Girl Crush(61)

Me: Nah, I couldn’t spring for the extra $3 on my insurance per month. But I do have this amazing friend with a rockin’ red Porsche that I’d bet money isn’t in need of repair.

I was desperate. And at this point, I’d slash my own tire if it would give me five minutes with him. Although, I didn’t have a knife and would probably get arrested for vandalizing my own property.

Collier: Do you really have a flat?

My days of misleading Collier were over. I couldn’t lie to him…I’d done enough of that already.

Me: No…but I could. Have you seen the condition of our roads in this state? Someone really should contact a senator.

I waited for his response, but none came. The afternoon turned into a brainstorming session of excuses to get Collier to my house. Nothing I came up with seemed plausible, and based on his aloof reply this afternoon, my next attempt would have to be valiant…but truthful.

When I got home, the quiet evening ate away at me. I tried to clean, but all that did was destroy my nails. I cranked up the stereo to lose myself in music, but every song that played reminded me of him. Finally, I broke down and warmed up leftovers in the microwave. Each bite was worse than the last, and nothing in my fridge appealed to me. I pushed the remains of my meal down the garbage disposal and turned it on. Instead of the drain clearing, water started to back up into the sink. My initial response was panic until whatever was lodged in the blades cleared, but not before it gave me an idea.

My mind raced a mile a minute trying to think of things I could shove into the drain to jam the disposal so far beyond my ability to fix it that he’d have to come to my rescue. Food wouldn’t work. I tried paper, and it shredded the sheets as easily as it would vegetables. But fabric wasn’t quite as forgiving or destructible as perishables.

I raced up the stairs to my room in search of anything I was willing to part with in order to get Collier here. T-shirts were too thick, and there was no logical explanation for how they’d end up in my sink. Same with jeans and shorts. But panties…panties needed to be hand washed, and the sink was the perfect place to do it. Riffling through my underwear drawer, I found several pairs I didn’t mind losing to the cause, and with a smile on my face, I trotted back down to the kitchen.

My fingers clutched the satin and lace while I hovered in front of the sink. I took a deep breath in, and then one by one, I stuffed each of the five pairs deep into the hole. I turned on the water to ensure they wouldn’t just swirl around, and then I flipped the switch. The motor came to life, but instead of the garbage disposal whirring and grinding, it hummed with a high-pitched squeal and stopped.

Pleased with myself, I raised up on my toes and bounced before grabbing my phone off the counter.

Me: My garbage disposal is clogged. Can you come by and look at it?

I hit send and held the phone in my hand, waiting for it to light up with his agreement to save me. Several long minutes had passed before the beep sounded.

Collier: Plumbers typically deal with those types of things.

Me: It’s after hours. That will cost me a fortune.

The waiting was killing me. I wanted to be upset with him. He’d always been very responsive, and it felt like he was intentionally playing games.

Collier: Gibson Plumbing is sending someone out. The guy should be there in the next thirty minutes.

Me: I can’t afford that.

Collier: I gave them my credit card number. It’s taken care of.

So he cared enough to buy my way out of trouble but not come on his own. It hurt, but maybe it was progress.

Me: I’m not comfortable with a strange man in my house at night. It’s not safe.

Collier: Giselle, I don’t have time for this. He’ll be there shortly. Let him in to fix the sink.

Ugh. I hated this side of Sybil. If we ever got back on speaking terms, I had to figure out a way to put that personality to rest—no one needed to experience it, especially not me. The bubbles appeared on the screen and went on forever. I stood there waiting for his next message, but they stopped, and another message never came. It dawned on me, a plumber would be standing in my kitchen in roughly twenty minutes, and I had a garbage disposal bogged down in Victoria’s Secret’s finest thongs. With my luck, the man who showed up to bail me out would either be hot as sin who would imagine me in the shredded garment or some gnarly old man who would keep them to sniff later. Both creeped me out.

I desperately started clawing at the sink, shoving my hand in to try to pull the wet material back out the same way I’d stuffed it in. But by the time the doorbell rang, I had roughly half of one pair of twelve dollar panties in my fist, and the other four and a half pairs were still tightly wound around the blade of the garbage disposal. With one hand still trying to rip at the lace, and the other on the counter for leverage, I finally dropped my head on the counter harder than I intended when the chime came again.

My hands were wet, and the right was covered in some substance I was afraid to try to identify. I needed to disinfect the drain, the brown gunk under my nails was disgusting. My nails. Oh God, my poor nails. Not only had I ruined the polish, but I’d also broken three of them on my right hand and two on my left. They snagged on the kitchen towel I used on my way to let the plumber in.

Mortified. Embarrassed. Flustered. The list of words to describe what I was feeling ran a mile long. There was no way in hell I could explain how five pairs of panties had met their demise. But I swung the door open just the same. There on my porch stood a man who could have doubled for Luke Bryan, right down to the Southern twang.