Perfect Snapshots: Episode Fourteen: Man Card

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Episode Fourteen: Man Card

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It was gorgeous and sunny when I woke up. Bella was pressed against my side with her leg hitched over my hip. I couldn’t help but smile when I saw how she clung to me. It was as if she couldn’t get close enough to me either. I brought my arm around her tightly.

“Good morning, handsome,” she purred as she stretched her thin arms over her head before pressing herself more to my body. 

“Good morning, lovely,” I replied with a smile, smoothing my fingers over her scarred cheek. “You’re so beautiful.”

“Thank you.” She blushed, pushing her face into my chest. “What do you have to do today?”

“Shooting out with the boys. All day, I’m afraid. Some food places and this evening I’m getting a guided tour around the old Los Angeles zoo. It’s for Halloween. It’s supposed to be very haunted if you believe in that sort of thing.”

“Mm, I really don’t, but that sounds like a lot of fun. I love going through abandoned buildings,” she told me with a sly little smile. “There is an abandoned fort in New York that Alice and I love to go hiking through. If you’re into the haunted stuff, there are tons of great places you could film there.”

“Really? I’ll have to look into that,” I said with a smile. I wasn’t really into it, but Seth was. He had the idea for the zoo video for Halloween. It would be something that I would have to see if he was interested in doing. I wasn’t against exploring abandoned places though, even if I didn’t believe in the ghost stories. 

Bella laid so that her bare chest was pressed against mine, her chin resting on my pec as she gazed up at me. “I’ll take you to the fort if you ever come to visit me. It’s on a beautiful beach, and you can hike to this high lookout that overlooks the ocean. And you can see all the way to Coney Island and Manhattan. It’s also a fun makeout spot.”

“Oh, I look forward to visiting you very soon,” I grinned teasingly. “I’ll bring that list of things I want you to teach me to cook.”

“Mm, please do,” she returned happily in a giggle. 

“Would you like to take another shower with me?” I hopefully asked. 

“Sure. Just let me run to the bathroom first,” she responded, pushing herself up with her arms. Bella leaned down to press a quick kiss to my lips before prancing off to the ladies. I smiled to myself. 

I checked my phone. In the group chat, Seth had asked if we were still on for the day. I answered back quickly, affirmatively, and that I would see them at the scheduled time. I also put a reminder on my phone to send the canceled places emails about picking a new time. 

I also sent a group message to all my sisters at once. “I’m fine. I lost about four pints of good ice cream, though. I’m very sad about it.”
“Two days and she’s the one. Really, Tony?” Jasper had replied to my text. 

“I’ve known her since the fourteenth. So, more than two days. Just… two days as a couple.”

After Bella finished, it was my turn. When I got out, she was arranging the clothes she wanted to wear out on my bed. I put my arms around her from behind and lightly kissed her shoulder. 

“Do you want to come along today?” I asked softly. 

“Of course.” She turned in my arms. “I’m ready when you are.”

I happily pulled her along to my shower, where we kissed under the steamy water. Our hands slipped easily over soapy bodies. 

She dressed promptly before applying a thin layer of makeup. We somehow were doing fine on time, so she offered to make us coffee while we waited for the boys. I certainly wasn’t going to turn it down. The creamer was fine, but we were going to need more soon. 

Bella moved around the kitchen like a dancer as I watched from my stool by the island. 

“You should see if you can do a video on the Museum of Death,” she suddenly suggested. “Get a little tour.”

“That is a good idea.” I pulled out my phone to make a note of that as well as looking into the places she was talking about in New York. NYC could be a whole gold mine of new material to explore. “I wish we could do it before Halloween.”

She shrugged a little. “That kind of stuff is popular all the time. You can always do it for next Halloween, too.”

“That’s true,” I agreed. Seth had undoubtedly brought it up before. As if they knew I was thinking about them, they knocked before allowing themselves in. 

“Well, look who's still here!” Tyler exclaimed cheerfully as he put down his equipment. His smile was huge. Grinning in return, Bella bit her bottom lip a little as her cheeks lightly flushed.

“Yeah, they canceled my flight because of the weather. But it works out. I'm going to take a little vacation.”

