Futures and Frosting (Chocolate Lovers 2)

“I think Drew ate Claire,” she whispers. “She was sitting here a minute ago and then Drew said he was hungry and now she’s gone. He ate four batches of chocolate chip cookies and one batch of Claire.”

Jesus God what the f**k is going on?

I gently push Jenny away from me until her back is leaning up against the counter and I am certain she won’t fall. Turning around, I stare at the mess that has transformed this sparkling clean kitchen into a chocolate nightmare.

Are those chocolate covered Twinkies stuck to the wall?

I gingerly step around small puddles of melted chocolate on the floor, careful not to slip and fall, and make my way over to Drew who has given up sucking chocolate off of the floor and is now curled up in the fetal position asleep.

“Hey, ASSHOLE!” I yell. “Wake up!” I shove the toe of my shoe into his stomach and push until he rolls over onto his back and lazily opens his eyes to look at me.

“Duuuuuuuuude,” he says on an exhale of breath.

“Don’t dude me. What the f**k happened here? Claire sent me a text a few hours ago that you were going to help her frost cookies. Why does it look like a bomb exploded?”

Drew blinks a few times and shakes his head to clear out the cobwebs or whatever the f**k is in his brain right now sucking out all of the functioning parts.

“Help me up so I can think,” Drew says as he sticks his arm up towards me.

I shake my head in annoyance, grab onto his hand and yank him up off of the floor.

“You’re hands are so soft. Do you moisturize?” Drew questions as he pets the top of my hand like a kitten.

I rip my hand out of his grip and smack him upside the head.

“Cocksucker! Pay attention!”

Drew rubs the back of his head and glares at me.

“Don’t get your panties all in a twist. Claire is in her office. She’s fine. Her dad is in there with her.”

Okay, so it can’t be that bad if George is here.

I leave Drew with Jenny so I can go in search of Claire. Jenny isn’t going to stop crying until she sees Claire with her own eyes and realizes she hasn’t been eaten.

Only in MY life would those words make perfect sense.

Claire and Liz share an office and it is situated right in the middle of their connecting stores. They each have a door that leads into the office. It's really no bigger than a walk-in closet. It houses a computer table and chair, a loveseat, and two metal filing cabinets. I walk over to the closed door and press my ear against it trying to figure out if Claire and her father are in some deep discussion while all hell breaks loose in her kitchen. I’m pretty sure her father still plots fun and exciting ways to kill me so there is no way I'm going to interrupt them if that's the case. I don’t hear anything so I turn the knob and slowly open the door.

I had to do a double-take when I see George curled up in a ball on the loveseat. How he had managed to get his six foot frame wedged in between the arms of that thing I will never know. I decide to let sleeping dogs lie for the moment and turn in a full circle, my eyes finally coming to rest on Claire.

She's sitting on the floor behind the door with her knees pulled up to her chest. She has a spatula in one hand held out from her body with chocolate frosting dripping off of it and what looks like Drew’s iPhone pressed up against the wall with her other hand. Her eyes are glassy and vacant as she stares off into space, never once blinking as I walk up to her and crouch down in front of her.

I don’t know what I'm dealing with here so I speak in a soft, calming voice. “Hey there, Claire. How are you doing sweetie?”

She moans in response, but still doesn’t blink.

I look over my shoulder and see George is still fast asleep. Obviously he isn’t going to be any help here.

“Can you tell me what happened here tonight?”

Another moan coupled with a bit of a whimper. Still no blinking.

How long can someone go without blinking before they go blind?

I feel like I walked into a horror movie and found the sole survivor of a serial killer rampage. I'm afraid to say the wrong thing for fear I’ll spook her and will never get to the bottom of the truth.

“I ate cookies,” she finally mutters.

“Wow, that’s great, sweetie,” I tell her kindly.

I don’t really know if that’s great or not but at least she has ingested something that will sop up whatever it is that's turned these guys into chocolate covered zombies.

“I don’t want to feel this anymore,” she says in a pitiful voice. “Make it stop.”

Maybe I should try and get her to throw up. Should I stick my fingers down her throat? I’ve never done that before. Not even to myself. I’ve only ever tried to make Drew throw up, and usually all I have to do is talk about his grandmother having sex.

I reach over and take the dripping spatula out of her hand and set it on the floor. I do the same with Drew’s cell phone, flipping it over first and noticing it's set to the BIC Lighter app, the fake flame flickering back and forth on the screen.

“Honey, why are you holding Drew’s phone against the wall?”

“I wanted to make hot. Stupid fight wouldn’t lire. Flight wouldn’t flier. Fire wouldn’t fire. Fire. Fire, fire, fire, fire, fire-”

Sweet Jesus.

I slide an arm between Claire’s back and the wall and bring her forward so she's leaning over her bent knees. Hoping she won’t hate me for this or bite me, I push my finger passed her lips and into her mouth. She blinks then and looks up at me, trying to focus on my face. My finger is in her mouth but she won’t open her lips, they just stay wrapped around my finger while she squints and tries to see me better.