Futures and Frosting (21 page)

“Anyway,” I say
with a glare to Jim, bringing the conversation back around.  “No, I’ve never
been inside a real, live sex toy store.”

Drew pushes his
chair back and stands up, placing his hands on his hips.

“Grab your keys,
folks. We’re going to pop Claire’s toy store cherry!”

Everyone pays
their bills and Liz announces to the guys that the girls need some alone time. 
The men all pile into Drew’s car and Jenny and I get into Liz’s car to head to
the Adult Mart a few towns over.

“Okay, spill it
bitch.  What’s going on with you?” Liz asks as she pulls out of the parking lot
and follows Drew’s car.

That’s all it
takes for the dam to break.  I immediately start crying.

God dammit,
what the fuck is wrong with me?

Jenny leans
forward from the back seat and hands me a kleenex.  I take it and blow my nose,
taking deep breaths to calm myself down.

“I don’t think
Carter wants to marry me,” I say between sniffles.

“Whoa, wait a
minute.  Did he say that to you?  I will kick his fucking ass,” Liz threatens
as she turns on her blinker and gets onto the ramp for the highway.

“No!  No, he
didn’t say those exact words.  It’s just little things that have happened the
past few weeks,” I tell her.

“Okay, what
little things?  And why is this news to me that you even care about getting
married?  You have always been a staunch supporter of living in sin because of
your parents.  Why the sudden change of heart?”

This is where I
feel stupid.  Does it sound dumb that my change of heart came from being
jealous of her and Jim?  That seeing them so happy and pledging their love to
one another has made me realize how much I want that for myself?

“I know that’s
what I’ve always said, and I guess part of me really believed that.  I mean
come on, my parents don’t exactly have the best track record.  What makes me
think I would be any good at that kind of thing?” I ask.

“Sweetie, no one
knows if they will be good at that kind of thing.  It’s not like you’re born
with a marriage gene.  It all just depends on the person you’re with.  If you
can look at that person and know without a doubt that you want to spend the
rest of your life kissing them goodnight and waking up next to them, marriage
is for you,” she tells me.

I start crying
again and put my head in my hands.

“When I caught
the bouquet at your reception, you should have seen the look of horror on
Carter’s face.  He seriously looked petrified that the old wives’ tale would
come true,” I explain as I wipe the tears from my cheeks and take a deep
breath.

Liz stares at me
while we sit at a red light.

“What?” I ask.

“You mean that’s
it?  That’s where all of this doubt and sadness is coming from?  He looked at
you a little funny when you caught a bouquet at a wedding?  That doesn’t
exactly scream ‘I hate marriage’ you know.  He could have just been a little
surprised.  Did he actually
say
he was freaked out that you caught the
bouquet?”

I huff and my
sadness is immediately replaced with irritation.

“No, he didn’t
come right out and say it, but I could tell.  And I don’t know, there’s been a
bunch of other little things here and there.  He was all weird at your
rehearsal dinner, smacking the champagne out of my hand and he’s made these
comments about how he won’t be dragging me to the altar and how he’s glad he’ll
never have to worry about asking my dad for permission because my dad still
scares the shit out of him,” I tell her.

“Um, not to butt
in here or anything, but do you think maybe he’s saying stuff like that because
he knows how
you
feel about the whole subject?  Maybe he really does
want to marry you but he doesn’t want to freak
you
out about the whole
thing since you’ve made it clear your parents left a lasting impression on you
in that area,” Jenny says from the back seat with a surprising amount of
insight.

“Shockingly, I
agree with Jenny.  Until you sit down and talk to him about this, you’re just
going to keep jumping to conclusions and making yourself miserable.  I love
you, Claire, but you’re acting like an asshole,” Liz says as she pulled into
the Adult Mart parking lot.  “You know what happens when you assume things.”

I let out a
sigh. “You make an ass out of you and me.”

She maneuvers
the car into a spot right next to the guys and shuts off the car but makes no
move to get out.

