Brittney has been spending the weekend with us because her parents are remodeling her bedroom. She accidentally set fire to it the other day doing God knows what. I let her sleep on the couch, but only when I didn’t need it to watch Law and Order: SVU or my collection of Clay appearances. Which, by the way, she tried to flush down the toilet several times cause I wouldn’t give her any attention. And if she eats one more of my chicken burritos, I swear to God she’s out of here.

This morning she made a baked bean casserole in the microwave and somehow got it all over her back. While she was in the shower getting it all off, I stole her last blow pop off the coffee table. She bought a bag yesterday and wouldn’t share with me even though I’m generously giving her the use of my couch between the hours of 11PM and 5AM. I was halfway through its sour apple goodness when she came out of the bathroom and spotted me with it.

“Hey! That’s my last blow pop! Ryan bought it for me!”

“You told me you bought these at the Buy ‘n Eat down on the corner.”

“I did. But they were next to a cardboard cutout of Ryan.”

I stuck my finger down my throat and gagged. “Please tell me you burned that atrocity.”

“Yes. Why do you think I’m staying at your place?”

“You lit cardboard on fire inside your bedroom?”

That was worse than the time she lit a sparkler in my living room and caught the drapes on fire. But Pat had bought them and they were ugly, so I didn’t care. I tried to remind her about it, but she kept going on and on about the cardboard.

“I was lighting candles for us and-“

“Us?” I interrupted.

“Ryan and myself.”

“You were… cardboard… candles… You have issues I’m not even gonna touch.”

“Give me my blow pop!”

She jumped on me and wrestled me off the couch onto the floor.

We rolled around trying to scratch each others eyes out until I shouted, “Oh God! Your elbow is in my spleen!”

I shoved her off of me and stood up. I spun around trying to find the blow pop. “Give it back!” I shouted. “It’s already been in my mouth!”

“I don’t have it! It’s in your hair!”

I screamed. “Get it out!”

She tried pulling it out only to work it deeper into the roots of my hair.

I cried hysterically. “With my luck, this will be the day I meet Clay! With a blow pop in my hair!”

“Maybe he’ll think it’s sexy.”

The doorbell rang and I burst into tears. “Oh God! He’s here!”

I instructed her to answer the door and send the person away while I hid in the bathroom. If it was Clay, she was to end things between us forever. “It’ll break his heart… but I have a blow pop in my hair. It’ll never work.”

She came back a few minutes later and handed me an envelope. “It’s your water bill. It’s 8 months late.”

“Maybe you could start earning your keep around here!”

“I’ve been here for like 14 hours.”

I caught the reflection of my hair in the mirror and started to cry again. Britt tried to calm me down, rationalizing that we could just cut the sucker out.

“Remember that time you got a tootsie roll stuck in your hair?” I reminded her. “You had to cut all your hair off. You were bald for like 6 months!”

“That was your fault! You threw that tootsie roll at me!”

“That’s because you walked through my front door with no pants on.”

“It was hot!” She shouted.

“Clay and I are the only ones who can be naked in my home!”

“What about Pat?”

“This is not a brothel!”

She put her hands on her hips and glared at me.

“Except for that weekend last fall. But that was to raise money to send to those sick kids in Africa.” I explained.

“You told me you were going to buy a leather jacket that said “Clay Aiken or Bust” on the back.”

“What I do with my brothel earnings is nobody’s business!” I shouted.

I took her wallet when she wasn’t looking and used her car to drive to one of the fanciest hair places in town. I was going to have that blow pop removed right.

I pulled up outside one of those fancy pants expensive places and without turning the engine off, ran inside.

Who should greet me by shouting, “Stop pushing that lady out of her chair! She was here first!” None other than John Dahlstrom. Clay’s gorgeous and lucky hairdresser.

I warned him not to mention my current condition to Clay or he’d be sorry. “You’ll never crimp another strand of hair in this town again!” I plopped myself in a chair. “Now get to work.” As he worked on gingerly removing the candy from my hair, I tried digging for deep secrets about Clay. “What size underwear does he wear? Does he prefer Hanes or Fruit of the Loom? What does his hair feel like?” He just shook his head and went on working bits of hair out of the blow pop. “Does he prefer china or glass? Cotton or silk? I just need to know how to prepare our home.” John remained tight-lipped.

As I was negotiating with him to get him to tell me exactly how many hair follicles were on Clay’s chest, my cell phone rang. It displayed Clay’s number. “I’ll find out for myself.” I said to John. I picked up the phone and heard Ryan’s voice on the other end. “Seacrest. Why are you calling from Clay’s phone?”

“Why is he calling from Clay’s phone?” I asked John over my shoulder. He just shrugged and yanked a piece of hair out of my head.

“I’m not calling from Clay’s phone. He changed his number so I snatched up his old one.”

I turned to John. “Clay changed his number?” He just shrugged. “Why are you so elusive, Dahlstrom?”

I turned my attention back to Seacrest. “What do you want?”

“I took you to an intimate restaurant. Then to a suggestive movie.”

“Are you quoting ‘Let’s Get Physical’?”

“No.” He lied. “Let me hear your body talk.”

“My body doesn’t talk to you. Ever.”

“I remember your lips doing a lot of talking that night in my Porsche.”

“All I remember them saying is ‘You’re on my hair.’ And ‘What the hell is that?’ I also recall repeating the phrase ‘Are you done yet?’ several times.”

“And I kept saying, ‘Shhh, don’t talk. A moment like this needs not words.’”

“Yeah. Then I punched you in the neck when you tried to stick your tongue in my ear.”

We shared a good laugh. I was enjoying the moment we were sharing until he ruined it by making another comment about hearing my body talk.

“The only part of my body you’ll hear talking are my fists!” I yelled into the phone.

“Kinky.” He replied.

“Do you know what a restraining order is?”

“Is that something you can buy at a sex shop? Cause there’s this one by my house called Wet and –“

I interrupted, calling him a pervert, and hung up the phone. I got a call from the sex shop 10 minutes later to confirm an order I’d placed for velvet wrist restraints.

I told them never to accept orders from me again.