Page 25 of Not So Goode

Her head wobbled, lolled. “Charlie.” She bumped into my chest again, and she sniffed. “Soft skin. Feels nice. Smells nice. You smell clean. Are you clean?” Her hand wafted up, patted my chest. “You feel clean.” Blinked, peered cross-eyed, smoothing her hand over my pec. Which, I admit, is not small, or soft. “And muscly.”

I couldn’t help a belly laugh. “You know how to flatter a fella, don’t you Charlie?” I was weaving through the bustle of offstage, between sound techs and stage crew and electricians and guitar techs and drum techs and security and singers and guitarists and drummer and groupies. “Got a last name, Charlie-darlin’?”

“Goode.”

“Good?” I repeated.

“Goode. G-O-O-D…E. Good with an E. Like goodie, but don’t say goodie. Lexie would kick your ass, if she was seven again.”

“Charlie Goode.”

She smiled, and managed to make a drunk smile look sexy as hell. “Yep. That’s me, Charlie Goode, who hasn’t, I’m not…I’ve never been as this drunk before.”

“That wasn’t even proper English, sweetheart.”

“Derms of entearment...Terms of Dend-dearment…shit. TERMS of ENDEARMENT are non persona grata.”

“I think you mean persona non grata.”

“Shuh-up. Canyouuse Latin phrases this drunk? NO. You’re too sexy to know Latin.” She peered at me. “At least, you look sexy. I could have wicked bad beer goggles on, though. Too drunk to know for sure.” She sounded enticingly Boston, just then.

“Say ‘park the car’ for me.”

She blinked, made a face of extreme annoyance. “Two years in Boston and this is what I get.” She huffed, rolled her eyes. “Paaaahk the caaaah,” she drawled in a devastatingly cute Boston accent. “There. Happy?”

“For now, yeah.”

She rested her head against my chest. “Comfy. Sleepy time?”

I laughed. God this chick was too fuckin’ adorable. Trusting, and adorable, and sexy, and way too innocent. “Not quite.”

She peered at me. “I know your name, but you don’t know mine.” A blink. “Wait, other way.Idon’t knowyourname, butyouknowmine.”

“Are you askin’ my name, babe?” She gave me a sloppy nod, and I rumbled another laugh. “Crow. My name is Crow.”

A blink, the pause I always get. “Crow?”

“Yes. Crow.”

“Wow. That’s super cool. Is that your whole name?”

I keep my face blank. “Yeah.”

“Crow. That’s it.”

“Yup.”

Despite her colossal drunkitude, she seemed to sense that this was not a line of conversation that was going to play. “Okay. Crow. It fits you. You look like a crow. I mean, you don’t look like a bird. You look like a yummy man. Who somehow just seems like someone who would be named Crow.”

“Yummy, huh?” I carried her up a rickety set of stairs to the stage, around into the back of one of the trailers, which served as side-stage wings. Settled her in a ratty old overstuffed suede couch they’d set to one side. “Now, just sit there, okay? I’m going to get you some water. Donotfuckin’ move.”

Her head wobbled unsteadily. “Yummy. Yuppers. You are yummy. I didn’t know men could be yummy till I saw you, and I just know I’m going to regret this whole conversation once I’m sober. Assuming I survive the hangover I’m sure I’m in for.” She patted the couch on either her side of the most mouth-watering pair of bell-curve hips I’d ever seen. “Not moving. Nope, nope, nope. I couldn’t move, if I wanted to. Legs are all bye-bye. Bye-bye legs. No more walking for you.” She patted her legs, encased in black yoga pants which highlighted every delicious curve. “I liked my legs. They were nice. Kinda fat, because I’ve put on weight since my asshole boyfriend-fiancé-dickhead decided to let me catch him cheating on me with my overweight middle-aged boss. But until then, I had pretty nice legs. Now they’re just…” She squeezed her thigh. “Blub. Blub.” Jiggled it. “Blub-blub-blub.”

I grabbed her hand, pinioning her wrist. “Your legs are fuckin’ perfect, Charlie Goode.”

She frowned up at me. “Perfect is a strong word. Nothing is perfect.”

I shrugged. “Maybe not, but from where I’m lookin’, those sexy-ass legs of yours are about as perfect as legs can get.”