Page 37 of Playing to Win
Kyle held the bottle above his food and squeezed, but nothing came out. He squeezed again with the same result. Figuring it was indeed clogged, he gave the bottle a good shake and gave it one last big squeeze. All of a sudden, barbeque sauce shot out of, not the bottom like Kyle anticipated, but the top of the bottle. Because of the force of his squeeze, the sauce almost shot to the ceiling before coming down and landing…right on top of Callie’s head.
There was sauce everywhere. In her hair. On her face. The back of her shirt. Her arms. Anywhere sauce could be on her upper torso, it was. Kyle just looked at her in disbelief, the bottle still held in his hand.
“Well, I guess we now know the sauce comes out of the top of the bottle,” she said, wiping the sauce off her cheek.
“Oh, shit,” he said softly. “I totally didn’t mean to do that.”
“Well, I sure hope you didn’t. That wouldn’t be very nice, seeing as I finally let my guard down enough for you to kiss me. That’s an awfully weird way for you to flirt with me if you did do it on purpose.”
“Curly, I think you even have some sauce in your eyelashes,” he said, trying desperately not to laugh.
“It’s not funny!” she cried.
“Do you see me laughing?” he asked, trying valiantly to keep a straight face…and failing miserably.
“I see you trying not to laugh and failing epically,” she said, trying in vain to get the sauce out of her hair. “My lord…it’s everywhere.”
At her words, Kyle couldn’t help it. Laughter exploded out of his body. He doubled over, holding his stomach, tears leaking out of his eyes.
“Yuck it yup, why don’t ya?” she said, wiping sauce off her arm and flicking it at him. “Do you know how long it’s going to take to get this out of my hair? I’m going to smell like bbq sauce for months!”
“How are you guys doing over he…” their waitress’s words trailed off as she looked at the sauce covering Callie. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Well, you see, brainiac over here couldn’t figure out how to work your bbq sauce bottle and attempted to squeeze it out of the bottom,” Callie explained.
“To be fair, you didn’t know how to work it, either,” Kyle said.
“He squeezed and squeezed and shook and shook, until the sauce had enough and exploded out of the top of the bottle like a missile, shot nearly to the ceiling, and landed…well, right on top of me,” Callie finished.
“I am so sorry!” their waitress said. “I’ve told Brian those bottles are confusing as shit and he needs to get new ones but does he listen to me? Noooooo.”
Callie started laughing. “Yeah, Brian definitely needs to listen to you. Tell him to come see me for verification of this.”
“Again, I am so sorry. Is there anything we can do for you? Of course, dinner is on the house.”
“That’s totally not necessary,” Kyle said. “I’m the one who was the idiot who didn’t know how to use your sauce bottle. But I am willing to bet my girl here could probably benefit from one of those t-shirts I see you have for sale.”
“Oh, sure thing. That’s not a problem at all,” their waitress replied. “And that is definitely on the house. Please.”
“Okay,” Kyle said with a smile. “Thank you so much.”
“Not a problem.”
“I hate to cut this short,” Callie said, wiping more bbq sauce off her arm, “but do you mind if we get this to go? I feel like I’ve been slathered up like a hunk of meat ready for the bbq pit.”
“Oh, I completely understand,” their waitress said, handing Callie more napkins out of her apron. “I’ll get this all boxed up for you and get you a t-shirt so you guys can be on your way.”
“Thank you,” Callie said with a small smile. “Well, there’s that.”
“There’s that,” Kyle replied. “Curly, I’m so sorry.”
“I know you are,” she replied. “Are you sorry about the other thing?”
“What other thing?”
“Calling me your girl to the waitress?”
“I did that?”
Callie nodded. “You totally did that. You said, “I bet my girl here could use one of those t-shirts for sale” or something like that.”
Kyle quirked his eyebrow. “Huh. I guess I did.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Are you sorry about that?”
Kyle leaned over, wiped bbq sauce off the corner of her lips, kissed right where he had wiped, and smiled. “Not even in the slightest, Curly.”