I realized then that we hadn’t discussed whether or not we were going to be public about our relationship. Happily, I would shout my feelings from the rooftops, but I would allow Bella to take the lead on that.  

“Nice.” Seth high fived her as he walked into the kitchen for some of her delicious coffee. “So, is Eddie letting you crash here since you're practically one of us now?”

“One of us. One of us,” Tyler chimed in sarcastically. I rolled my eyes and shook my head at them. 

“Yes, of course, she's staying here. She is welcome to stay as long as she pleases,” I replied as I gave Tyler my keys. Someone else always drove in the mornings. He was probably the best driver of us all. 

Seth flicked his eyes over to me, taking my appearance in with curiosity. “So, is he putting you to work? Are you joining our little crew?”

Bella wasn’t going to give them any more of the extra information that they were so subtly digging for. “How is this work? It's so much fun. I'm going to take pictures. But for me.”

“And, of course, you can be in the videos, if you want,” I added in a yawn. “I hope you'll be. If you want to be... It'll be more fun if you are. The ones I've posted with you in it have done very well so far, too.”

They were doing amazingly well from what I had checked briefly before bed. I was excited to sit down and look at those numbers when I had more time. I was a nerd. 

I shouldn’t have been surprised how well Bella did in the cake video. Her quick little fingers made easy work of frosted roses and neat piping that the pastry chef kept praising. I obviously tested the chef’s patience, though. She smacked me like a naughty child more than once on the top of the hand lightly. Every time I would look into the camera and try not to laugh.

Watching Bella eat cake was the best part, though. More than once we fed it to each other, the other moaning about how delicious something was and how they had to try it. I wanted to kiss the chocolate away from her lips but knew I would have to be patient. 

I was honestly a little nervous about the next food shoot. We had done spicy challenges before, but nothing where I would have to sign a waiver. Bella agreed to join us with a roll of her eyes, signing her name as if it was nothing. Then I thought back to the pizza place and all that red pepper she covered it with. I knew we were chatting back and forth, my mouth happy to take over while I worried about making a fool of myself in front of my new girlfriend and my jackass friends, but I wasn’t paying real attention to it. 

The smell of heat seared my nose and made my eyes water as soon as they placed the wings down in front of us. I hated it so much. 

“So, here is the challenge. You have twenty minutes to eat all ten wings without any ranch or blue cheese. If you do, you get your picture on the wall and a t-shirt. Also, you can't throw up before we take your picture,” the chef explained to Bella, Seth, and me as we sat at the gingham cloth-covered table. 

Throwing up was something that happened so regularly that it had to be mentioned. Great. 

I was going to puke in front of Bella. I just knew it. 

“Antacids for everyone,” I complained. 

The first wing was spicy in a way that I actually liked. Just a little burn. But I knew that if the first ones were a good burn, it wouldn’t be too long until we got to the bad kind. Seth was handling it easily enough as well. He probably liked his food a little hotter than me. I glanced over to see how Bella was doing. 

She decided to start with ten and work backward. She had already finished it and was sucking the sauce from her tiny fingers. 

“Oh, goddammit!” I blurted out. “That’s not fair.”

“What?” Seth leaned over to see what I was complaining about and opened his mouth in a wide O before gasping, “but, why?” 

“I liked it. It made my lips feel weird.” Unbothered, she picked up the next wing and took a large bite of the chicken. I looked back at Seth and then to Tyler. She ate it almost daintily before taking a tiny sip of her glass of milk. 

I’m not sure what was wrong with either of us, but both Seth and I, unable to control our broken male brains, tried to rush through the rest of the spiciest things I have ever put in my mouth. 

All because this itty bitty woman could apparently eat straight molten lava. 

We were making total asses of ourselves while she snacked like she was at a normal luncheon. She barely touched her milk. Bella finished before us even with our rushing. Probably because she didn’t have to stop every ten seconds to catch her breath. 

I wanted to die. I hated it. I hated myself for doing it. I hated myself even more because I knew it was going to be an amazing video, and I was going to do this dumb shit to myself again. My head was buzzing, and I was probably actually weirdly higher than any time I had smoked weed. My nose and eyes angrily dripped as I slowly boiled my brain from the inside because of the stupid wings. 

