Fucking A. This girl had the sexiest body I’d ever seen in real life. On any given day, it was a struggle for me to keep from expressing that to her and to keep from showing her how I actually felt about it. How could anyone lead her to believe that there was something wrong with the way she looked?

“He criticized your body.”

“Yeah…all the time.”

“Really…”

“Yes. He told me I wasn’t athletic-looking enough, that I could stand to lose ten pounds and that my ass was too big.”

Nina didn’t see it, and it was too noisy to hear, but I cracked a wooden chopstick under the table. Listening to this bullshit was making me so angry. Her ass was too big? Her ass was phenomenal. A thousand symphonies played in my head whenever I looked at that ass for fuck’s sake. How could I explain to her how wrong he was without admitting my true feelings?

“Nina…I hope you don’t mind me being blunt.”

“I don’t mind.”

“This…Spencer…needs his eyes checked and his ass kicked. There is nothing wrong with your body…not one thing. I hope you didn’t listen to him.”

When she admitted to believing him in the past, I nearly lost it.

“Nina…” I stopped myself and took a deep breath. I quietly grabbed the last chopstick and cracked that one under the table, too. (I’d need to find something else to destroy if I had to keep holding my thoughts at bay like this.) “Never mind. Just know…that he was wrong, okay?”

“Say what you were gonna say.”

“I’m not sure that I should.”

“Since when have you become tactful?”

“Since this conversation moved to tits and ass.”

She looked amused. So nice that she found it funny, because I was dead serious. It was taking everything in me not to tell her how I felt, that she was the most beautiful woman in the world to me.

“Seriously, whatever you were going to say, I won’t be offended.”

Offended? Shit! She had it all wrong. I needed to rectify this. Everything came pouring out of me at that point like projectile vomit.

“Okay…in that case, Nina, not just as your friend, but as a man, I am telling you straight up that you have an amazing body. It’s perfect. And your nimrod ex-boyfriend was right about one thing: you do kind of have a big ass.”

Okay. So that didn’t come out exactly right. I was buzzed.

“Excuse me?”

My heart was pounding as I reached across the table to touch her arm. “Let me finish. You kind of have a big ass…but it’s the most spectacular ass I’ve ever seen. You have an hourglass shape, and any man with a pulse knows that’s the hottest kind there is. You’re beautiful, and what makes you even more attractive, is that you have absolutely no fucking idea just how beautiful you really are.”

I let out a slow, deep breath. It was the most honest thing I’d ever said to her, and every word was the truth. She just looked at me with the slightest bashful smile on her face and seemed like she really wanted to say something. She took a long sip of the drink then finally said, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

You have no idea.

We silently watched a couple of the karaoke acts. Just as some guy named Larry, who looked like he was on psychedelic drugs, started belting out Jessie’s Girl by Rick Springfield, Nina got up to go to the bathroom. I watched her every move as she walked away. She turned around briefly, and I laughed to myself, realizing she was probably paranoid I was checking out her ass, which I absolutely was until it was completely out of sight.

There was a break in performances, and the stage was empty for the first time all night. An idea popped into my head, and I made my way over to the DJ booth.

Rump Shaker by Wreckx-N-Effect started playing in my head, and I wondered if Nina would get the joke if I got up and sang it. I just wanted to show her how dumb her ex was, and singing a song about big asses seemed to be the most fitting idea at the moment. At least, my drunk brain thought so.

I didn’t think I could pull Rump Shaker off, though.

“What songs do you have about big asses?”

“These Humps by Black Eyed Peas?” he suggested.

“What else?”

“Honky Tonk Badonkadonk by Trace Adkins?”

“Ugh…anything else?”

“What about Fat Bottomed Girls by Queen?”

Yes. Effing brilliant. Perfect, in fact.

“Let’s go with that one.”

“Wanna go next? There’s no one in line.”

Shit. Did I really want to do this? Hell yes, I did. Making her laugh was way more important than making a fool out of myself.

I waited with the microphone in hand until I saw Nina return to our booth. She looked confused and started looking around for me.

I cleared my throat.

“What’s your name?” the DJ asked.

I spoke into the mic, “Spencer.”

Nina’s jaw dropped when she noticed me on stage, and she covered her mouth with her hand.

“What are you singing, Spencer?”

I whispered to him to lower my volume a little because it was obnoxiously loud.

“This is a special song for Nina. Please forgive me for being such an ass goblin.”

She looked around in embarrassment. The look on her face was priceless as her mouth eventually curved into a huge smile.

Once the music started, I really got into it, moving my head to the beat and tapping my feet. My eyes alternated between the words on the teleprompter and Nina’s face. She was wiping tears from her eyes. They were happy tears. My plan was working.