“I think I did something wrong.”

“You think? Honey, you’re a man. You did something wrong. You ate the apple.”

“That’s not–Brenda, I’m serious here.”

“Oh. Serious. Okay, how did you piss her off this week?”

“How’d you know I was talking about Elizabeth?”

“Because she’s the only subject you get serious about. Well…serious with me. Anyway, so what did you do? Let Courtney lick you? Not call off Carly? Did you reject her advances?”

“She said I love you and I said that’s nice.”

“Wow.”

“Brenda–”

“I mean, wow. That’s…that’s…wow.”

“Can you stop wow’ing and help me out here?”

“I think you’re beyond help. I sincerely hope she smacked the shit out of you and walked away.”

“She said okay and I walked her home. This was the same night her apartment was ransacked so maybe she forgot–”

“A woman does not forget telling her boyfriend the three words and getting that’s nice back! Stupid male!”

“Ow! Damn it, Brenda that hurts! Don’t throw books with hard covers.”

“You idiot. You love her. You’ve been in love with her for like a year and you finally get to tell her and you choke?”

“Damn it, Brenda, stop hitting me!”

“Well, stop being an idiot!”

“Just tell me how to fix this. Can I just…explain it to her?”

“Okay, first of all, you can’t explain this. Because you still ruined the moment.”

“Brenda–”

“You cannot walk up to her and say, hey sorry about my being a freaking moron but I love you.”

“Why not?”

“Because the first time you do the love thing, it’s supposed to be special and you fucked it up. So now you have to make it special!”

“Well, how am I supposed to do that? I suck at this relationship thing!”

“I’ll say. It’s been eight months, you haven’t taken her to bed, you haven’t moved in together–”

“I’m taking it slow. I want this to work.”

“Slow sucks. She needs something from you. So, here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to ask her to move in with you.”

“I’m not ready for that.”

“Oh…for fuck’s sake.”

“She’s a virgin, Brenda. I think that should matter. I want to make sure it’s right for both of us.”

“Okay, okay, be a freak. Tell her to move in to the guest bedroom. If she’s half the woman I think she is, that won’t last long anyway.”

“What’s this?”

“Never mind. It’s a girl thing. Okay, and then, we plan something…Valentine’s Day is in a few months. If she can stick it out with you that long, we’ll plan a whole production and you can make a heartfelt love thing then.”

“What if she doesn’t stick it out that long?”

“A good desperate confession of love as she walks out the door will work too.”

“Okay. You’re sure about this?”

“Have I ever steered you wrong?”

“Well–”

“Okay, okay, no need to go into details. Get to work. We’ll see if we can salvage this.”

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