Arizona Jello Pt.1

The Jello sun is pouring over the mountains in Arizona. Steve feels that heat and thinks of himself as a baked potato in that Jello mold. He wasn’t ready for this heat. He doesn’t even like sweating much less feeling his crotch slick with sweat and somehow sticky at the same time. Steve adjusts himself and silently rages at the uncomfortableness of his boxers.
“Cheap thin piece of shit cotton,” Steve mutters to himself.
Why did they have to send him out here? There’s nothing out here but dry suburbia and mountains as far as you can see. Everything is a chain here, and there’s no time to really tour the sights between working and sleeping the long hours off. The new office setup went just fine but now he has a whole day to waste until Monday. What do you do in a suburb wasteland?
Steve ponders to himself in his air-conditioned Jetta and remembers he has friends living in the area. Maybe they can hang out. Then again he barely hung out with them back in Chicago and calling… No, actually he didn’t even have their number. At best he could message them online. Steve opened Facebook and then wrote a message to them, “Hey so I’m in your area, want to chill?”
A few minutes later his phone chirps and he sees the reply, “Who dis’?”
Feeling like a shit bag Steve continues, “Oh it’s Steve we hung out with Joe and everything back when you were in Chicago.”
“Oh”
Several minutes pass.
“OOOohhh yeah Steve man what’s up? Yeah we can chill come on over.” They finally replied. They send their address and Steve loads it up on his navigation.
On the way Steve remembers how Becca was good friend to all his friends but not to him but whenever she was single he’d sort of make a move. She never bit though and ended up marrying this guy and moving down here to Arizona. A few kids later she seems happy and really so does Steve he ended up with a great woman. Even so what the fuck was he going to talk about? Oh yeah the Hawks blew it, that’ll last like 5 minutes. Maybe talk about Chicago? Ugh this may have been a bad decision.
Steve is getting close and is astounded by the cleanliness of this development. Every house looked pretty much the same but all of them relatively new and probably really pricey. It really did look like Breaking Bad. Remembering that show made Steve remember that he probably needed to speak a decent amount of spanish to be able to do stuff around here.
As he pulled up, their house looked about the same as any other which was likely by design of the HOA. There was a two car garage attached and in front of the main house. A small stoop to the front door and probably 3 bedrooms and 2.5 baths to accommodate themselves and their 2.5 kids.
Steve stepped out of his rented Jetta and off in the distance her could hear the rough squealing of car tires. As he rang the doorbell the squealing intensified. Steve caught a glimpse of two cars side by side. Racing down the street. Then gunshots, Steve dove down as churlish bullets wizzed overhead hitting the house.
“HOLY SHIT!!!!” Steve shouted while holding his eyes shut.
The cars continued down the street and slowly they disappeared on the gunshots and tire squealing continuing off into the distance.
“Steve?”
Steve was too scared to move, but slowly creaked his neck to the oft so he could look towards the front door. There was Becca adorable as ever smiling.
“Hey Steve! Welcome to Arizona!”
He wasn’t sure she was serious but the Kool-Aid drinking grin on her face showed someone similar to the person he only kind of knew back in Chicago.
“Uh, hey. That was nuts.”
“Oh yeah it happens occasionally, Sheriff Joe is on the case I’m sure.”
Again not sure she was joking Steve slowly pushed himself up to greet her.
“Ok so… Hi?”
Becca jumped forward and hugged him. This reminded him of why he thought he ever had a chance. She was a hugger. Most girls he knew were but back then he rarely got that much contact with a person and it just threw him. It was always his problem not hers. Becca invited him in. There was her husband Sean in the hallway also looking really happy to see Steve. This made it clear that there was indeed a Kool-Aid situation here. Steve struggled to find words.
“How about them Hawks!?”, He forced through his teeth,
“Oh those stinkers! They blew it!”
“Yeah the problem is they always want to walk it in.” Steve had used that line numerous times to make it look like he’s sports savvy but it was a total forgery picked from the show I.T. Crowd.
Still smiling Becca just stared at him. Steve looked back at Sean and he had the same look. Steve grasped for another handhold.
“SO how are you two doing?”
“Oh fine, just fine,” Becca reassured him
“Good, good.” Steve added without adding much to the conversation.
Sean started walking forward, swinging his arms like noodles attached to a broken windmill.
“How about a beer, man?”
Oh no thanks I could take some water though.
“You got it.” Sean squeaked as he strided into the nearby kitchen.
Becca invited Steve to sit in the living room. As he sat down he noticed the near clinically clean house.
“Where are your kids?” Steve said with honest concern.
“Oh Grandma has them today,”
Sean walked in with a glass of water.
“Yeah they can be a handful, luckily we just cleaned the house.” Sean said with confidence,
Steve took a long drag out of the glass of water.
“ Well it’s a nice house, makes mine look like a pig sty.” As he finished that thought Steve yawned with a lot of effort.
“Why am I so tired?” Steve got that last syllable out before passing out on the floor.
Becca frowned, “Honey how much did you give him?”
“Only three I swear!”