Tattoos and TaTas (Chocoholics #2.5) (6 page)

After ten minutes of jogging up and down the block, searching row after row of cars parked bumper to bumper for the party, I located Jim. He’d already changed into dry jeans and was in the process of pulling off his wet shirt.

I stopped at the front of his car and stared at his bare chest. I’m a sucker for muscular men. Give me a big, hulking beast of a man who can toss me over their shoulder any day. Jim wouldn’t be cracking any walnuts with the sheer power of his biceps anytime soon, but he was in great shape. He was tall and lean and had a six-pack I wanted to run my fingers over. I may or may not have let out a whimper when he grabbed his clean shirt from the backseat and covered himself up.

He spotted me as soon as he got the shirt pulled down and that damn smile lit up his face again. I was going to swoon like those motherfuckers in romance novels. My legs were going to give out and I’d need smelling salts or some shit.

“So, before we get out of here and get some coffee, do you think I could get your name?” he asked as he closed his back door and walked up to me.

“Liz, my name is Liz. Just coffee, right?”

He nodded as he grabbed my hand and laced his fingers through mine.

“Yep, just coffee. I know a great place two blocks from here.”

And that’s how it all started. We walked to the coffee shop and spent three hours talking before heading to Jim’s apartment and having the most amazing sex of my life. True to his word, though, Jim didn’t do one-night stands. When I woke up the next morning and tried to quietly pull the covers back and sneak out, he jumped out of bed and started getting dressed.

“Are you hungry? I’m starving. The diner across the street makes the best pancakes. Breakfast is on me and then we can figure out what to do the rest of the day.”

Normally, I would have found his assertiveness off-putting and told him to suck it, but I couldn’t. I was fucking starving and the thought of a huge plate piled with pancakes made my mouth water. He held my hand the whole walk down two flights of stairs and across the street to the diner. When he excused himself to go to the bathroom after we ordered, he came over to my side of the table and kissed the top of my head. Over breakfast, we made plans to spend the rest of the day together taking a nap and watching movies. I eagerly arranged these things with him and didn’t even realize what was happening. I was falling in love with a guy I just met. A guy who held open doors, pulled out my chair, asked me about myself and my dreams and refused to let our night together be something cheap.

I haven’t spent more than a few nights apart from Jim in over twenty years and it’s mostly thanks to Claire. After our day of cuddling and watching movies, I swear to God I started to break out in hives. I’d never had a relationship. I didn’t know the first thing about spending more than a few hours with a guy. What in the hell would we even talk about? He’d get bored with me and walk away right when I got attached. I snuck into the bathroom during our movie marathon and made a frantic call to Claire. She told me to stop being an asshole and give him a chance to prove me wrong.

And prove me wrong he did. It was the best non-one-night stand I’d ever had. He tells me when I’m being an asshole and I tell him when he’s pissing me off. He’s my rock and he keeps me grounded. Aside from Claire, he’s the only person who knows just by looking at me what I’m feeling. Sometimes it’s a blessing, but with everything going on right now, it’s a fucking curse.

AS SOON AS
the doctor came out and told us that Claire’s surgery went well and that she was resting comfortably, I left. Shitty thing to do, I know, but I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t stand to drink one more cup of shitty hospital coffee and I was losing my mind pacing the shitty halls. I told everyone I was going to pick up some food so we didn’t have to eat one more shitty meal in the cafeteria, grabbed the keys from Jim and ran to the parking garage. I’ve done nothing but drive around for an hour. I drove past Seduction and Snacks where we made our dreams come true, the park where Claire and I used to take the kids when they were little, the elementary school where we both got kicked out of the PTA for rolling our eyes at the president when she told us we needed to be more bubbly to be in the Parent Teacher Association, the high school where we met and then later sent our own kids, and finally, the hotel where Gavin and Charlotte had decided to have their wedding reception in six months.

Our kids are getting married, something we used to talk about when they were babies and it’s actually happening. We’ve been fighting over what color dresses we’re going to wear and who’s going to cater the event and what song would be the perfect one to dance to when it comes time for the mother/daughter, mother/son dance. All the years of dreaming, all these months of planning and arguing and now I don’t know if my best friend will even be there when our children tie the knot. There hasn’t been one major event in my life that Claire hasn’t been there for and now, the biggest one of all is coming and I might have to do it on my own. It’s not fair. I can’t do this without her. I can’t do
anything
without her.

Before I head back to the hospital, I decide to stop by Claire’s house and pick up a few things that she might need. I’m sure Carter packed everything in her closet, but I’m not ready to go back to the hospital just yet. I need some time to get my head on straight so I don’t break down crying as soon as I walk into her room.

Pulling into the driveway, I see Carter’s car parked in front of the garage and wonder what he’s doing home. Figuring he had the same idea as me, I let myself into the house to look for him. When I get close to the kitchen, a can of green beans comes flying out into the hallway, denting the wall right next to my head. Crouching down, I peek around the kitchen doorway right as Carter reaches into the pantry and swipes his arm across every single shelf, sending cans of soup, boxes of Mac N Cheese, canisters of sugar and about a hundred other things crashing to the floor. When the pantry is empty, he moves on to the cabinets, yanking out pots and pans and tossing them across the room. Pans crash into the table, lids smack into the wall and he kicks a bag of flour out of his way as he moves across the room to wreak havoc on the cupboards under the island. Unfortunately, the toe of his shoe hits the bag of flour just right and the entire thing explodes, a cloud of white powder
poofing
all over the floor and the front of his jeans.

“MOTHERFUCKER!” he screams.

I’ve never seen Carter like this and for a minute, I’m afraid to approach him. I quickly pull out my phone and send a text to Jim and Drew, hoping they can get their asses over here and help me out.

