Page 223 of The Virgin Romance Novelist Chronicles
“Why on earth would I have sniffed the underwear? Have you sniffed Delaney’s underwear? I wouldn’t rip my boxers off and ask Rosie to sniff my trunks. You just don’t do that.”
Derk sighed on the other end of the phone, as if to say, this stupid, stupid man.
“We’ve known each other for a while, Henry, and I’ve always admired your ability to read the situation and act appropriately, but you fucked up.”
“Because I didn’t sniff her underwear?” I shouted, so confused. Why was this even a thing?
“Not because of the act of not sniffing, but because you didn’t show that you cared enough to sniff.”
If I was animated, my head would have detached from my body and spun around five times right about now.
“Let me get this straight.” I pinched the bridge of my nose as I spoke. “By sniffing her underwear, I would have showed that I cared about her?”
“Exactly.”
Never would this ever make sense to me. Not even if the Pope told me it was God’s way of showing appreciation. Sniffing underwear to show you care? Were people going to make shirts with sniffing taglines on them now?
I sniff, therefore I care.
*Underwear Symbol* + *Nose Symbol* = 4EVA *heart symbol*
Sniff, sniff, kiss, kiss, ways to love your little miss.
“This is so fucked up. What happened to telling a girl you loved her? Why isn’t that enough? Why can’t we just do this the old-fashioned way, believe in each other’s words and know they mean more than any action I could ever perform?”
“Not in our generation, man. Words are taken for granted. Back in the day, you told someone you loved them, you married them, and you died next to them. There are so many people out there now who use those three sacred words loosely. They’ve lost their meaning.”
“They haven’t to me. Every time Rosie tells me she loves me, it’s like she sucker-punches me, because I still can’t believe I could ever deserve such commitment from her, such trust. When she tells me she loves me, she’s handing me her fucking heart. I would never do anything to fuck that up.”
“Besides not sniffing her underwear.” Derk chuckled.
“Not the time, man. So not that time.”
“Sorry.” He sobered up. “Listen, you have to think about who you’re dealing with here. Rosie has had such huge expectations of love her entire life because of the amount of stories she’s read and movies she’s watched. Love to her is a grandiose emotion that needs to be expressed in a way only an eleven-million-dollar production can accomplish. Tack on the fact that she’s hormonal and super emotional, and that only adds onto her expectations.”
“You’re right about that.”
“Was this fight just about sniffing the underwear?”
I walked to the kitchen and grabbed a beer; it was going to be a long night and a little liquid encouragement would help me get through this talk.
“No, it began with that. I’ve been holding out on her until I was able to get through this promotion and see a doctor with her. She’s been complaining about . . . lady things down there, so I wanted to make sure all was right. She took that as I didn’t want to have sex with her.”
“Makes sense. Why didn’t you just talk to her, confront her about being pregnant, tell her about the promotion? Kind of like I told you in the first place. Communication goes a long way in relationships.”
If we were sitting next to each other, I would have dick-tapped him by now. I wasn’t an idiot; I knew what I was doing was backward, but I hadn’t thought it would backfire this badly.
“Wow, thanks, Captain Obvious.”
“Don’t get mad at me. If it was so obvious to talk to your girlfriend, then why the hell didn’t you do it?”
“Because I was hoping I could take care of everything before it all got out of hand. Obviously, I was wrong. You know how long I’ve wanted to propose to her. I couldn’t do it before the promotion because I wasn’t sure if I would get it, and once I found out I got the promotion, I didn’t have any time to prepare. I didn’t want to propose after I talked to her about the baby, because in her state, she would assume I was only proposing because she was pregnant. Knowing her, she would say something asinine like I was just making sure our child wasn’t a bastard.”
“Right.”
“So, I’ve been kind of fucked in this whole situation.”
“You could always wait a year or so to propose, then it doesn’t look like a shotgun wedding.”