“No, you just
make an ass out of
you
.  Me, I would never be this assy,” she replies. 
“You love Carter and it is obvious how much he adores you.  Stop being a dick,
man up, and talk to him.  Sit him down and tell him that you don’t really have
a late night porn addiction but you’ve been secretly watching wedding shows and
sneaking into the magazine aisle at the grocery store in sweats, slippers,
sunglasses, and a trench coat to scan the bridal magazines like some deprived
housewife needing a Playgirl fix,” Liz tells me firmly.

“Ooooh, I love
Playgirl!” Jenny said.  “I have a prescription to it.  I learned how to deep
throat while hanging my head off of the end of the bed last month.  You know
how in the movie
‘The 40-Year-Old Virgin’
Steve Carell screams out Kelly
Clarkson’s name when he’s getting waxed?  Drew screamed out Willie Nelson’s
name when he came.  It was so hot.”

“Oh my God,
Jenny. Too much information,” I tell her with a grimace as I cover my mouth
with my hand and swallow back a little bit of vomit I burped up at the thought
of that moment in time in Jenny and Drew’s bedroom.

“Hey, are you
feeling okay?  You look a little green,” Liz states as we opened our car doors
and step out into the night air.

I take a few
deep breaths and will my stomach to calm and not bring up dinner.

“And what the
hell was wrong with you tonight drinking pop at Lorenzo’s?  That’s like
blasphemy,” Liz tells me as she clicks the automatic door lock on her keys and
the car horn beeps once.  “You’re not pregnant are you?!”

She and Jenny
start cackling with laughter as they walk ahead of me to meet up with the guys
who stand holding the door to the store open for us.

I trail behind
them a few steps, the smile dying from my lips as I start doing calculations in
my head.  I stop in my tracks a few feet from the front door and stare in
horror at Carter.

He gives me a heart-stopping
smile and in response, I throw my hand over my mouth and run to the bushes on
the edge of the sidewalk, depositing two slices of pizza, two glasses of pop,
and my dignity onto the front lawn.

As we walk up
and down the aisles of Adult Mart, I keep a close eye on Claire.  She looks
better after throwing up her dinner, but I'm still worried.  I’ve never seen
her sick before, unless you counted hangovers, and it puts me on edge.  I hate
that she's coming down with the flu and there is nothing I can do to make her
feel better.

“This has burnt
nut sac written all over it,” Drew yells from the end of the aisle,
interrupting me from my thoughts as he holds up a candle that doubles as
massage oil when it's melted.

I reach for Claire’s
hand and give it a squeeze as we make our way down one aisle, glancing at
things as we walk.  I watch her carefully out of the corner of my eye, looking
for warning signs on her face in case I need to rush her out of the store to
defile more shrubbery.

“I’m fine, stop
staring at me,” she says without looking at me.

“Sorry, I’m just
making sure you aren’t going to throw up on the carpet.  Out of all the fluids
that are stained on this floor, I’m guessing vomit isn’t one of them.”

“Oh that’s
disgusting,” she says with a laugh.

Seeing her smile
puts me at ease a little bit.  If she can still laugh, she isn’t dying from some
horrible, unnamed disease.

Claire suddenly
stops and moves in front of me with a serious look on her face.

“You see?” she
whispers conspiratorially.  “This is why I have never set foot in one of these
places,” she states, looking over her shoulder and then back to me.  “Look at
that creepy, old guy over there in front of the ‘Buy One, Get One Free’ bin. 
He is about one ‘Shaving Ryan’s Privates’ away from whipping his dick out in
the middle of the store and throwing his goo at us like in ‘Silence of the
Lambs’,” she complains.

She gives one
last nervous look over her shoulder at him and lets go of my hand to go down a
different aisle, clearly needing to distance herself from the guy who now has
both of his hands in his baggy pants pockets and is jerking them at an alarming
speed.  The guy obviously hadn’t read the sign hanging above the movies that
said, “Please do not jerk off in our store.  Thank you!”  There is even a
smiley face on the sign.  It's oddly disturbing, yet comforting all at the same
time.

I turn to follow
Claire, stopping at a random display and grabbing the first bottle I see and
read the back of it to see what it does.  I read a few words when the sound of
Claire’s whispering brings my head up.  I see her talking animatedly to Jenny a
few feet away, most likely sharing her views about the DVD section and its
inhabitants.  I stand there for a few minutes just watching her when she
suddenly throws her head back and laughs.  It's one of those deep, full belly
laughs that is impossible to stifle and it gives me goose bumps hearing it.  It
feels like someone punched me in the stomach and my heart starts pounding
faster.

