Holly and Her Naughty eReader Read Online Free Page A

dropped them twice before she was able to get the front door
unlocked, and, drunk as we were, we thought this was the funniest thing ever.
    The giggle-fest continued as we
stepped inside and Vivian knocked over a lamp and left us tripping over each
other in the dark. By the time Vivian got a light on, I was sprawled on the
carpet, laughing like a hyena. And then laughing like a quiet hyena. And then a
quiet baby hyena. And then a sleeping baby hyena.
    Awww….I’m a little baby hyena.
    I woke up from my little hyena
doze to see a man with curly black hair and a familiar face standing above me.
    “Viv? What’s going on?” he said.
He was wearing Superman pajamas. Oh Lord can I tell you how thrilling it was
for me to see him in Superman pajamas. “Who is…”
    He didn’t finish his last
question because, even though I was on my back and making a total ass of
myself, even though he hadn’t seen me for ten years, the man recognized me.
    “Holly, is
that you?” the man said.
    I looked at
him, wondering if that last drink had taken me too far and I was hallucinating.
Even though I knew right away who this man was, it took me a minute to say
anything. I had to be absolutely certain.
    So I stared at
his face for a moment. I allowed it to age backwards in my mind, to shrink and
unwrinkle and go back to the eighteen-year-old version that I remembered.
    Yep, it was
him.
    “Max Brody,” I
said. “How the hell are you?”
    Then I broke
into a fit of laughter.

Chapter 4
     
    Vivian helped me up from the
ground, with all the tripping, dizziness, and giggling you’d expect from two
gals in our state.
    “How much have you all had to
drink?” Max said.
    “How many pancakes does it take
to fill the Empire State Building?” was my response. It was a question I’d
heard on the last day of spring semester. Two of my students were playing an
oddly entertaining game where they had to ask each other obscure, random
questions, as fast as they could. Other questions I remember hearing from that
game were: Why do kids love cheap Easter
crap? and What is your second
favorite kind of tree?
    The kids spat out the questions
in rapid fire fashion, not taking any time to think, just saying the first
random, odd thing that came to mind. It was a funny game, and I was in the mood
for fun, so I spat out my own random question, this one directed at Max.
    “Why did you stand me up ten
years ago?”
    Silence. Max looked at me with
curiosity, like I was an animal at the zoo.
    “I’m sorry, what?” he said.
    “Pancakes!” Vivian said. “That’s
why we’re here!”
    She went up to Max and put her
hand on his chest. “You go back to bed. Sorry we woke you.”
    And then she kissed him on the
lips.
    What the hell was going on? Max
and Vivian were….how come I didn’t know about….
    “Max, I thought I saw on…”
    That was all I got out. Even
inebriated, I knew better than to try and figure out what was happening right
now. I was about to say to Max, I thought
I saw on Facebook, cause you know, I profile stalk you plenty, that you married
a black woman and had two cute little mixed race babies.
    But clearly whatever I thought
was wrong. Not unless the guy who stood me up ten years ago was a polygamist in
Superman pajamas and the black woman I thought was his wife was about to join
us for pancakes and invite me to be Wife #3.
    “Holly, it was good to see you
again. I assume you’ll be sleeping here tonight. Have Vivian show you where the
bathroom is. Good night.”
    As Max left, I turned to Vivian
and said in an obnoxiously loud whisper, “What the fuck was that all about?”
which, in that moment, was the funniest thing I’d ever heard.
    It wasn’t until we were in the
kitchen, with pancakes in our bellies and a mess of batter all over the stove
and counter, that we were sober enough to work through what just happened.
    “Max just wrapped up a nasty
divorce,” Vivian said. “Left him totally broke. I told him he could crash