Then she slammed the door in David’s face, and he heard running and excited voices. The door opened a couple of inches, and it was Kat.
“Damn,” she said when she checked him out. “Just give me a minute.”
The door was slammed again, and there was more excited, muffled talking. David was no longer nervous.
About halfway to the party, David was having doubts about the wisdom of dating. Kat was nervous and talked nonstop, like she couldn’t help herself. He’d quit trying to get a word in edgewise as she told him about her friend who was throwing the party.
As soon as they came to a stop a block from the party, Kat jumped out of the car. She all but ran to get inside. David took his time and found the front door wide open. It was a small house that had seen better days. The carpet was worn through in places and had some suspicious stains, such that his mind made the leap to a past crime scene.
Kat was nowhere to be found. He’d never had a date simply disappear. David walked back to the kitchen and found bottles of alcohol on the counters.
He heard someone down a hall.
“Take this. It’ll calm your nerves.”
“Should I be taking it with alcohol?” Kat asked.
“Probably not, but it will help, I promise.”
David shook his head as he decided to go out back, where he found a table and chairs on a patio. He stretched his long legs and relaxed. He figured Kat would track him down when she was ready.
It took Kat almost an hour to find David. He shook his head when he saw the signs that she was hammered.
“There you are!”
She stumbled over to him and straddled his legs as she sat down facing him. She grabbed the back of his head and tried to force her tongue down his throat.
’Let’s do this!’ Mr. Happy announced.
Luckily, David hadn’t had a drop to drink, so the big brain was in charge. Like most guys, his little head did occasionally rule what happened. Right now, there was a squirming girl in a short skirt grinding against his rapidly expanding package.
All thoughts of possibly just letting Mr. Happy free from his pants and doing what he wanted flew out the window when Kat leaned over and barfed. Helping raise his kids had toughened David up, but he was still a sympathetic barfer.
“Let’s get out of here,” he suggested.
A big smile came over her face.
“I’m going to rock your world,” she announced and all but dragged him back to the car.
Once he got her in, she lasted all of thirty seconds before she was leaning against the door and drooling on the window. If you’d asked him who would be the first to drool on his car window, he would have bet the ranch on his dog. A first date wouldn’t have even been in the realm of possibility.
When they got back to the apartment, David knocked on the door, and Kat’s roommate answered.
“Why are you here?” she asked suspiciously.
“Kat drank too much, and I was hoping you were still here. I’ll be right back,” he said and turned to go get her.
He couldn’t get Kat to walk under her own power, so he scooped her up and carried her. Kat’s roommate pointed to where her room was. David laid her on the bed.
“I’ll take it from here,” her roommate said as she pushed past him.
Then she lunged back, and the two of them collided when Kat picked that moment to unleash the remaining contents of her stomach. David wrapped his arm around the roommate’s waist to steady her. Even though he estimated she was five-ten, her waist was tiny. Naughty thoughts flooded his mind. When she didn’t move, he momentarily thought about acting on them.
All that was stopping him was that he really did like Kat, even if their first date had been a disaster.
“Uh, I should get going,” he finally managed.
“What should I tell her in the morning?”
David let Kat’s roommate go and took a step back. She turned around and bit her bottom lip. He noticed that her nipples had gotten hard.
’Oh, boy,’ he worried.
Kat moaned, which broke the spell.
“Tell her I’ll see her Monday morning.”
“She’ll want to know if she ruined it.”
David couldn’t read her roommate.
“Let Kat know that I’d like to see her again. Maybe next time, we might make it longer than an hour.”
“I think she would be happy if it was anywhere near an hour,” her roommate said with a knowing look.
David liked that she had a dirty mind. He had to leave before his dirty mind caught up with hers. He nodded and walked out.
When he got home, he all but killed himself. Someone had poured some kind of gelatin concoction under the door while he and Alex were out.
As much as David thought the idea of a ‘prank war’ was silly, he might have to make an exception. Alex would be happy to have him on board.
Chapter 13
David
David woke Saturday morning and decided to be a complete slug. Cassidy had some rowing get-together, and Ridge and Penny were going home for the weekend. There wasn’t any baseball practice, and he’d forgotten to get Kat’s phone number. He could be responsible and crack his books, but that held zero appeal at the moment.
David pulled on some oversized sweats, a Farm Supply hoodie, and an AgriGold camo hat. Then he added his black-rimmed glasses and the comfy bunny slippers his kids had given him for Christmas. His plan was to go down to the cafeteria to grab something to eat. On his way out, he checked, and Alex was missing in action. David suspected he had a girl he was hooking up with.
Since Alex wasn’t around, he went down to Kirk’s room and knocked. He heard a crash and foul language. The door flew open, and Kirk promptly fell on his ass.
“They got you, too,” David observed.
There was the telltale sign of Jell-O or whatever gross concoction the townies had whipped together and poured under their doors.
“It’s no surprise that Linds’s room wasn’t touched,” Kirk shared.
The townies tended to bypass Lindsey with their pranks because the lead princess was her roommate.
“Should we get the girls or risk their wrath and grab breakfast on our own?” David asked.
Kirk was a wuss. He sent a text to Lindsey and Jamie. The girls met them at the elevator after Kirk cleaned up the mess that almost killed him.
“He’s destined to die a virgin,” Jamie said to egg Lindsey on when they saw what David was wearing today.
“Hey, now. I will have you know that I had a date last night,” David said without thinking.
In David’s defense, he’d almost forgotten the grillings he used to receive at lunch from the female members of his circle of friends.
Kirk pulled David into the elevator before the girls could drag him into a confined space and interrogate him. David quickly figured out that the elevator qualified as a confined space.
“How did you ask her out?” Jamie asked.
“What did you do?” Lindsey asked.
“How far did you get? I hope you at least got a kiss goodnight,” Kirk said as the doors opened on the all-girls floor.
Of course, six of them crammed themselves in, and all turned to look at him. David didn’t even question that they somehow knew Lindsey and Jamie were digging for dirt on his date. He would have to talk to Kirk later about joining in. If it had just been the two of them, David could have gotten away with a couple of short sentences, and the conversation would have been over.
“He somehow managed to get a date last night,” Lindsey said to bring the girls up to speed.
“This was a real girl? Not an inflatable one?” one of them asked.
Jamie choked on something. Lindsey and all the other girls tried to hide their smirks as they put on serious faces.
“Well, I did get a kiss,” David said weakly.
“But...” Lindsey prodded.
“The date only lasted about an hour, and she threw up twice,” David admitted.