Dashing Through the No (Summersweet Island 3)

“Be serious.” Birdie laughs and takes another sip of her ball juice. My friends don’t seem to want to board the tumor train with me just yet and refuse to take me seriously, but it’s fine. They’ll be punching their tickets soon enough. “Well, you’ll be happy to know I have officially passed the torch to Bodhi and sent him a text explaining what is required of him, and now he has the big boy responsibility of being the one the doctor calls with your test results instead of me. You are literally going to play the worst game of High Telephone ever. I can definitely see the doctor telling Bodhi you have heart burn, then he’ll smoke some weed and wind up telling you that you need a triple bypass.”

I roll my eyes when Birdie calls it a big boy responsibility, even though that’s exactly what I called it when I got home from the doctor the other day, pissed he wouldn’t do a full body scan to find Tiny Tim the Tumor and only wanted to take eleventy billion vials of blood. Which resulted in me snapping at Bodhi and telling him he wasn’t coming near me with a hemp ring unless he took on the big boy job of getting my test results for me instead of Birdie to see how responsible he can be when he has to tell me I’m dying. Yes, I have a freakish case of anxiety when it comes to doctors and getting test results. Birdie has always been the one who gets the call from the doctor first so she can break whatever it is to me gently, ever since that time I thought I was dying from bladder cancer and refused to answer the phone, and it just turned out I had a UTI.

And since I haven’t exactly been forthcoming about all my wedding and baby nightmares, the hemp ring comment really confused Bodhi. I’m pretty sure he only agreed to my demands to get me to stop screaming and throwing his socks in the fireplace.

I just want to disappear somewhere and have a quiet Christmas while Bodhi gives me multiple orgasms until my death sentence arrives. Is that too much to ask?

“Well, good luck with that. I’m sure Bodhi will be very responsible when the doctor calls, and he has to officially inform you that you’re batshit crazy,” Birdie declares with a smile while I reach for the long-stem lighter I used to light the candles in all the holly-and-pine centerpieces. “So, anyway, don’t forget we’re having a Christmas craft night at Wren and Shepherd’s tomorrow night because he needs our help with all those last-minute holiday shirt orders. Sunday is Sundaes with Santa at the Dip and Twist. Then we’ve got the ornament exchange party with our book club, the ornament exchange party with the ladies from high school, the ornament exchange party with the SIG employees, the ornament….”

Birdie trails off when I repeatedly click the ignite button on the lighter so the flame blinks in and out of existence while I glare at her.

“You know what? I’ll just text you the list of all the fun Christmas stuff we still have left to do.”

“I’m so overcome with joy I can’t handle it,” I deadpan.

Birdie waves me off and finally turns and disappears into the crowd of happy partiers to go find Palmer. Setting the lighter down, I distractedly pull the bar towel off my shoulder and start wiping down the shiny wooden bar top as I stare around the room, wishing I could go back to the way it was when I was normal. I’ve been feeling like shit mentally and physically for the last two months. Ever since Bodhi blurted out a marriage proposal when I had his dick in my mouth. Which is mostly the cause of my orneriness whenever anyone asks me about our future. Who does he think he is, throwing something like that out into the universe when he knows damn well neither one of us are the settling down forever type, and that’s exactly why we work? I finished that damn BJ like a champ after telling him to fuck off, but that’s definitely the night everything started to decline. My health and my mental state.

Fucking Bodhi and his stupid fucking marriage proposal…

“Hey, Tess! So, when are you—”

“Fuck off. Bodhi and I are never getting married, and I’m never squeezing demons out of my Christmas cookie, because frankly, Amber, I’d rather have a fully functioning vagina instead of a cavernous sinkhole,” I cut off Amber Ellenburg, the owner of Summersweet Island Realty. “Can I refill your spiked eggnog? Light your Christmas sweater on fire?”

Amber doesn’t slowly back away from the bar like Jan and Birdie. She full-on turns and flees from the room, shoving people out of the way as she goes until she disappears into the pro-shop just off the bar, where they’ve set up pictures with Santa. I immediately feel guilty about what I said, then get pissed off at myself for feeling guilty. Tess Powell doesn’t feel guilty about jack shit.