I'm afraid that if I say any more nice things about my editor,
LarryInSeattle
, he'll start blushing.
+ + +
The day after our second encounter, I helped my friend load up his car in the morning so he could continue on his trip. He planned to stop and stay with us again on his way back through town the following Saturday. We hugged goodbye, as we always did.
I smiled and waggled my eyebrows up and down at him as he closed the car door, trying to convey something about the new place our friendship had gone but had been unable to put it into words. I think he understood because he smiled and waggled his eyebrows back at me.
I turned and went back into the house as he drove off.
I puttered about the house alone that week, waiting for my wife and my friend to return on Saturday. I chatted on the phone each night with my wife and it eased my loneliness. I touched myself each night as I thought of my friend and it eased a different kind of loneliness. I ate too much. I drank too many beers. I was already chubby and being alone didn't help my eating habits.
On Friday I got a call from my friend in the afternoon. He said his plans had changed. The air conditioner in his car had stopped working. He planned to drive straight through Friday night to avoid the 100Β° daytime temperatures and he would arrive in the early morning instead of the early evening as originally planned.
"I'll see you when the cock crows," I confirmed, wondering at my choice of words. Are Freudian slips actually a real thing?
The next morning I was still sound asleep when he knocked on the door. It took several seconds for my mind to understand what that knocking sound meant and a few more to convince myself get out of bed to answer the door. He knocked again.
"Hold on," I shouted down the hall towards the front door. "I'm working on it."
I could hear him laugh through the door. He knew very well that I wasn't an early riser.
We hugged and he came in. As is usual on these occasions, he made a beeline for the bathroom after his lengthy drive. I had managed to wake up a bit more by the time he emerged. I was in my bathrobe as I helped him get his luggage from the car.
We both shared a love of trashy, sugary kids' cereals, so we sat down and enjoyed bowls of something with multicolored marshmallows and he filled me in on his trip. He looked pretty exhausted after driving all night. After being alone for a week, I wanted to just keep talking and enjoy his company, but I knew he needed sleep.
He yawned loudly.