Almost the Perfect Couple - Part 2
The clothes Owen picked out for me looked pretty good. Clothes were never that important to me—as long as they fit, and looked like they came from this decade, that was good enough for me. Unlike my roommate, I wasn’t that into fashion.
I pulled on a pair of black pants, buttoning them easily, and reached around my back to rip off the tags. Then, I picked up my work shirt. All my old clothes had shrunk, including my shirts from Panetti’s. I’d have to ask for new ones. I didn’t think Armando would mind, though—there wasn’t much that seemed to bother him. Man after my own heart.
Before work, when I was putting on a baseball cap in front of the hall mirror, I caught Owen looking at me. I was pretty sure he’d been staring at me more than usual, lately. But he wasn’t weird, or anything—I think he just liked being around me. And I was fine with that. I liked hanging out with him, too. We’d been roommates for ages, and my sister joked that we would have been the perfect couple, if I’d actually been into dudes. Ha-fuckin'-ha.
Honestly, I didn’t mind the extra attention Owen was paying me. It was kind of a confidence boost, even from a guy. I didn’t care if guys were into me—I’d even flirted with a couple before in exchange for free drinks.
“Any plans tonight?” I asked, when Owen realized that I had noticed him looking at me.
“Nope, just me and my magazines,” he said, pretending he was looking at his phone as he gestured to a stack of fashion mags on the couch beside him. “What time are you off this evening?”
“4 AM,” I said. Panetti’s delivered until 4 on weekends. The later parts of those shifts could be pretty boring. I made eye contact with Owen through the mirror, and, barely realizing I was still talking, added: “It’s so slow after 2 o’clock. I’d hate it if someone sent me out on another prank delivery.”
I honestly don’t know why I said that. Armando was always offering me free slices, and I bought myself plenty of pizza.
Owen looked at me with a blank expression. “Maybe it’ll happen again,” he said, after a while.
I finished getting ready and headed to work, waving goodbye to Owen on my way out the door. Armando was kneading dough when I arrived, getting ready to cut it into pizza-size portions for later. “Hey, Milo,” he said, over his shoulder. He was a big, muscular guy, easily 6’5” and 220 pounds, and around 35 years old. He always wore long sleeves (tucked into gloves) when he worked, since even his forearms were hairy.
I waited until he finished with the dough to explain my washer-drier troubles, and my need for new shirts.
“Sure, no problem,” he said, looking me over. “What size did I give you before? Medium?”
He brought me a few shirts from the stockroom. I changed into one in the bathroom, and it fit well. When I came out, Armando asked me if I’d eaten dinner. When I said no—it was only 4 PM—he offered me a slice of pizza.
A little after 2 AM that night, I was delivering a pizza to an office building downtown. There were no lights on in the building, and when I tried the front door, it was locked.
I called the phone number on the receipt, and it went to voicemail: “Thank you for calling the Faculty of Design at Overton University. Our office is currently closed—”
I hung up, and looked back at the receipt. The order had been placed by “Anna Wintour”, and the email address was [email protected]; I understood the Rihanna part, but not the British government part. It definitely seemed like Owen’s sense of “humour”, though (if you could call it that). I was kind of surprised Armando hadn’t caught this obvious prank as soon as it came off the printer.
I sent a text to Armando, telling him that the order wasn’t deliverable, and carried it back to my car. I felt kind of embarrassed. Why did I tell Owen to do that? I wondered. I was wasting my own time, and Armando’s money, and for what? Because I was bored, and wanted free pizza?
I was starting to feel a little guilty when my stomach growled. I opened the box to see what Owen had ordered me—the bastard had gone with my all-time favourite, a large, stuffed-crust meat lovers’.
My mouth literally watered as I took in the sight of it: crispy cheese on the crust, a thin sheen of grease on top… I grabbed the first slice and tore into it, savouring the cheese pull and the taste of Panetti’s signature marinara sauce. I’d been working there for nearly six months, and I still wasn’t sick of their pizza. If anything, it had only grown on me.
I was listening to a sports podcast as I went to town, inhaling slice after meat-covered slice, keeping one eye on my phone in case a real delivery came in. I could feel myself getting full as I polished off a fifth slice, but I hadn’t even finished half of it, yet, and it was so delicious—I knew I could eat more.
