Full of Grace

Chapter 1 & 2

CHAPTER ONE

THE DJ ANNOUNCES US and Sher giggles the moment I put my hand on her back.   From the second Hale introduced us, I knew I wanted to know a whole lot more about her best friend.  Sher’s got this long blond hair that I want to hold in my fists and her giggling makes me feel like I swallowed a fish tank full of champagne bubbles.  Right on the heels of the whole Psycho Amy debacle, I’m totally down for a diversion and Sher seems like the perfect girl for that.  Her whole face lights up as we begin to dance. She could illuminate the candlelit dance floor all on her own.

“It could be that I’m already a few bananas to the wind, but damn...”  I tell her.  What almost popped out of my pie hole is that I want to kiss her.  But we’re swaying on the dance floor to Clapton’s Wonderful Tonight, Hale’s pick for the wedding party song, and I don’t want to mess anything up.  Sher smiles up at me and instead of asking me to finish my thought, she says, “A few bananas?”

I laugh.

“Drunk,” I clarify.  “You’re a few bananas when you’re feeling good.”

She giggles.  “How come your rating system is banana-based?”

“Easy.  When someone holds up their fingers to see if you can count them—if they look like bananas and all you can think of is how hungry you are, you know you’re too drunk.”

“But a few bananas is okay?”

“Anything under seven bananas is preferable.”

“We’ll have to keep you under seven then,” she giggles.  Then she says something about how great the wedding is going, and I tip my head down closer to her lips, as if I can’t hear her.  Actually, I just want another whiff of her.  She smells like girl sweat, which is almost always the most incredible perfume stew ever invented.  It’s the warm mix of body lotion, layered with perfume and all the stuff girls put in their hair, their make-up, and even their deodorant.  Sher doesn’t let me down.  Breathing her in makes me want to push her against a wall and hike her legs up around my hips.

I have to work to keep my mind where it should be, on the dance floor, in front of a polite audience of innocent wedding-goers.  But it doesn’t help any that Sher bride’s maid dress keeps dipping a little lower on her chest than it should and that when her giggle mixes with the music, it’s like a siren song to what keeps stirring just beneath my zipper.

“This is great, isn’t it?” she repeats.

“Yeah, it’s great,” I murmur and she giggles.  My hand is on the small of her back and her hand is soft and tiny in my palm.  I don’t pull her any closer, only because I don’t want her to feel what she’s doing to me.  At least not in front of all the Maree’s wedding guests, who are largely business clients too.  I’m sure it would be the frosting on the wedding cake, if Oscar returned to his office after the honeymoon to messages like, It was a lovely wedding, really, Oscar.  Does your best man always walk around with that enormous boner?

Oscar and Hale glide by us, in their own world.  Sher sighs, her little ribs shifting beneath my grasp.

“Isn’t Hale gorgeous?” she giggles.

“Absolutely,” I say. We swing to one side and she grazes me.  I have to clamp my lips shut, so I don’t groan.  I don’t know why this little girl is having such a big impact on me, but she totally is.

“Hale said you were dating Amy?”  she asks.  Amy.  Considering that she just tried crash my buddy’s wedding by making a complete spectacle of herself, I’m sure all the guests know her name.  I was hoping that none of them knew I had dated her briefly, only a few days ago.  I wonder how many know what happened and how it ended.  The way Sher’s asking, it seems totally innocent, and I don’t know if Hale told her the whole sordid tale or not.  I was hoping the whole affair would be immediately forgotten, but at least I can give Sher the answer that I think she wants to hear.