Seth was a bitch and quit before I did, though. Which was all that mattered. As long as I didn’t give in first. What I didn’t expect was for Bella to reach over for his leftovers. 

“That's not okay!” I objected as I reached for my milk before I greedily gulped it down. It was not enough to help. 

Bella smiled into the camera as she shook her head. “Gringo,” she teased us. “Do you use any of these sauces to make sandwiches?” She went on, proving that she was easily one hundred percent cooler than both of us and far more collected. She continued chatting with the chef, but I wasn’t really listening. 

I was just quietly dying. Or, rather, I thought I was. My brain was literally screaming ‘what the fuck is wrong with you’ over and over again. It made the pain of the tattoo seem mild and passing. 

Then I tried the tenth chicken wing. “No. No... no. No. Nono.” The words just came out. They kind of echoed in my ears.
 
I automatically grabbed for my milk, drinking it as quickly as I could. I have never regretted putting something in my mouth more in my life. Blood rushed through my ears as I stood, making me dizzy. So woozy, in fact, that I rapidly sat back down too hard. 

“So, the spiciest is it like... ghost pepper? Or, is it a reaper?” Bella asked casually as she smeared her finger over the sauce left on my plate to taste. “It feels like both so I don't know.”

“Very good! It’s a mix of both!” The chef practically cheered for her. This is where that time in a kitchen came in handy. Her taste buds were more attuned than mine. To me, it felt like I licked a lit grill. 

It was really everything I could do to keep the food in my stomach. Getting up again, I began to pace.

“Ten out of ten would eat again with some ranch maybe next time,” she said dryly as she went for my last wing. 

“I’m a fucking idiot,” I muttered to myself as tears dripped from my eyes as I hugged my legs. “I deserve this. Who does this to themselves?”

“It's really delicious,” she reiterated genuinely to the chef. I wanted to punch myself in the face. 

“How?” I snapped at her, in serious pain. Bella was smirking as she passed me a tissue and pointed at my face. Of course, I knew there was snot coming from my nose. There was nothing I could really do about it. No mere napkin would fix this problem. My insides were melting and leaking out.

“Some people just... can?” She shrugged. Then she took another little sip of her drink as if to drive home the point that both Seth and I were big old pansies. 

“Dammit, it hurts,” I moaned. My chest was on fire.

“Baby, it's too early in the day to be dying over some chicken wings,” she told me in her thickest, sweetest southern drawl.

“Why do I do these things to myself? What is wrong with me?”

“Because it's funny as fuck to watch us suffer?” Seth offered sarcastically as he shoved another one of his lactose pills in his mouth. At least he was going to be miserable longer than I was. 

I tried to stand up, but my stomach actually pulled me down. Swallowing back the bile in my throat, I blinked back the tears that stung my eyes. “And if you want to see Seth, Tyler, and I suffer some more like this, remember to like, subscribe, and fucking whatever else you have to do. Goddamn… Dude, she destroyed us. What the fuck...”

“I think I might have lost my man card today,” he laughed, making Bella smile. 

“Yeah, I think I might have lost mine as well. Goddammit.”

“Don't worry, honey. I got it in my purse. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a picture to take for a wall,” my brand new girlfriend concluded mockingly as she tossed her hair over her shoulder prettily. She pressed her lips to my cheek, her hand patting my stomach lightly before she went off to take her photo with the chef. 

Tyler and Seth both laughed at my expression. 

With his camera in hand, Tyler went to follow her. “She owned you,” he whispered.

“Yeah, I know,” I whined, slapping my chest. He handed me a roll of Tums from his pocket. He was more prepared for the day than I was. “Thanks.”

“You really should hire her for the channel,” Seth chimed in. 

“Yeah, working on it.” I sat down beside him in the chair. I drank another half glass of milk.    

At the zoo, the elderly woman that was the tour guide was happy to chat with Bella about something entirely gruesome. Seth instantly got excited about it, his eyes getting big when he realized that he knew what they were talking about. Of all the things they could have been discussing they were talking about a dead girl in a water tank. 

