. I suppose it’s a good thing we found each other.”
“Right?” you grinned, leaning into the touch as he reached out to hold your cheek.
“Right. Now it’s time to get your beauty rest, beautiful woman,” he laughed softly, clearly fighting sleep as it looked like each blink was more and more of a struggle to keep his eyes open.
“If you insist,” you replied, impulsively sticking your tongue out and touching Joel’s finger with it. “Sleepy boy.”
“Ew,” Joel remarked, retracting his hand from your cheek.
“Sorry, I couldn’t resist,” you explained with a giggle. “I’ll go to sleep now.”
“Okay, good. I’m also going to sleep now,” he said seriously, a hint of finality in his voice. “Like, seriously, I’m going to sleep.”
“Well I seriously am too,” you shrugged.
“Prove it,” Joel attempted, one last shot at getting you to go to sleep.
“Fine,” you countered, closing your eyes. “Goodnight. For real this time.”
You relaxed into the mattress, finally ready to sleep—or so you thought. You only lasted about ten minutes until your eyes opened once again, this time you found Joel quite soundly asleep, the deep rises and falls of his chest clueing you into just how tired he’d been.
You resisted the urge to wake your boyfriend up again, but rather pulled yourself in closer to him, looping your legs around his waist and your arms around his torso as if you were some kind of koala. If you were even slightly more sober, you were sure you would be completely uncomfortable with the position, but drunk you couldn’t think of any other way you’d rather be sleeping.
“Goodnight,” you whispered, melting into your partner, and eventually succumbing to sleep.
The wine was not kind to you in the morning. A pounding headache and waves of nausea rolled over you, waking you up prematurely as your brain signaled to your body that you were absolutely going to throw up.
You held a hand to your mouth as you slipped out of bed, sprinting to the en-suite and dangling your head in the toilet for what felt like a lifetime as you emptied the majority of the contents of your stomach into the toilet bowl.
As soon as Joel heard the sounds of your sickness, he was right there with you in the bathroom, sitting on the floor next to you as he held back your hair.
First, he took care of your drunk ass, and now he was taking care of your hungover ass.
“I’m getting too old to drink that much,” you groaned, curling up on the cold floor once your body was finally finished punishing you for what you had done to it the previous evening. “Remind me never to drink again.”
“If it makes you feel better, you were having a lot of fun last night.With your friends, then back here with me,” he rubbed your back as you groaned on the floor.
“Did I say anything stupid?” you asked, watching Joel get up to grab your cup of water and temporarily mourning the loss of his comforting touch.
“To your friends? No idea. To me, you were just being extra affectionate. You kept telling me that you love me, and at one point you were crying because you kept thinking about not knowing me. I was pretty entertained.” He sat back down next to you and passed the cup over, along with two little pills.
You groaned at the description of your night and took the Advil you’d been offered before drinking down some more water.
“You also refused to let me sleep. It was pretty cute. Well, not in the moment because I was pretty tired, but thinking about it now, it was pretty cute.”
“Oh boy,” you softly chuckled to yourself, careful not to disturb your pounding head too much by laughing too hard. “I’m sorry. I may need to be a sober participant at our next wine night.”
“Don’t worry about it. You had fun with your friends, and that’s what matters most. Now are you feeling any better?”
“A little,” you nodded, at the very least no longer feeling nauseous.
“Then let’s get back to bed?” Joel suggested, posing it more as a question than anything.
“As much as I would love to, I don’t know if I’m physically capable of getting off of this floor right now,” you confessed. You were in pretty bad shape after last night.
“No worries, I got you,” you weren’t exactly sure what Joel meant at first, until his hands were under you and he was scooping you up in his arms, carrying you back into his bedroom where he gently set you down on his mattress.
“You are a saint,” you expressed, stretching out on your side of the bed before curling up onto your side and facing your partner. “How did I get so lucky?” you asked, reaching out to play with a strand of his hair.
“Not that lucky,” he remarked.
“No way. I can’t think of any other guy who would put up with my drunken antics, then proceed to take care of me like this in the morning,” you explained. “That, and all of the other ways you improve my life. Remind me, and I’ll get into them when I don’t feel like my head is going to explode.”
“I mean, I’m not gonna argue with someone telling me how great I am,” he lightly chuckled, reaching down to lift your blanket back up and over the two of you.
“Good. I’m in no shape to debate you right now,” you muttered, snuggling into the duvet and succumbing once more to a peaceful and content sleep.
“Good. I’m in no shape to debate you right now,” you muttered, snuggling into the duvet and succumbing once more to a peaceful and content sleep.