“Tell me about your brothers,” I asked him. Decker stretched his legs out under the table, each one resting on either side of mine. I smiled at the thought that he still reached to touch me even as we ate.
“Well, you already know Daniel, he’s the eldest. Then there’s Drew, he’s two years younger than Daniel, two years older than me. You would assume Daniel, being the oldest, would therefore be the most responsible.” Decker’s eyes lit up as he began to talk about his family. “Daniel is the most irresponsible person I know, yet he still managed to meet a beautiful woman he’s been happily married to for eleven years. They have two kids and they live in her hometown of San Jose, California, where he works a marine engineer.” Decker shook his head in amazement. “To this day I have no idea how he managed all that, and yet he was the only one of us to get his tongue stuck to a frosted post in the middle of a New York winter. He also managed to saw half way through the pergola porch post when he was just nine, and he put dirt in the lawn mower’s fuel tank. The boy had more than a few loose screws, he kept Mom and Dad on their toes.”
“I hope his own kids are paying him back tenfold.”
“His son, Aiden, is a handful.” Decker grinned. “Drew is the one who seemed to get all the common sense and responsibility. Daniel and I are what you might call playful. Drew is way more serious. Don’t get me wrong, he knows how to have a good time, but he was always chastising me and Daniel for our pranks, and he hated covering for us when we snuck out.”
“Is he married?” I asked.
“Was. They got a divorce about three years back. He’s been seeing someone for a little over a year now, but he’s still spooked by the disaster that was his first marriage to consider trying for a second time.”
“And they all know?”
Decker winked. “Know what, Country?”
I rolled my eyes. “They all know you swing your shlong on camera?”
Decker laughed loudly and it was contagious. When we finally settled down, he nodded.
“Yeah, as you may have gathered, Daniel found out in somewhat of an embarrassing way. I never thought about my brothers watching porn and I sure as hell didn’t expect my parents to...” his voice trailed off, and my eyes widened.
“Shut the fuck up!” I exclaimed, wincing when an older couple sitting nearby cast me an irritated glance.
Decker chuckled. “They sure as hell weren’t expecting to see my shlong swinging while they got their busy on.”
My hand clamped over my mouth trying to hold back the laughter. It was hopeless. I was laughing so hard my eyes filled with tears, my stomach clenched, and I found myself scrambling for the bathroom, much to Decker’s hysterical delight. I washed my hands and used a paper towel from the dispenser to mop the excess water from my eyes. I loved spending time with Decker; he made me feel lighter than I had felt in a long time. The laughter that came so easily, the conversation, the playfulness that he brought to my world was a reminder of my reason for stepping out of the world of a socially inept newt and into the world of the living. It was like jumping from a plane in a rush of what-ifs and who-cares. My cheeks were flushed, my eyes twinkled, and my mirrored smile was easy and carefree. I felt different since meeting Decker. Hell, I even looked different. More confident, more open, more…everything. As I pushed open the bathroom door and meandered back into the restaurant, I felt like I was floating on a cloud of euphoria. It reminded me of that one time I smoked pot and spent the entire night giggling over nothing. When my head rose to find our table, I bumped smack bang into a solid chest.
“Oh damn, I’m sorry,” I said as I took step away from the human wall in front of me. When my eyes moved to settle on a familiar, shocked face, my stomach sank and that euphoric cloud of happiness was sucked into oblivion.
“Andrea?” he exclaimed, his voice rising with shock.
“Miles,” I pushed out his name between my clenched teeth. Just being this close to him had me feeling ill.
“Wow, you look…”
I steeled my shoulders and looked him right in the eye. My ex, Miles Harrison, the man who liked to play with handcuffs, was the last person on earth I ever wanted to see again. Stepping around him, I set my gaze on the front door and walked straight through the restaurant and out onto the street. Then I kept walking. My brain was a scrambled mess, and my fists had instinctively clenched into fists of rage and hate. My heart was beating so furiously it thundered through my ears, blocking out the world around me.