Which we did, and when I had flopped down under the top sheet and she crawled in beside me, she was just so nice and smelled so good and felt so warm and comfortable that—

Well. Beer really is amazing stuff, isn’t it?

Dexter 2 – Dearly Devoted Dexter

CHAPTER 6

I WOKE UP WITH A HEADACHE, A FEELING OF TREMENDOUS self-loathing, and a sense of disorientation. There was a rose-colored sheet against my cheek. My sheets—the sheets I woke up to every day in my little bed—were not rose-colored, and they did not smell like this. The mattress seemed too spacious to be my modest trundle bed, and really—I was quite sure this was not my headache either.

Good morning, handsome, said a voice somewhere over my feet. I turned my head and saw Rita standing at the foot of the bed, looking down at me with a happy little smile.

Ung, I said in a voice that sounded like a toad’s croak and hurt my head even more. But apparently it was an amusing kind of pain, because Rita’s smile widened.

That’s what I thought, she said. I’ll get you some aspirin. She leaned over and rubbed my leg. Mmm, she said, and then turned and went into the bathroom.

I sat up. This may have been a strategic mistake, as it made my head pound a great deal more. I closed my eyes, breathed deeply, and waited for my aspirin.

This normal life was going to take a little getting used to.

But oddly enough it didn’t, not really. I found that if I limited myself to one or two beers, I could relax just enough to blend in with the slipcover on the couch. And so several nights a week, with ever-faithful Sergeant Doakes in my rearview mirror, I would stop over at Rita’s house after work, play with Cody and Astor, and sit with Rita after the kids were in bed. Around ten I would head for the door. Rita seemed to expect to be kissed when I left, so I generally arranged to kiss her standing in the open front door where Doakes could see me. I used all the technique I could muster from the many movies I have seen, and Rita responded happily.