We Met At The Eye Doctor

"Honestly, Mike Dirnt, I mean Mike Dirnt!" Mandy says still in disbelief as we sit at the coffee shop.
"Go ahead say that loud enough so everyone here hears you." I say sarcastically.
"You're really putting up with a lot for this guy." She says shaking her head. "I mean, the daughter, the secret career, Tre."
"Stella is sweet, the career secret is understandable he wanted me to know him for him, not his title and Tre is hilarious." I say shaking my head remembering the previous evening when all of us went for drinks. "And even though we met just a couple of weeks ago, there's something about him, I don't know."
"Oh I know!" Mandy exclaims, "He's a sexy bass player from an awesome band!"
"It's not that, it's been there before the photo shoot." I say rolling my eyes.
"Yeah, okay." She says rolling his eyes. "So when are you seeing him again?"
"Tomorrow night, I'm going over to his place, apparently he's cooking."
"Oh wow, he cooks." Mandy says smirking.
"Supposedly."

***

I drive into the driveway and walk up to the front door and ring the door bell. A few seconds pass and I hear the sound of the lock.
"Hey." Mike says smoothly as he lets me in.
"Hi." I say kissing his lips. I follow him into the kitchen. "Smells good, what are you making."
"I'm not quite sure what it's called, but it's chicken with tomato sauce on it."
"Sounds good." I say lifting the lid of the pot with the tomato sauce and take a taste. "Pretty damn good."
"Good" he says as he opens a bottle of wine and pours two glasses and hands me one. He leads me into the living room.
"If I wanted to be cheesy I'd say how this wine is a good year or something, but to tell you the truth I don't know much about wine."
"Neither do I. but I can bluff it." I say laughing.
"Show me."
"Hmm, 1994, excellent year. I believe this is a French wine is it not; oh southern France has the most extravagant vineyards. The aftertaste is very original." I say in an English accent.
"Not bad. Let me try. . . This wine was named top ten in California, if I remember correctly 1996 was an excellent season, very fruitful. But there's the slightest hint of flavor to it that makes it all the more enjoyable." He says seriously and stares at me for a while making me laugh uncontrollably.
"Was any of that true?"
"Umm no" he says bluntly.
"Do you smell smoke?" I ask sniffing the air. Suddenly the smoke detector goes off..
"Shit, the chicken!" Mike yells as he jumps up and runs to the kitchen. I follow behind and he pulls the pan of what was originally chicken out of the oven.
"Fuck." He mutters as he pokes at the chicken.
"Mmm, I love charcoal." I say taking a small piece and popping it in my mouth.
"I'm sorry." He says as he dumps the contents of the pan into the garbage.
"Hey, the sauce is still good, just make some pasta and we'll have spaghetti."
"Spaghetti?" he says looking up at me, "I wouldn't invite you over just for spaghetti."
"Hey, I happen to love spaghetti." I say crossing my arms.
"Okay." He says pulling out a pot and filling it with water.
"What do you have against spaghetti?" I ask as I add salt to the water.
"Nothing, it's just when I shared an apartment with Billie and Tre, our diet consisted of T.V. dinners and when we would cook. Correction when I'd cook, I only knew how to make spaghetti." He says shrugging.
"That means this should be pretty damn good spaghetti since you've had lots of practice." I say optimistically. He just laughs and wraps his arms around me.

We eat our spaghetti supper in the living room because Mike gave up on the whole romantic evening.
"Most embarrassing childhood memory." I say.
"I peed myself in the fifth grade, Billie never let's me forget it."
"How?"
"Well, I had to go and Billie decided to block my way into the bathroom. Then the grade six football team walked by and playfully punched me in the stomach, well upper bladder actually, so I peed myself. Worst of all, this girl I liked saw me walk down the hall soaked in my own urine."
"Oh that's horrible!" he just shakes his head.
"Okay worst pick-up line you've ever received." He says smiling.
"So I heard you got dumped."
"You serious? From who?"
"It was in high school, my friend's out of town cousin."
"He really is clueless." Mike says shaking his head.
"Worst meet the parents' moment."
"Umm, I've had a few." Mike says thinking to himself, "Oh yeah, here's a good one. When we found out we were going to be touring for the first time, we decided to go celebrate, me, Chelsea, Billie, Tre and some girl he just picked up. We sort of drank a little too much. Anyway, I dropped her off at home and her dad answered the door and I puked on his feet."
"Ew" I say laughing.
"It gets worse, at that moment Tre finds out the girl he picked up was a hooker, and she wanted her money, but of course Tre didn't have any, so he comes up to the door and asks me for $150. I told him I didn't have that type of money so he turns to Chelsea's father and says (and I quote) Do you have $150 so I can pay off my hooker. Just to let you know I never heard from Chelsea again." At this point I am laughing uncontrollably. "I'm glad you're enjoying my memories."
"I'm sorry."
"Alright, biggest mess up when talking to someone you were liked." He says excitedly.
"Okay, in high school I liked this guy named Steve and my friend told me to just go up and talk to him. I told her I didn't feel well but she said I was just nervous, so she pushed me into him and I upchuck onto the front of his shirt."
"That's just wrong." We continue our little game until the wee hours of the morning and we eventually just fall asleep on the couch.