I sighed. I hated thinking about this part. For some reason it made my chest hurt.
"Yes, I looked for her. I would have given anything just to talk to her again and I don’t care how much of a * that makes me sound. I asked everyone on that fucking campus and no one could tell me anything. I even went to admissions and tried to bribe the secretary into letting me look through yearbooks," I explained.
"Ha ha, she called the cops on you, remember?" Drew laughed.
"Um, yeah I remember. She called the cops because you told her we needed to look at pictures of all the female student body, pun intended, and see which one gave me a hard-on. She thought I was a pervert."
"So, why did you want to find her so badly? I mean, everyone has one-night-stands at some point. Most guys would consider themselves lucky they didn't have to deal with the whole morning-after bullshit," Jim stated.
I should feel embarrassed about this shit, but in all honesty, I didn't. Even though we just met him, I felt like Jim was the type of guy I could confide in and he wouldn't judge me, as opposed to my ex-best friend who was miming the act of playing a violin to go along with my sad tune.
"There was something about her," I said with a shrug. "Something that drew me in and made me want to just be near her. We talked for hours while we played beer pong. She got my sense of humor and we had the same taste in music and movies. Everything I can remember about her just makes me want to find her and see if she really existed. And it had nothing to do with the sex. Although, I would like to apologize to her for ruining her first time since I was completely trashed. It's more than that though. No woman has ever been on my mind as much as her. And it drives me fucking crazy that I can't remember her face," I said irritably as I flicked my beer bottle cap across the table.
Understanding seemed to wash over Jim’s face and he nodded his head. The anger I swore I saw flash in and out of his features during this entire exchange suddenly vanished.
"Okay, now that you got all the touchy-feely shit out of the way, tell him about the creepy stalker shit you do," Drew said pointedly.
"Fuck you. It's not stalker shit."
"Right, because dragging my ass into every single fucking girly store and making me stand there while you smell everything that's made with chocolate, made near chocolate or made by something that shits chocolate isn't weird at all. And don't think I haven't forgotten about that last time a few months ago when the clerk asked us how long we'd been dating and you put your arm around me and said, "Well, sugar plum, this big, strong, sexy beast and I have been together for ages now," he said, mimicking the high-pitched voice I used at the time.
Jim threw his head back and laughed and even I had to snicker at the memory. When Drew turned to run out of the store I smacked him on the ass. It really was priceless.
"Alright, so after five years I can't get the smell of her out of my head. Big fucking deal. And it's not like I Google every store that sells lotion and just go down the list every weekend. If I happen to be in a store that sells lotions or soap, I go and smell a few to see if by some off chance I’ll find the one that smells like she did. I just can't pass up the chance to find that smell again. It drives me God damn crazy."
Both men sat there staring at me. Fuck, I really was growing a vagina.
"You, my friend need to bang this chick out of your system once and for all. We really need to find you a nice girl that won't fuck you over and will make you forget about the Count Chocula Cooter," Drew said with a sad shake of his head.
"I may have just the girl for you," Jim said with a smirk.
"Perfect!” Drew proclaimed with a hard smack to my back. “You see, little buddy? There just might be hope for you yet. Hey, maybe we can even convince her to slather some Three Musketeers on her vagina. We'll just tell her you have a Willy Wonka fetish," Drew said with a laugh, finishing off his beer.
I kicked the leg of his chair while he leaned back on two of them. While I watched him windmill his arms to get his balance and not fall backwards onto the hardwood floor, I thought I heard Jim whisper something that sounded like, "That won't be necessary."
***
When we got to Jim’ house, his fiancé came out of the kitchen to greet us and Drew and I both stopped dead in our tracks.
"Hey, aren't you the girl from the bar last night?" I asked. It was the woman with blonde hair that hadn’t been afraid to call Drew out on his lame attempt at trying to get in her pants. "Liz, right?"
As soon as she saw us her eyes got wide and her mouth flew open. But she gained her composure quickly and smiled.
"Wow, I'm surprised you remembered. When you left the bar you were crying and singing at the top of your lungs ‘I got ninety-nine problems and the bitch is all of them’."
I grimaced at the memory that frankly, I didn't remember at all.