“Jim, stop acting like a madman,” Nate commanded my drunken friend. “Sit down there, on the mattress, and let us talk like adults.”
I felt a rush of heat. I’d never seen Nate acting so masterfully. It was so manly! It was so adult! To my surprise, Jim meekly obeyed and sat down where Nate had told him to. He kept glaring at us, though.
“Now, Jim, you need to stop acting like this,” Nate continued, sitting down opposite Jim.
I sat down next to him.
“If you have feelings for her, I am sorry for you. But she and I love each other, and your threats are insane. What good will hurting us do you? If you hurt us, will you be able to live with yourself? Is this who you really are?”
Instead of answering Nate, Jim glowered at him and growled, “You love her, do you?”
“Yes,” Nate said with feeling, pulling my hand into his. “I love her. More than my life!”
“And you,” Jim demanded, looking at me. “Do you love Nate?”
“Yes, Jim, I do. I’m sorry, I don’t love you. I love Nate.”
“Oh good! Finally!” Jim exclaimed with a grin and leapt up, no longer unbalanced in any sense of the term.
Nate and I looked at each other, completely discombobulated.
“You’re not drunk?” was all I could say after staring at Jim for two whole minutes while he leapt around my apartment, dancing some kind of weird jig.
“No, not at all. It was a good act, wasn’t it?” Jim demanded, taking a bow. “Had you both fooled. My improv teacher will be proud of me.”
“Improv teacher?” was all Nate could say in response to the oddly unreal situation.
“Yes, improv teacher,” Jim agreed enthusiastically. “You see, I have been taking acting classes for a while now. I never thought I’d be any good, so I didn’t tell you two. I thought you would laugh at me. Turns out, I actually have a knack for it.”
I couldn’t think of what to say. What on earth was Jim talking about? I looked at Nate. He looked as confused as I felt.
Jim, meanwhile, went on rambling, “So, I guess I owe you two an apology. You see, I realized that you were both too cowardly to confess your feelings for each other or do anything about it. I couldn’t take it any longer. The only way to get you both to come out of your stupid insecurities, I knew, was to threaten you. Sorry about that!”
Jim grinned sheepishly as he pranced into the kitchen. Seeing the plate of sandwiches, he distinctly perked up even more.
“Ham and cucumbers. My favorites!” he declared and promptly gobbled one up. “I’m starving,” he added and bit into a second one.
“Stop!” I screamed and leapt up.
Jim’s mouth fell open. Nate leapt up, looking equally shocked.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, looking from my terrified face to Jim’s confused one.
I wrung my hands and bit my lip and moaned.
“The sandwiches,” I sobbed. “They’re poisoned! I thought it was the only way to get rid of Jim!”
Jim turned ashen. He dropped the sandwich he was holding abruptly, looking at it with terror. He then rushed into the bathroom, stuck his fingers in his throat, and tried to vomit. Nate rushed to help him as I leaned back against a wall, my face hidden in my hands, moaning and shuddering.
Several terrible minutes and loud retching noises later, Nate and Jim entered the room, the former supporting the later. Jim looked pale and about to cry. Nate helped him down onto the mattress.
“Stop crying and hurry. We need to take Jim to the hospital immediately,” Nate commanded me.
Oh, how I loved him then!
“I’m not crying,” I mumbled from behind my hands.
“What?” asked Nate, unsure of what he’d heard.
I could not take it anymore. I moved my hands away from my face. I was laughing hysterically. For a second, Nate looked like he thought that I had been driven mad by the shock and trauma that the whole episode had put me through.
Then Jim croaked from his supine position on the mattress, “The damn thing wasn’t poisoned, was it?”
“No, you moron,” I hooted with laughter. “But it serves you right!”
Nate shook his head ruefully and grinned. Then he leaned over me, kissing me gently but deeply. This time, as I melted away in bliss, there were fireworks. And that night, we went out on our first date.
This post is a part of Blogchatter Half Marathon 2.0
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