Carter sees me cowering in the doorway and stalks over to me as I shove my phone in my pocket.

“I don’t know what the fuck to do,” he tells me angrily before turning and slamming his foot into a Tupperware dish, sending it flying across the room.

“I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK TO DO!” he screams.

He clutches his hands in his hair and I’m frozen in place as I watch him sink to the ground on his knees in the middle of the mess.

“FUCK YOU, GOD! FUCK YOU FOR DOING THIS TO HER!” he cries, his shoulders shaking with sobs as he completely breaks down.

I force myself to move, stepping over cans and boxes as I rush to his side and get down on my knees next to him, wrapping my arms around his heaving shoulders.

“This isn’t fair! Goddammit, this isn’t fair,” he tells me angrily.

His entire body is shaking and for the first time since I found out about Claire being sick, I don’t feel so helpless and alone. All this time, Carter has been a rock for Claire, doing whatever she needed and taking care of things when rage and fear were bubbling just under the surface. We share a love for Claire that is different in a lot of ways, but so alike in others. She is our soul mate and we are both caught in the middle of wanting to do everything we can to make her better, yet knowing there’s not a damn thing we can do.

“I can’t do this without her, Liz, I can’t. Every part of my life is wrapped up in her. She’s my wife, the mother of my children and my
everything.
How am I supposed to live without her?” he sobs.

I don’t know how to answer him because everything I can think to say would be so fucking cliché.
She’s going to be fine. You aren’t going to lose her. She’s strong and she’s going to fight this.

It’s all bullshit. All of it. We
want
her to be fine. We
want
her to be with us forever, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. How do you prepare yourself for a life without your soul mate, while at the same time holding onto hope that they will be okay? You have to walk a fine line between hope and reality, and every single day that line gets thinner and thinner. Eventually, you’re going to have to tip one way or another and you have no way of knowing which way it will be. It’s enough to drive you insane, to push you over the edge and make you question everything you thought you knew about yourself as a person.

“I’m so scared, Carter,” I tell him honestly.

“I know, babe. Me too.”

He keeps his arm slung over my shoulder as we move to the wall, resting our backs against it as we sit side-by-side with our knees pulled up to our chests. I can see some relief in Carter’s face as we sit here in silence. It’s like he just needed to scream and rage and get it out of his system in order to feel normal again. I wish I could do the same. No amount of trashing a kitchen is going to make me feel better, though.

I hear the front door open and shut and a few seconds later, Jim and Drew stick their heads in the kitchen, staring wide-eyed at the mess.

“Dude, have you been snorting cocaine without me?” Drew asks as he eyes the flour coating Carter’s jeans.

“Why are you wearing shorts? Last time I checked it was twenty degrees outside,” Carter asks him.

Drew waltzes up to us and sticks one of his legs in front of Carter. “Touch it. Go ahead, touch it.”

Carter shakes his head back and forth and tries to move away from Drew’s leg. Drew just sticks his leg closer to Carter’s face until it’s practically touching his mouth.

“TOUCH IT!” Drew shouts.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?! I’m not touching your leg!” Carter argues.

Drew bends over, running his hand up and down his leg and I swear I hear him purr. “Oh, yeah, silky smooth.”

“What in the hell is happening right now?” I ask Jim, who’s standing right behind Drew, shaking his head.

“Our friend decided to shave his legs in support of Claire. Don’t ask,” Jim tells me.

“I totally get why chicks do this,” Drew mutters. “I can’t stop touching myself.”

“Please tell me you didn’t shave
your
legs,” I tell my husband.

He sits down next to me on the floor and shrugs. “Nah, my legs are still hairy. My balls on the other hand…”

“You shaved your balls?” Carter asks, leaning forward to look at Jim.

Drew nods, his hands still running up and down his leg. “Yep, Jimbo totally shaved his nut sack. His bathroom now looks like someone killed Sasquatch. You know, if Sasquatch was covered in pube hair.”

“Uh, did you guys do this together or something?” I ask in disgust.

“Are you kidding? That would be totally gay,” Drew scoffs.

“And shaving your legs isn’t?”

He just shrugs. “I figured we should do something in honor of Claire and I also heard that you can donate your hair to cancer patients so they can make wigs out of it. How cool would it be if someone was wearing my leg hair on their head?”

“That is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard. You can’t donate leg hair, idiot,” I tell him.

“Why the fuck not? I’ll have you know my leg hair was long and flowing. It would make a beautiful wig.”

Carter laughs and even though the idiot I married and his friend are morons, at least they managed to make Carter laugh, which is exactly what I’d hoped for when I sent them a text.

“Don’t laugh, dude. It’s your turn now,” Jim states.

“I’m not shaving my legs and for your information, my balls have been silky smooth for years,” Carter informs them.

“Oh, you’re not going to shave anything on
your
body,” Drew says with a smile, pulling a pair of battery operated clippers from his back pocket. “Find your pussy.”

Carter and I look at Drew in confusion until a few seconds later we hear a small “meow” from the corner of the room and Drew’s face lights up with a huge smile.

“No. Absolutely not. You are NOT shaving Claire’s cat,” I tell them.

The guys sit perfectly still, looking back and forth between each other and I have a moment of hope that Drew was just kidding and that my husband and Carter aren’t stupid enough to do something like this.

My hope is short lived, though. The poor cat lets out another “meow” and all three guys scramble up off the floor, shoving and pushing each other out of the way as they chase the cat through the house. Figuring there’s no point in chasing after those morons, I start cleaning up the kitchen while listening to the guys screaming and laughing all through the house. Eventually, I hear the
whirr
of the clippers starting up and Drew lets out a war cry. “LONG LIVE SHAVED PUSSY!”