“Why?” I asked. I looked over his shoulder to see people rushing by the storeroom. “And where is everybody going?”
“That’s what I came here to tell you,” Sandy said. “She’s in there practically bathing in her cheesecake. I was trying to heat up my tea, and she came in the kitchen and told me it was her birthday and that you said she could do what she wanted, and she just face-planted right into the cake. Now she’s rubbing it all over herself and laughing and I think the cops are being called. And an ambulance, because diabetes is a very real and serious issue that must be controlled by proper medical professionals and medications.”
“Huh,” I said. “So, I’m feeling sick. Probably should take the rest of the day off so I don’t infect anyone else.”
“Oh,” Sandy said. “Me too. Cough. Cough cough. Ow. My scrotum.”
We stared at Vince.
He gave me a goofy grin. “I don’t know what we’re doing, but I’m just gonna roll with it because that’s what we do.”
“God,” I said fiercely. “I love you so much.”
“Back at you.”
And I didn’t have a lot of doubts after that.
Chapter Two: Daddy’s Got Some News
March 5, 2016
T-Minus 21 Days
“WE’RE HEADING out,” Vince said, hands on the back of my chair as he leaned down and pressed his nose behind my ear. “Probably won’t be back for a few
hours.”
“Sandy’s going to be a pain in your ass, just so you know,” I murmured, turning my face until my lips brushed his. “It’s embedded into his DNA to want to control the situation.”
“Nah,” he said. “I got this. I just let him do whatever he wants and smile and nod and no one loses a testicle.”
“Well played. I’ve taught you well. Also, I wish I’d thought about that when we went last week.”
“God,” Kori Ellis said from her spot on the couch. “Between you two muttering sweet nothings to each other over there and Darren and Sandy practicing dentistry with their tongues in the kitchen, I am finding myself more disgusted than usual. I need to find someone who can be single and bitter with me so we can mock the shit out of all of you.”
Vince turned and grinned at her. “You want me to come lay on top of you to make you feel better?”
She glared at him. “That will not make me feel better.”
He took a step toward her. “It makes Paul feel better when I lay on top of him.”
“This much is true,” I said, frowning down at the paper in front of me filled with my chicken scratch. “It’s all about the smothering.”
“I don’t want to be smothered by you, you beefy fuck,” Kori said. “You stay right there.”
“Gonna lay on you,” Vince threatened.
“Paul! Control your man-bitch.”
“Eh,” I said. “Sometimes I let him do what he wants.”
“Those are my favorite times,” Vince said.
“Vince—”
And then there was high-pitched shrieking, cursing, creative threats involving feet in asses, begrudging acceptance, and finally, silence.
I called it the Five Stages of Loving Vince.