If I call you Darling, will you make me Pancakes?

"Could you pick me up?" I could hear Karen's drunkenness over the phone. "I don't think I should be driving..."

"Right! You shouldn't!" I quickly answer. "You're at Grant's party tonight, right?"

Karen moans an affirmative.

"I'll be there in 20."

I load myself into my car. Oh, Karen. Why are you always doing this? Just stay sober for one weekend.

I go into Grant's house without knocking. People are slumped on couches in the den. "Karen? Let's go, bud."

Karen starts following me out like a cat that wants a rub.

She stops. "But what about him?" she slurs, and points at a skinny guy sleeping on the floor. I wait for her to explain.

"He needs a ride too."

Well, I didn't have any plans for tonight anyway. Might as well be the drunks' taxi service. We wake him up enough to let this seriously hammered college student shuffle to the car.

I go to Karen's house first. She starts to exit the car but I grab her attention. "Where does he live?" I gesture to our charge in the backseat.

Karen giggles. "I don't know!"

"Okay," I pull out my smartphone, "what's his name?"

"I don't know! But he's a really good kisser!" She skips haphazardly down the walk. I idle to make sure that she makes it inside.

Then I idle some more, thinking about no-name sleeping in my backseat, who was (according to Karen) a really good kisser and needed a ride home.

I started driving to my apartment. I know it's dumb, right? But I really couldn't think of a better place to stash him for the night. He seemed pretty harmless.

I led him to my couch and put my spare blanket that smells like old closets over him.

Then I locked my bedroom door and went to sleep and a largely irresponsible hour.

I lounge in bed on the next Saturday morning, letting myself stay in bed until 8:30. I strut into the kitchen in my flannel pj's and start making scrambled eggs and toast for two. I hope he isn't vegan.

At the smell of food, he lifts his head up over the edge of the couch, and stares at me cooking for a minute.

Then he says in a voice that belongs to Bruce Banner, "If I call you darling, will you make me pancakes?"

I smile down at my frying pan, appreciating the oddity that is humans. Then I look at his face. "I could go for waffles," I offer.