Heidi's Guide to Four Letter Words(42)

“I have an idea what we could do next, but we’re gonna need to drive there.”



“This is so fucking cool,” Brent says, staring across the street in awe.

I decided to end our evening at another one of my favorite spots, Paisley Park. It used to be the artist Prince’s private estate, and sadly, it’s where he died. It’s since been turned into a museum and is open to the public. Technically, we’re not on the actual grounds of Paisley Park, because it’s 9:00 p.m. and the museum is closed. We parked, and Brent pulled a blanket out of the backseat of his truck, spreading it out on an empty, grassy area across the street from the museum. We’re sitting side-by-side with our shoulders touching and our legs stretched out in front of us, staring at the massive white structure across the way, which is lit up with purple lights, almost making it look like the sky above it is glowing purple.

“So, why did you move here from L.A.? And why didn’t you stay in Minneapolis?” I ask after we spend a few quiet minutes staring at the lights.

“Going right for the deep stuff, huh?” he asks with a soft laugh.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine.”

He bumps his shoulder against mine and gives me a reassuring smile.

“I’m just kidding. It’s weird. I feel like I’ve known you forever, and we’ve talked a bunch of times since I moved in, but not about anything important. I’m just going to warn you; this will sound way more dramatic than it actually is.”

“Oh jeez. Are you on the run from the law or something?”

He shakes his head with a laugh. “Seriously, stop being adorable. I cannot be held responsible for my actions if you don’t stop.”

I lean back and wait for him to continue, trying to be as un-adorable as possible.

“So, yeah.” He sighs. “I moved here for a woman. Someone I had been dating for about a year back in L.A. We both worked for the same bank, and she was asked to transfer to Minneapolis to be a branch manager. So, I requested a transfer and went with her.”

“Wait! You were a banker? Like, you wore a suit and tie to work every day and crunched numbers at a desk?” Before tonight, I’d only ever seen him in ratty jeans and T-shirts, always comfortable with working outside and being dirty and sweaty, so I just assumed it’s what he’d always done.

“Yep. I was a nine-to-five corporate man. It wasn’t until we moved out here into a high-rise apartment in downtown Minneapolis that I realized how miserable I was,” he tells me. “I lived in a suburb of L.A. Close enough to the hustle and bustle of the big city, but far enough away that it was quiet and peaceful when I needed it to be. Living right in the middle of the city, with all the noise and chaos, just didn’t make me happy. I quickly realized working in a bank didn’t make me happy anymore either. I took a road trip one day to clear my head and stumbled across Waconia. I loved everything about it. When I tried to convince Megan to move out here, she wasn’t having it. She couldn’t survive without a twenty-four-hour concierge or a Starbucks within throwing distance. That was when I realized Megan didn’t make me happy.”

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.

“I’m not. We weren’t right for each other. She wanted to be with someone who enjoyed constant pampering just like she did, and that’s just not me. When I told her I quit my job and one of my friends from back home who owns his own construction company got me a job out here, I thought her head would explode. We ended things, I bought the bungalow next to yours, and now I get to work outside during the warm months, and snowplow in the winter months, and I’ve never been happier. Sometimes, you just have to take a chance. Life is short. Why should you spend it being miserable? Plus, if I was still a banker in Minneapolis, I wouldn’t be here with you right now, looking out at a purple sky.”

He’s staring across the street at Paisley Park, and I’m staring at his profile, wondering if I could safely perform one of the maneuvers in a book I read. Something about straddling the guy’s lap and kissing the heck out of him. Brent’s head slowly turns to face me, and our noses are just a few inches apart. My heart is beating rapidly in my chest as I try to remember all the mechanics of the scene I read, like where to put my hands, and do I have to stand first and then just sort of squat over him before plopping down on his lap? And is it customary to warn someone before you do something like that or do you just jump right on him? Everything I read is swirling together in my head until scenes start getting mixed up, and fingers are going in ears, and tongues are licking eyebrows, and I start to panic that I’m going to completely screw this up.

“You look way too serious right now. Quick, tell me the craziest thing you’ve ever done, so I don’t feel like an idiot for spewing all of that just now,” Brent pleads.

I think of my podcast, but there’s no way in heck I’m telling him about that right now—or ever.

“So, when I was student teaching, one of our arts and crafts projects was to make something the students loved out of a paper plate, and then we’d hang them around the classroom as decorations,” I speak quickly. “One of my students wrote ‘I love pussies’ in big letters on his plate. I asked him whatever he meant by writing such a thing, and he told me he loved pussy cats. Well, I couldn’t very well display his work. So while it was drying, I snuck it into the bottom of the garbage can and told him it must have flown out the window. The poor kid was distraught, but to this day, I stand by my decision to destroy a child’s artwork and lie about it. Not that there’s anything wrong with the word he used, but there’s more than one meaning for it, and one of those meanings is completely inappropriate for his age level.”