Futures and Frosting (Chocolate Lovers 2)

Jesus. Talk about depressing. How does anyone even stand to be around me lately? I’m a disgusting, emotional, needy chick. No wonder Carter doesn’t want me.

“It makes sense I guess. Look at all the years I spent hating the idea of marriage. I thought it was pointless and could only end in disaster. Karma is biting me in the ass.”

My mom walks over to me and pulls me into her arms, my growing stomach acting as a stopper to keep us from getting too close.

“Baby, any fool can see that Carter is IN love with you. Have you ever paid attention to that boy when you walk into a room? His whole face lights up. And he’s constantly touching you in some way. A brush of his hand on your cheek, wrapping his arms around your waist, kissing your shoulder...he does whatever he can to be close and connected to you,” she says, pulling away so she can look at me. “And don’t give me that bullshit story about you hating the idea of marriage.”

I give her a pointed look and laughed.

“Are you kidding me? You and Dad were married five times total. FIVE TIMES! When you know your parents crashed and burned so many times, it’s kind of obvious that you’re going to have the same luck,” I tell her.

“Oh, sweetie, you are a jackass. I love you, but you are dumber than a one legged duck in an ass kicking contest when pigs fly,” she tells me.

“Am I supposed to know what the f**k that means? You either told me this was impossible or called me a pig.”

My mom reaches up and wipes a tear off of my cheek I don't even know is there.

“Marriage was never for me. I knew that early on but I chose to ignore it. I never dreamed of having a family or a house with a white picket fence and being a soccer mom. But then I had you and I knew I needed to try. It just didn’t work for me. But your father? He is definitely a marrying man, and he is a wonderful husband. The problem was never him. It was the losers he married,” she says with a smile. “You may have always been afraid to try because of how you grew up and what you believed, but that doesn’t mean it’s who you are. You have more of your father in you than you know. You are already a better mother than I ever was, and I guarantee that when Carter does pop the question, you will be an amazing wife.”

For the first time in my twenty-five years, my mother actually says something that made sense and gave me pause. And not the “What the f**k is she saying?” pause.

I had put up a wall all my life to protect myself. If I pretended like I didn’t really want the American dream of a husband and kids, then eventually I would believe it and no one would be able to hurt me. Until Liz and Jim’s wedding, I didn’t realize just how much I wanted that wall to crack. Now that it had though, I was right where I never wanted to be - scared, confused and upset. I knew I needed to get my emotions under control and stop acting like a crazy person. I needed to man up and talk to Carter. I could feel the distance between us growing every day that I continued to lie to him and explained away my detachment and rocky emotions by saying they were all just because of the pregnancy. I had acted like a big baby all these months when all of it might have been fixed by one little conversation.

After Gavin’s party, I will make sure that we sat down and talked.

“What about Carter’s family? Are his parents still trying to recover from ceiling fan baseball?” my mom asks with a laugh, changing the subject to something a little less depressing.

“They’ve been okay. His mom actually sent me a big box of brand new baby clothes and a few blankets. His grandmother is the one I’m most surprised about. She really should want to kill me but she sent me something too, and I found out she actually has a sense of humor.”

“Oh? What was it?” my mom asks.

“A onesie that said ‘Too cute to play with your ugly ass kid’.”

~

“Why the hell are those bitches over there giving me a dirty look?” Liz asks as she stares down five mothers who have accompanied their sons to Gavin’s party.

“I’m guessing it’s because the woman who brought her husband just noticed that he’s been staring at your boobs that are spilling out of your shirt,” I tell her as I finish cutting the cake and placing it on paper plates.

“Oh give me a break. One look at that guy and you can tell he’s wound up so tight that if I blew him a kiss he’d probably bust a nut. None of those women look like they ever have sex unless it’s to procreate,” she complains.

“They probably only do it in the missionary position with the lights off,” I add.

“I bet they think doggy style is a type of line dance,” Liz says with a laugh, blowing the husband a kiss.

I smack her hand and give her the evil eye.

“Will you cut it out? I have to be around these mothers all the time at Gavin’s school. Play nice,” I warn her.

“Look!” she says excitedly. “That poor guy just adjusted his junk. He totally came in his pants.”

So far the party has been a success. The kids are yelling and running all over the shop now that they are hopped up on sugar. I had thought having them frost their own cookies would be fun until they forgot about the cookies and started shoveling frosting into their mouths by the handful. Having Drew wrap up a bag of Pixy Stix and a twenty ounce can of Mountain Dew as Gavin’s present doesn’t help matters either. He tears into the present and has half the candy and all the Mountain Dew gone before I even notice. By the time I get a hold of him, he looks like he’s been snorting coke off of hookers. His eyes are bloodshot, his hair is a mess, and he has white powder all around his mouth. When I see Drew whisper in his ear right before Gavin runs up to me and yells, “I have tiger blood running through my veins!” I know it's time to take the kid-crack away from him