CHAPTER ONE – LAUREN
“I can’t remember a time I didn’t have hemorrhoids.”
I jerked my head up from my phone and looked at my sister. “I’m sorry, what?”
She sighed, adjusting her shirt so that she wasn’t suffocating the six-week-old baby currently at her boob. “I miss pooping without worrying one of them is going to pop. I mean, is it not enough I pushed a human through my vagina? Now I have to live with little growths coming out of my anus?”
I blinked at her. “That is way more information than I ever needed to know about your anal region.”
“Well, nobody else will listen to me.”
“There’s a reason for that, Isobel. It’s because nobody cares about your hemorrhoids except your doctor.” I put my phone screen-down on my knees. “Nobody forced you to procreate. It was entirely your own choice.”
She sighed. “I blame Jared.”
“Your husband can’t take all the blame. You were the one who stopped your birth control.”
“You’re my little sister. Why aren’t you on my side?”
“Because your side is ridiculous.” I put my phone on the coffee table and headed for the door of my apartment when the doorbell rang. “I’m not going to sit here and eat pizza while you discuss the state of your asshole, so find something else to talk about!” I yelled back as I pulled the door open.
The poor pizza guy froze. He couldn’t have been older than seventeen, and the red ballcap that was pulled over his forehead wasn’t quite enough to hide both his horror and the spots that dotted his chin.
I looked down at the three boxes he had stacked on his hand and offered him a bright smile. “How much do I owe you?”
“I, uh, um…”
“I got it!” The voice of one of my best friends, Madi, echoed through the hall. “Is fifty enough?” she trilled, bouncing up behind him, her scarlet-colored curls flouncing around her shoulders.
“It’s three pizzas. I should hope it does, or we’re being ripped off,” Tina grumbled, walking up behind her.
“Forty-one-ninety-eight,” the pizza guy mumbled.
Madi waved two twenties and a ten at him. “Here you go, sweetie. Keep the change.”
Someone got paid today.
“And there’s my monthly girls’ night paid for,” she said happily, taking the boxes and dancing into my apartment. “What up, Iz? How’s the asshole?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed.
Tina slipped her hand into her scarlet-red purse that matched her lips to a tee and pulled out a wallet. I hid a smile as she extracted ten dollars from it and handed it to the pizza guy, whispering, “For your mental trauma.”
Mental trauma was about right.
I didn’t see him delivering our pizza anytime soon.
Or ever.
I didn’t blame him. If I could get out of conversations about my sister’s bodily parts, I would.
I’d lead the freakin’ march.
I detoured into the kitchen to grab a bottle of wine and three glasses before joining everyone back in the living room. Madi had taken the seat next to my sister on the sofa and she’d tied her hair up into a messy topknot that matched her ‘people hater’ t-shirt and yoga pants perfectly.
Tina was on the armchair with her socked feet tucked beneath her butt, her dark hair hanging in a thick braid over one shoulder. That left me the oversized bean bag, but that was fine with me.
The bean bag was closer to the pizza.
I dropped onto the huge, fluffy seat with the glasses clinking in my hand.
“Uh, excuse me?” Isobel looked at the glasses as I set them down one-by-one on the coffee table. She’d put her boob away while I’d answered the door and Cara was sleeping in her pram.
Which I looked at before I replied to her. “You’re breastfeeding.”
“And? I can have a small glass of wine. Besides, these things are like a cattle farm.” She cupped her boobs. “There’s milk everywhere, including in your freezer.”
I paused. “I’m not sure how I feel about having your breastmilk in my freezer.”
“It’s for when you babysit.”
“I don’t remember agreeing to that. Not that I don’t love Cara, but I love sleep more.”
She snorted as she leaned forward and unscrewed the wine, pouring a half-glass for herself. “Don’t talk to me about sleep.”
Madi looked between us. “I’ll get another glass then, shall I?”
I nodded with a grim smile. If Iz wanted a glass of wine, she was going to have one. She’d been deprived for months—if you asked her, and as her younger sister, I never did.
“So,” Tina said, leaning forward to lay out the pizza boxes. “What’s new since last week?”
The rich scent of melted cheese filled the air, and Madi arrived with both paper plates and a wine glass with a flourish.
Excellent. No dishes.
I was winning at adulting this week.
Sure, my sister was keeping a tiny human alive, but I was minimizing my dishes one by one. Who was really nailing it?