Page 29 of Man Flu

“What the hell?” Rick says, stepping outside of his house, all manly and stuff. I also find this funny because Rick couldn’t figure out how to fix a leaky faucet or plunge shit out of a toilet. He couldn’t jump a car because he might get shocked, and changing the batteries in our smoke alarms was traumatizing to his ears, so I did all of that. Real manly, he was. Now he’s coming out here like a tough guy, ready to kick some puking chick off his driveway.

A little rain, and it will be like this never happened. Relax, macho man.

“Sorry, man, I thought this was her house,” Logan says to Rick. What a nice introduction.

“Hannah?” Rick questions while leaning down to confirm it’s me, his ex-wife, the woman he was unfortunately married to for ten years.

“I take it you’re neighbors,” Logan says. “If you just point me to her house, I’ll help her over there.”

Rick laughs. Of course, he laughs. Why wouldn’t he laugh right now? All the while, I’m wondering where Cora is if Rick is out here. If Cora ever hears one of us outside, she’s through the door in a matter of seconds, which tells me she’s no better than she was this morning.

“Yeah, we’re neighbors all right,” Rick continues. “Her house, my old house, whichever you want to call it, is right over there.”

I’m using every bit of strength I have to look up at Logan and Rick, assuming the confusion Logan must be experiencing at the moment, though he did hear my outburst on the conference call yesterday, and I believe I blurted out something about living next door to my ex.

“Whatever the case, I just want to get her home,” Logan continues, without missing a beat. Either he doesn’t care to figure out the drama, he’s already figured it out, or he wants to dump me at my house and get the hell away from me as fast as he can. I’d go with option three if I were him.

Rick steps in front of Logan to help me up. “Hannah, babe, come on. Let’s get you home.”

Babe? Home? No. No. No. No. He’s helping me up, and I pull my arms out of his grip. “Don’t call me babe, and don’t refer to that house as home,” I manage to grumble. “Logan, this is my dumbass ex-husband who had an affair and then moved in next door to continue destroying my life for as long as humanly possible.” Now that I got that out, I would like to collapse back down to the ground and be left here on this soothingly cool driveway to die. It’s all that’s nice about this property.

Rick steps away, but Logan takes his turn trying to peel me up. Preferring his arms over Rick’s, I comply like a limp rag, then cross the small patch of lawn in between our driveways.

“Hannah, are the keys in your purse?” Logan asks.

I nod once, hoping it’s noticeable enough that he saw. In any case, he’s back across the lawns, fishing my purse out of his truck. I hope there’s nothing mortifying in there. He digs around for a minute before retrieving the keys. Since I have at least ten on my keychain, eight of which belong to doors I wouldn’t be able to decipher, I point to the house key.

Logan opens the door and turns back around to help me up and inside the house. “Where is your shower?” he asks.

“No, no, you can’t see me naked, Logan. That’s against company policy,” I say. My words sort of sound like I’ve had about five cocktails, and my stomach feels about the same.

“I won’t look,” he says. “You need to get cleaned up though.”

“Yeah, I suppose. Then, I have to get back to the office before anyone notices I’m gone.”

“There’s no way,” he argues. “You’re seriously sick. You need to take it easy.”

“I can’t,” I say.

“You have to.”

“You’re not my boss. I’m yours,” I argue.

He gives up the battle and helps me up the stairs, where I point off to the right toward my bedroom. Normally, I would have spit-shined my house if I knew a man was coming over, never mind lightly straightening up the place. It looks like a tornado whipped through here at some point in the last week.

I always laugh when I watch the TV shows where a woman unexpectedly finds herself in a sexy predicament and spontaneously brings some hot guy home to her super clean, spotless house, as if she always lives that way. There needs to be some real reality TV shows, like this is what a house of a single, working mom looks like. Yes, it needs to be cleaned. Yes, the dishes are still in the sink from two days ago. No, the laundry has not been done in a week and a half, and no, my sheets have not been changed in at least five weeks. I’m gross, but surviving and keeping a child alive, so I’m thinking that’s all that matters.

Just as I remember leaving it, my sheets are hanging off the bed, my comforter is crumbled in a ball on the floor, I have two bras hanging from the top of my hamper, oh, and a pair of panties just sitting there in the middle of the floor for no reason. My room might actually smell, but maybe that’s just me.

“Sorry about the mess.”

“Eh, we all have our days,” he says.

I have mine every day. I like to be clean and organized, but I suck at it. I even Pinterest that shit just so I can be inspired to clean and organize, but still, no luck.

He sits me down on the edge of my bed, and another wave of thuds rolls through my head like thunder. Holy crap. What the hell is this?

Over the pounding of my head, I hear water squeal through the pipes before splashing onto the tiled floor of my shower.