I love her so
fucking much.

This isn’t a
revelation, but all of a sudden in the middle of Adult Mart I feel like nothing
else matters but the fact that I love Claire.  She is my dream come true, my
life, and my everything.  Does it really matter if I plan the best proposal in
the world and spend weeks trying to come up with just the right words?  She
isn’t the type of girl who cares about that stuff and I know it.  I want
everything to be outlandish because it’s what I think is expected, not because
it’s what I think will be perfect for her.  Asking her to be my wife and to
grow old with me – that’s what matters, not the amount of money I spend renting
a jumbotron, or the meetings I have with the manager of a restaurant, or the
stupid three-page speech I memorize.  Waking up every morning next to this
woman and tucking my son into bed every night is all that I care about.  Claire
and Gavin are my whole world, and I don’t want to wait one more second to ask
her to make it official in the eyes of God and everyone we know.

Spur of the
moment.  Isn’t that the way you were supposed to do these fucking things
anyway?

I swallow the
knot that forms in my throat, suddenly nervous that the moment is here.  The
one I have been planning for and rehearsing – it's here and it's right fucking
now.

I tear my gaze
away from Claire for a moment and glance around me.
 
Porn, dildos of all
shapes, sizes and colors, and a shelf full of anal lube.

Jesus, does
that say cinnamon-flavored anal lube?  I don’t even want to think about a
situation that requires flavored anal lube.  I must be insane that I am
actually contemplating this right now.

I stand there
with my hands sweating, heart pounding, and a bottle of Lickity Stiff Arousing
Cream clutched to my chest.

Fuck it.

I take a deep
breath, my decision made.
 
With determination, I walk over to where
Claire is still chatting with Jenny.  She turns to face me just as I reach her
and takes the bottle I'm holding out of my hand to read its contents.

“
Lickity
Stiff Arousing Cream?  I’m pretty sure you don’t need this,” Claire says with a
laugh.

She turns around
to place it back on a shelf, and I take a deep breath for good measure, reach
into my pocket, and wrap my fingers around the velvet box that I still carry
around with me just in case.  With Claire’s back to me, I pull out the box and
start to kneel.

“Holy shit!”

The exclamation
interrupts my descent to the floor, and I pause with both of my knees slightly
bent, looking like I'm getting ready to take off sprinting in a race.  Claire
turns around just as a hand clamps around my bicep and dragged me backwards.

“Liz, what are
you doing?” Claire asks.

“Just need to
talk to Carter for a second.  Need a guy’s opinion about porn, no worries!”

I stumble and
shove the ring box back in my pocket as I try to turn around and keep up with
Liz.  Despite my protests, she continues to hold onto my arm and walk faster.

“Liz!  What the
fuck?!  I was kind of in the middle of something,” I complain as we get further
away from Claire who stares at us with confusion on her face.

“Oh I know what
the fuck you were in the middle of, dumbass!” Liz whispers loudly.

She finally
stops when we are on the opposite side of the store from Claire and turns to
face me.

“You’re
proposing to Claire?” she asks with her hands on her hips and a mixture of awe
and anger on her face

“Well, I was
trying
to until I was rudely interrupted,” I tell her, putting my hands on my hips and
staring her down.  She is small and feisty, but I have cocks on my side. 
Hundreds of them I can fling at her and then flee in the other direction when
she attacks.

“You’re
proposing to Claire.”

This time it's a
statement rather than a question.

“Um, I think we
already covered this.  Let me guess, you think it’s too soon.  Or you’re afraid
I’m going to hurt her.  Go ahead, give it to me.  Wait, shit!  Did she say
something to you about not wanting to marry me?  Fuck!  She’s been acting weird
since your wedding, and I know she’s talked a good game about not wanting to
get married, but I figured it was just talk.  What girl doesn’t want to get
married?  Oh fuck,
Claire
is the type of girl who doesn’t want to get
married.  Oh my God she doesn’t want to marry me,” I ramble as I pace back and
forth in front of a display of chocolate body paint.