Eating big has never been a problem for me. Actually, not eating big is where I struggle. I was never one to watch what I ate—I’d always had a really great metabolism, and, before I started my delivery job, I used to work out all the time. So it was only natural that I was a big eater. I sort of saw meals as a challenge: if there was food left in front of me, I had to prove that I was man enough to finish it. And I usually was.
My stomach was gurgling painfully as I polished off my seventh slice. The podcasters were joking about the Maple Leafs, but I was barely paying attention—they weren’t my team, anyway, and I was focused on eating.
By slice number eight, I was really bloated. I pressed my hand against my stomach, feeling how round and firm it was. But I knew the bloat would go down in the morning, like always. I pressed a little more, until a long, deep belch rumbled its way out, loud enough to surprise me a little. I’d been swilling soda all shift, which definitely wasn’t making me any less full.
I shoved the last piece of crust into my mouth, and moved onto a ninth slice. What am I doing? I thought, as I chewed. Even chewing was starting to feel like an effort. I was really full, there was no reason to keep eating, other than that it tasted good and it was there. I pressed on my stomach again, feeling its resistance, and coaxed out a smaller burp. As I rubbed, I closed my eyes, feeling totally stuffed, savouring the taste of the sauce and cheese and meat, and—
Hold up. Was I starting to pop a boner?!
Embarrassment shot through me, and I dropped the rest of the slice in the box. Less than a quarter of the large pizza was left, but I had to stop. I mean, was I actually sitting alone in my car, in the middle of the night, stuffing my face, and getting hard from feeling myself up? What the fuck?
I drove back to Panetti’s to wait for another order, and there were two more before the end of my shift. On my way home that night, I finished the last of the pizza.
There were three “prank” deliveries in the next three weeks. Liza Minnelli ordered a pizza to a nightclub that had gone out of business; Karl Lagerfeld had me deliver one to a retirement home; and Beyoncé sent one to the 16th floor of my 10-storey apartment building.
I ate all three pizzas, all by myself. Every last bite. Not all at once, to be fair—I never did manage to get through one on my own, in one sitting. But I usually ate at least half all at once, and saved the rest for breakfast the next day. Trust me, it was really good pizza.
Every time I got a free pizza, I told Owen about it. I’d usually mention how much of it I ate all at once. He seemed very interested. I guess he wanted to make sure that he was ripping off Panetti’s for a good reason, or he was waiting for me to tell him to stop. Of course, I knew he should stop, but I didn’t want to tell him that! I felt like I had a good thing going.
It sounds stupid and immature, I know. I really can’t explain why I did it. It’s not like I couldn’t afford to buy my own pizza. And I had no reason to want to spite Armando. Did it have something to do with Owen, and how hard he was staring at me lately? Did some part of me like playing this game with him?
But that didn’t make any sense.
For whatever reason, it didn’t seem to bother Armando. Actually, one day in early June, he even joked about it. “At least all those pizzas are going to a good home,” he said, patting my stomach. I didn’t realize how bloated I still was—it was weird, since I hadn’t even eaten that much lunch, but my stomach was definitely sticking out. And it didn’t feel as firm as it normally did when I was bloated, which was also weird.
I chuckled. “Yeah, they’re really good,” I said. “Best in town.”
He seemed to like that. “It’s a family recipe. Passed down from my great-grandfather, straight from the old country.”
That sounded impressive. “You can definitely tell,” I said, for something to say. Call me an uncultured swine, but I actually liked Panetti’s better than actual Italian pizza. My brother’s fiancée is Italian, and they live in Sorrento, so I’ve had my share of the real thing, but I always preferred the crust on American-style pizzas. Not that I’d dare admit that to Bianca.
“I’m glad you like it so much,” he said. He gestured to the display case. “You want some? I’m getting ready to replace the one in the display, but I think it still has some life left in it.”
I looked at the half-pizza sitting there. It was simple cheese and pepperoni, and even though it had been sitting there for the better part of an afternoon, it was definitely calling to me. Just looking at it made my stomach growl loud enough for Armando notice. He laughed, and started to dish it out before I even had the chance to say yes.
“I don’t want to put you out,” I said. I didn’t sound very convincing.
Armando shrugged as he slid the two slices onto a plate. “It’s my pleasure,” he said, much more convincingly. “You’re a good testimonial for the product.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant by that—but I definitely wasn’t going to turn down free pizza.