Bella easily took over the conversation. I could actually see Seth bouncing in place because he was so enjoying her seemingly dark knowledge. She appeared to be interested in true crime. I hadn’t realized. 

“How do you know so much about this?” I questioned her. My mother shielded us from anything of the sort growing up, but it’s not like it was something you learned about in school.

“I've read three true-crime books just this week. I've probably read all of them at the New York Public Library. I borrow them on audiobook and listen to them while I edit. And I’ve been listening to murder podcasts for ages, too.” she explained, her eyes darting down to the ground almost in embarrassment. 

I loved to read. I didn’t care what someone read, just that they did. Lately, I had been reading more scripts than anything else, but I also enjoyed an interesting nonfiction book or a good novel. 

“Which books?” The tour guide asked cheerfully, eating out of the palm of Bella’s hands. 

She tilted her head slightly to the side, thinking for a moment. “A Stranger Beside Me again, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and a book about Carl Panzram. I've also brought one about Ed Gein. I've listened to them all before, honestly. These are just some of my favorites.”

“A Stranger Beside Me is so good. She was so lucky.”

“What's it about? You mentioned it the other day. You said it was your favorite.” I had forgotten to look it up with everything else happening. 

“A former cop turned crime writer who worked beside Ted Bundy on a suicide hotline. It's a true story. She never thought he was the killer even after talking to the police, telling them that he had the same car as the killer... He seemed too nice. He was a monster, of course. He killed forty-something women,” she elaborated without hesitation. 

The woman beamed at Bella. “You seem very well-educated about true crime history!”

She looked down at her feet again. “Thanks... I think. I've always been a little obsessed with death. I grew up within sight of the cemetery my mom and grandparents are buried, and I went all the time. I'd sit at my mom's grave. Pick all the wildflowers in the fields around it and cover it completely. Spend hours and hours talking to the graves. I was a dark kid, too.”

Poor wounded bird, Jasper’s words from before echoed in my ears. I couldn’t help but reach out to comfort her, my hand moving over her back before brushing away her silky hair. She gave me a small smile as she leaned her head against my shoulder. 

And then the crazy old bat decided to ask, “was your mother murdered?”

I gaped like a fish, looking towards my friends. Both of their eyes were wide like mine, totally shocked that anyone would ask that, let alone on camera!

Bella gasped out a nervous laugh. “No, ma'am. I'm not that dark. I've just always been followed by death.”

“Nope. Not dark at all,” I mumbled. 

Thankfully it was time to move along with the tour and talk about less depressing things. Like ghosts.

Seth had been watching us closely all day. His eyes moved between us as he walked backward towards the car in the parking lot. He was going to fall and hurt himself. He wagged his finger. “So… You two. You a thing or what?”

A thing. I actually scoffed. It was far more than that already. Nothing that involved Bella would be just a ‘thing.’ 

“Probably not now that I've revealed my creepy pastime,” she replied in a small giggle.

“Damnit,” he mumbled to himself as he pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and passed it to a grinning Tyler.

“What?” She looked between them. My eyes narrowed on an annoyed Seth. 

“I bet you two would get together before you left,” Tyler explained cheerfully. “And you haven't left yet. See, I told you they liked each other.”

“I never disagreed about that. Just about whether it would happen or not,” Seth answered him as he turned around once we got to the car. They had to stop at the boot to put the camera equipment away. I went to open the door for my new lovely girlfriend. 

“You're betting on my love life? Some friends you are,” I said as I snatched up the keys. “That doesn't seem very nice.”

“I just figured she was too good for you,” Seth smirked. 

“Oh. Well. Yes. You're not wrong,” I instantly agreed. 

Bella quickly shook her head. “He is. You are wrong. I'm not too good for anyone.”

“No, I'm okay with being unworthy,” I told her honestly. I knew for sure she was out of my league completely and was thrilled she was giving me even the time of day. 

Carefully, I brought her hand up to my lips to kiss her delightfully soft skin. A smile formed at the corners of her mouth even as she cheeks heated under my adoring gaze. 

The entire drive home her small hand rested on my thigh, contentedly looking at the window. I was pretty happy with the world myself.

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