14
A lady, a tramp, and Ellen
My date with Derek was even better than I could have imagined. I already knew that he was fun to spend time with and that he had the ability to make me laugh until I snorted, so I was relieved when our easy camaraderie through friendship slid smoothly over to our dating life.
His apartment was a definite bachelor pad with sparse furnishings and plain white walls. I could tell by the overpowering smell of Febreze and Pine Sol that he had made the effort to clean and try to spruce the place up before our date, but there was nothing personal or that had any character in the entire space.
“Nice,” I tried when we arrived.
“No, it isn’t,” he called my bluff, “but it gives me a place to sleep when I don’t stay at the fire station.”
I breathed a sigh of relief t
