Feeling Good - The Story of Sam & Henry

Chapter 3 - I am waiting for Vinzini

Let the games begin...
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"Oh.My.God. Sam, this is incredible. Like, I don't even have words. Did you put crack in this? Seriously, what *is* this?" Jen looked like she was having an orgasm in the middle of my kitchen.

"Keep your pants on. It's a cherry balsamic reduction. I'm working out the kinks... my bosses think it's too 'fruit-forward," I said, crossing my arms in front of me.

"I know that those words are English, but I have no idea what that actually means."

"It means that my boss is a pretentious fucking asshole and doesn't want a woman working in his kitchen," I said, rubbing my hand over my chin.

"Things going ok at work?" she asked, looking over at me.

"They're fine, I'm just pissed-off because they don't like my sauce. I'm sure it has nothing to do with my tits." I poured some of the cherry reduction over my finger and put it in my mouth. Maybe it was a little fruit-forward...

"Ok, I've got to go back out there, but seriously, Sam, this is amazing. You have a standing invitation to come over and hang out at my house... you can meet my dog, Max. Really, he's more like Andy's dog, but whatever. And, you know, if you just happen to wanna cook, that's ok too. I won't stop you." She leant over to hug me and then walked back into the main event space.

I walked over to one of the walk-in refrigerators and grabbed a flat of strawberries and brought it over to my workspace and started to de-stem them one by one to use as a garnish for the chocolate lava cakes. The steady rhythm of the monotonous movements allowed my mind to wander, and as it did so often these days, I thought about the night I had spent with Blue Eyes...
~~
As we'd walked out of the club he pulled out his phone and ordered an Uber. We waited near where the line of people was queuing up to get in to the club and started chatting. It was cold out, but I had my camel suede jacket which was lined on the inside. He had a sports coat, but I could tell that we were both feeling the cool October air.

"Can I ask you a question?" he said, looking a little shy. He'd tucked both of his hands into the pair of grey slacks he was wearing.

"Sure, I said, ask me anything."

"Do you do this a lot? Go home with random guys you meet at clubs?"

"Not recently, but I've done it before. What, are you having second thoughts? Wished that you'd picked the bottom bill, instead of the top?" I laughed and pulled on the edges of his button down shirt.

"No, I just, I don't usually do this and I'm hoping that you know what you're doing, because I sure as shit don't."

"What?" I said, "you promised me that you were like a world-class champion darts player?? Was that all a lie?" I tried to look as incredulous as possible but couldn't stifle a little chuckle.

He laughed at me and smiled, "No, I'm pretty sure I've got the darts down, it's just, I don't know, it seems weird to pick up... "teammates", for the darts, on a dance floor."

"So where do you usually select your team members? Wait! Don't tell me... let me guess." I stood back and looked him up and down. He was clean cut but kind of in a dorky way. Like I had the distinct impression that he played a lot of D&D in high school and didn't really get his dick wet until college, if you know what I mean. "Well, for starters, I'm positive that you're well educated. You've got this pale glow about you, which tells me that you spend a lot of time indoors."

"Too fucking right I do, but go on, what does that tell you about the type of, uh, darts players I look for?" He crossed his hands in front of his body and looked at me studiously.

"I bet you have a younger sister," I said, moving over to a bench a few feet away from where we were standing and sat down.

"What makes you say that? And you don't think that I'm looking to play darts with my sister, right?" He raised his eyebrow worriedly.