“
Hey,” Marlboro Man said. “Where are you?”
Like I knew. I was somewhere between my house and his. “Oh…somewhere between my house and yours,” I said, copping to my directional cluelessness.
He chuckled. “Okay, let me put it this way: are you more than halfway to my house? Or have you not gone that far?” He was already learning to speak my language.
“Umm…,” I said, looking around and trying to remember what time I’d left my house. “I would say…I would say…I’m exactly halfway there.”
“Okay,” he said, his smile evident through the phone. “When you get somewhere in the vicinity of the ranch, I want you to meet me at my brother’s house.”
Gulp. Your brother’s house? You mean, we actually have to introduce other people into our relationship? You mean, there are other people in the world besides us? I’m sorry. I forgot.
“Oh, okay!” I said, enthusiastically, checking my makeup in the rearview mirror. “Um…how do I get there?” I felt butterflies in my gut.
“Okay, about a mile and a half before my turnoff, you’ll see a white gate on the north side of the highway,” he instructed. “You’ll need to turn and head down that road a half mile or so, and his house is right there.”
“Okay…,” I said tentatively.
“Make sense?” he asked.
“Sure,” I replied, pausing. “But…um…which way is north?”
I was only halfway kidding.
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