Just Drive [old version]

[ chapter eleven ]

Chapter Eleven

                To an unsuspecting bystander from our homely suburbs, two college dropouts sitting on a bench with food from Chipotle would’ve raised suspicion about drugs, but we were no longer at home, and therefore, two college dropouts out on a park bench at night with Mexican paper bags was perfectly acceptable.

                “Ugh, so I’m stuffed,” Austin complained. He crumpled up his tin foil and stuffed it in his bag.

                I smacked him in the arm. “I told you not to order two goddamn burritos!”

                He looked at me and rubbed his arm in the spot where I punched it. “But they tasted so good!” he protested.

                “That doesn’t mean you have to eat two of them!”

                “Says the girl who grabbed half of the sugar packets to go,” Austin deadpanned. Just to prove his point, he reached into my pocket and pulled out a little brown packet. Ripping it open, he poured half of the sugar into his hand and put the half empty packet into my hand. “Although I completely understand why you’re obsessed with these things,” he added as he tossed the crystals into his mouth.

                I laughed at him and ate the rest of the sugar. “You’re such a hypocrite.”

                He smirked. “Of course. It’s part of my appeal.” He made a bad attempt at winking at me.

                “Tell yourself that,” I retorted. Standing up, I extended my non-sticky hand in his direction and pulled him up. “Come on, sugar babe. We still need to find a hotel.”

                He grabbed my hand, and I hoisted him up and pulled him down the sidewalk with me, all while he was trying to pour the rest of the sugar crystals into his mouth. Behind me, I could hear strands of laughter, halfway full but still muffled by the sealed feeling that forms in the throat after swallowing a shitload of sugar. When I turned back around, he was trying desperately to gulp down some of his drink to wash away some of the saccharine residue. Needless to say, he was failing miserably, so I stopped out of pity. He didn’t seem to realize this, and we ended up colliding.

                “Umph! What was that for?” Austin asked, rubbing his shoulder dramatically. Strangely enough, I wasn’t even tall enough to reach his shoulder.

                I reached up and smacked his hand away from his shoulder. “Drama queen,” I said playfully. Smiling, I snatched his water bottle out of his hand and smiled. “You suck at multi-tasking.” Just for extra emphasis, I grabbed the hem of my shirt and wringed out the water.

                He made some sort of manly-pride sound before taking back his water bottle. “I was doing perfectly fine.”

                “Well that explains why you had water running dripping down your chin.”

                “A few drops are nothing compared to being soaked in a bottle of water,” he protested.

                Maybe it was just my natural hatred of being wrong, or maybe it was just the uncomfortable fact that the water was starting to seep into my pants, but either way, I found myself grabbing the water bottle, again, and tossing the remaining water over his already soaked body. A split second later, he was reaching into my pocket and ripping sugar packets over my head. Eventually, water turned into paper bag shreds and sugar became pieces off a tin foil ball. By the time we were done, we were little more than two soggy, sticky, shiny lumps. I looked over at Austin; he had a piece of paper stuck to his chin and a tiny sliver of foil was hanging over the cleft of his lip like a booger.