Heidi's Guide to Four Letter Words(25)

Oh yeah. That makes much more sense.

Lifting up on my toes, I close one eye and look through the peephole with the other, letting out a gasp when I see Brent standing on my front porch with his hands in his pockets.

“It’s him! He’s standing on my porch! What do I do?” I hiss, taking a step back from the door.

“Hey, Heidi, you know I can hear you, right?”

The sound of Brent’s voice filled with laughter from the other side of the door makes the phone slip from my hand. It drops right on top of my bare foot, which makes my eyes fill with tears as I shout at the top of my lungs.

“Son of a biscuit!”

“I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have just shown up like this so late. Just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

I can’t have him thinking I was yelling at him! Without giving it a second thought, I quickly unlock my door and fling it open so hard it smacks against the opposite wall.

“You betcha, it’s fine! Everything is fine! Just dropped my phone on my foot and it hurts like the dickens,” I tell him with a big smile. “Why did I say dickens? I’m not a ninety-year-old woman. Let’s just pretend I didn’t say dickens. Oh jeez, I can’t stop saying it now. I apologize. I’ve had some wine tonight.”

This makes Brent chuckle, and naturally his dimples make me forget all about how mortified I should be right now. Until he pulls one of his hands out of his pocket, bringing his phone right along with it.

“That explains the text I got from you a little bit ago,” he says with a smile, looking down at his phone as he reads my text out loud. “‘Dick taste in my palm. Sleazy, sleazy. He bent your dong.’”

Kill me. Kill me right now. Someone please put me out of my misery.

So, it would be bad enough if my phone had only translated Hey, Brent! How you doin’? into He bent your dong. But no. Of course it couldn’t be that simple. I had to go and start recording too early and “I’ll dictate it into my phone. Easy peasy,” had to sneak its way in there.

Once more, for the people in the back: Dick taste in my palm. Sleazy, sleazy. He bent your dong.

“I didn’t mean to send you that,” I reply lamely.

“Are you sure? It sounds like something you’d say,” he tells me with a wink.

Is he flirting with me? What is happening right now?

“I’m a teacher. Was a teacher. I’d never have such atrocious grammar in a text. I mean, those aren’t even complete sentences.”

Oh jeez. Shut up, Heidi!

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to bother you so late. You didn’t have to come over just to check on me, but thank you. As you can see, I’m good. I might not be able to look you in the eye for the next eight-to-ten weeks, but I’m good.”

Brent takes a few steps toward me until he’s standing just inside my doorway, with only a few inches separating us. I start thinking about that excerpt I read on my podcast and imagine him wrapping his arms around me, lifting me up against his body, and pushing me into the wall. My entire body flushes and there’s a strong tingling sensation happening down there in my general word that rhymes with flit area that makes me want to pant like a dog.

I could easily reach up and grab onto his T-shirt, yanking him down so I could kiss him, just like Aubrey did to Jameson earlier at work. Brent winked at me. He came over to make sure I was okay instead of taking the lazy way out and just replying to my idiotic text. That’s got to mean something, right?

Do it, Heidi. Just do it. Grab ahold of what you want!

“You could never be a bother, Heidi,” Brent tells me softly. “And I hope you keep looking me in the eye. You’ve got beautiful eyes.”

Whaaat is happening?

This would be so much easier if it was all happening over text. You know, minus the autocorrect. I could send him the heart-eyes emoji and a thumbs-up. I could take a few minutes to think about what I’m going to say so it comes out all cool and awesome and perfect. But this isn’t a text. This is real life and it’s happening right now in front of me. I could possibly try to make a heart shape using my fingers and my thumb and hold it over one eye, but that would take too long and probably be weird.

For the love of God, stop stalling and grab his shirt!

Before I can think about what I’m doing, which is absolutely a bad idea going by my recent track record, my hand flies up to latch onto his shirt and pull him toward me. Except my brain is still filled with wine, which then sends a drunk brain-to-text message to my arm, and instead of wrapping my fingers around the cotton material of his shirt, I just punch him as hard as possible in the chest.

Brent winces and his upper body jerks backward with the force of my blow.

“Oh, you!” I giggle a little too loudly, trying to play it off like I meant to do that, wishing I’d never taken that self-defense class my mother guilted me into when I was in college.

I just treated Brent like an attacker and put my whole body into that thing.

Brent laughs and shakes his head at me as he rubs his palm against his chest. I’m trying to figure out if this shake of his head is one that says You’re adorable or You’re certifiably insane and I’m putting my house up for sale immediately.

Before I can figure it out, he steps backward out of my doorway and I’ve lost my chance to grab him and make him kiss me. Actually, that chance flew out the window when I went full-on Fight Club on him.