My Butterfly

asked.
    “Yeah,” she said, laughing at something Jeff had said again.
    I paused and waited for Jeff’s mouth to quit running in the background.
    “Okay, I’ll be there in five minutes,” I said.
    I threw down the phone and forced the truck into gear.
    A handful of minutes later I was parked on the street in front of Jeff’s house. His porch light was on, but from the way it looked, every other light in the house was off. I furrowed my brows for a second as I stared into a dark window but then brushed off the foolish thought. Then, I got out, walked to his front door and pushed it open. The darkness on the other side of the door blinded me, until I reached for the switch on the wall and flipped it on.
    “Julia,” I called out. “Jeff.”
    I listened for a second but didn’t hear anything. Then, I shuffled through the living room and then the kitchen, until I saw the back porch light on and then heard their voices.
    “Hey,” I said, stepping out onto the deck.
    Julia jumped.
    “Will,” she exclaimed, forcing her hand to her heart, “you scared me.”
    My eyes went to her first. She was lounging back in a chair. Her feet were propped up on the porch’s railing. Jeff, on the other hand, was on the opposite side of the porch, sitting in a chair with his feet propped up on a cooler.
    I took a second. My mind was definitely playing tricks on me. It was either that or it was the thought of all those college guys looking at Jules the way I knew they were looking at her that was making me paranoid. Jeff was my best friend. He might well be an idiot sometimes, but he’d never purposefully hit on Jules—not anymore anyway.
    “I called for you guys at the door,” I said, pulling out a chair from the table and scooting it next to Julia’s.
    “Sorry about dinner, Jules,” I said, kissing her on the lips.
    “Me and your girlfriend were just talking about you,” Jeff interjected.
    I turned my attention to Jeff and then forced it back to Julia.
    “Oh, yeah?” I asked.
    Jeff tossed me a can from the cooler under his feet. I caught it, and little pieces of ice flew every which way.
    Julia squealed.
    “Jeff, a piece of ice flew into my eye,” she exclaimed, now shielding her face and rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand.
    “Sorry, J,” Jeff said, his eyes planted on Julia.
    “You all right?” I asked her.
    “She’s all right, but we both think you need a job that’s not so demanding,” Jeff announced. “You know, one that won’t cut into our weekends.”
    “Jeff,” Julia scolded.
    She was smiling but still rubbing her eye, as she turned toward me.
    “Sweetie, I didn’t say that,” she said, at the same time sending Jeff a playful, sarcastic glare. “I used the word dangerous , I think, instead.”
    “Dangerous?” I asked.
    A playful smile was edging its way across my face.
    “You wanna hear how dangerous my job was tonight?” I asked her.
    She was trying not to smile but wasn’t being very successful at it.
    “How dangerous?” she asked, playfully rolling her eyes.
    “Well, tonight, I almost hit a squirrel with the truck—a big, fat one,” I said. “It probably wouldn’t have caused too much physical harm—to the squirrel maybe, but not to us anyway. I mean, it could have busted out a piece of the grille maybe. But the real harm would have been emotional. I’m pretty sure it would have been a real kick in the morale.”
    I smiled wider as I went on.
    “And then, when I got inside the house, I went to step over a stack of old-man McConnell’s hunting magazines from the 1970s, and I almost tripped because, much to my surprise, they weren’t there,” I said. “Oh, and Mike threw a battery at me when we got back to the station. He hadn’t meant to, of course. He had asked me to throw it away, but I wasn’t paying attention, and it hit my head. Can you see the mark? I think it left a mark on my forehead?”
    I pointed at a spot on my head.
    She shoved my arm, then tossed her head back and laughed.
    “Will, what am I going to do with you?” she asked, through her laughter.
    I looked at her with what I liked to call my sex-appeal eyes.
    “I can think of several things,” I said to her.
    She laughed again and shoved me harder. I dramatically fell back into my chair as I heard Jeff start to cough up a hairball in the background.
    “Get a room,” he groaned.
    He made another disgusted face and then cleared his throat.
    “Anyway, Julia, like I said before, this guy’s