Blakely: Did you give him the puke-soaked shoe?
Penny: No! Are you insane? I couldn’t tell him I just puked in his shoe.
Blakely: Then what did you do?
Penny: winces Threw it out the window.
Blakely: WHAT?
Penny: I know, I know. I panicked. When he left, I retrieved the shoe, but it needs a solid cleaning, and I’m not sure how to get puke out of a shoe.
Blakely: Is that why you’re not at work right now?
Penny: Correct. Puke shoe is in the bathroom sink, and I’m pacing, trying to figure out how to fix this.
Blakely: Do you have any of that OxiClean stuff? I heard it works well.
Penny: Will it bleach the shoe?
Blakely: I don’t think there’s bleach in it . . . is there? Uh, I don’t know.
Penny: Not helpful . . . wait, oh God! He’s home. HE’S HOME!
Blakely: Plot twist!
Penny: You’re not helpful.
Blakely: FaceTime me, I want to see his reaction.
Penny: You are dead to me.
“Penny, are you here?” Eli’s voice calls through the apartment. The rumble of his voice is normally soothing, but right now, at this moment, all it does is send a frightful chill up my spine.
What the hell is he doing here?
Shouldn’t he be at the arena doing hockey things? Getting ready for the game? Pumping some iron—I’ve never said that in my entire life—or perhaps taping up a stick? Why is he here? In this apartment, in the middle of my puke shoe crisis!
Does he have a radar that tells him when I’m in an embarrassing, compromised situation, prompting him to report to my side immediately?
“Penny?”
Panic consumes me as his voice grows louder. Oh God, he’s not going to go away. He can’t see me like this, all frazzled, and he sure as hell can’t see his shoe!
“Penny?” AHHHH! His voice is growing closer by the second. Think . . . think.
Paused in the middle of the bedroom, I look to the left, look to the right, think about burying myself under the bed . . . wait, that could work, but the shoe is in the bathroom . . .
And his footsteps are growing closer.
Me or the shoe.
Me . . . or the shoe.
I don’t have time to react. I don’t even have a moment to stick half my leg under the bed to hide before the bedroom door parts open.
He’s here.
Fear creeps up the back of my neck.
My stomach churns in a nasty shade of green, revisiting the nausea from this morning, but this is different. This is the being caught red-handed kind of nausea.
He’s going to see the shoe.
He’s going to see my panic.
He’ll smell the puke . . .
I can’t avoid the inevitable, but I can come up with one hell of a story.
That’s right. I can lie through my teeth.
Cracks knuckles Let’s get down to business. Come up with the most elaborate story of your entire life.
The door fully opens, and when Eli comes into view, immediate relief floods through his eyes right before confusion hits them. “Are you okay?” he asks. “You weren’t at the arena. I went to your office to see if you needed anything, and one of the girls up there said you didn’t come in this morning. I wanted to check to make sure you were okay.”
Ugh, duh, of course he’d check on me the one day I didn’t go into work. Since we have to work nights and weekends, we have a pretty flexible schedule, so no one really bats an eyelash when someone doesn’t show up in the morning. But Mr. Nosy Nelly over here was worried.
Trying to act as casual as possible, I say, “Oh, yeah. Fine. You know, flexible hours and everything.” I smile, but it turns out to be more of a flat smile rather than one that reaches my eyes. Anyone would be able to discern this attempt of feigned casual behavior. Eli being no exception.
“Then why are you wearing your dress inside out, and your hair is half curled?”
Inside out? Really?
I glance down at my dress . . . and would you look at that. It is inside out. God, would I have gone out in public like this? I want to say I would have realized, but then again, I used my lotion as toothpaste the other day, so I can’t be sure.
But no need to show him that I’m on the verge of completely losing my marbles, so I say, “The pressure of dressing oneself can be very overwhelming. Mistakes are bound to happen.” I move toward him and attempt to direct him away from the bathroom. “Now if that is all, we should probably move you along, you know, so you can get back to your busy schedule.”
Despite not having his lucky shoes, he’s wearing a forest-green suit with a black button-up, the top two buttons undone—because that’s what he does. He likes to flash his man pecs to the world and when I say flash, I mean barely give us a glimpse. It’s maddening. Either show it all or don’t show anything at all. Instead of his beloved shoes, he’s sporting a green, velvet loafer with gold embellishment that not every man would be able to pull off. But Eli, well, with those ankles, he can pretty much wear any shoe.