Last Call (Cocktail #5) (8 page)

“Soph! What the hell?” Neil cried out as he and Simon both looked at each other and then at Mary Jane when she started crying.

“Let me see that ring!” Sophia yelled.

“Why is she crying?” Simon asked, panicked.

“Her mother scared her half to death!” Neil yelled, also frantic.

“Everyone calm down,” I soothed, trying to move over toward the couch, but unable to do so because Sophia had a vicelike grip on my hand. I expected her to pull a jeweler’s loupe out of her nightgown.

“How do we make her stop?”

“Just walk her, Simon!”

“I don’t know how to stand up with her!”

“Is this two-point-five karats?”

“Call the nurse, she won’t stop crying!”

“Babies cry, Neil.”

“Someone help us!”

“Go get my baby from the Keystone Cops, would you?”

“Oh, for pity’s sake,” I said, snatching my hand away
and crossing to the couch. “Hey, little miss, it’s okay,” I soothed, plucking Mary Jane neatly from Simon’s arms and cuddling her close. “Shh, shh, it’s okay. No more screaming, I promise. Everyone your parents know just happens to be crazy, okay? Shh, shh . . .” I brought her to Sophia, who began to lower the front of her gown.

“Oh, I, uh . . . I should step out, I, uh . . .” Simon said, getting up from the couch.

“They’re just boobs, Simon,” Sophia scolded, reaching up for Mary Jane and bringing her to her breast. It was surprising just how natural it all was. Here we all were, four best friends, one of whom had her tits out. And this was just how it was now. Except for Simon’s eyeballs, which were currently staring everywhere but where the action was.

Neil came over to stand by the bed, and he finally saw what Sophia had been screaming about.

“Hey, what’s that on your finger there?” he asked, looking down at my ring.

“What does it look like?” I teased, holding it up for him to see. He looked back and forth between me, the ring, and finally Simon.

“Dude?”

“Dude.”

“Dude!” Neil exclaimed, and picked Simon up off the couch in a giant bear hug. Which he was still doing when Mimi and Ryan peeked around the corner like a totem pole.

“We came to see Mary Jane and bring presents—what
the hell is going on?” Mimi asked, staring at this weird tableau.

“Ask the bride,” Sophia said, nodding toward me.

Turns out they frown on screeching in the maternity ward. We were asked, very politely, to leave.

Once more, I found myself in a hospital waiting room with Mimi, Ryan, and Simon, although this time it was a very different subject from the night before.

“I can’t believe you’re engaged! This is so perfect. I was just beginning to feel my wedding planning blues. I had nothing new to plan! Now I can get started on yours! First things first, have you set a date? Do you know the venue? Evening? Afternoon? Black tie? White tie? I—”

“Slow your roll there, peanut,” I cautioned, holding up my hands in the international sigh for stop it, stop it now. “We have literally nothing planned, this whole thing isn’t even a day old. We haven’t planned a thing, and likely won’t just yet,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Seriously. Settle.”

“Settle. I’ll give you settle,” Mimi said under her breath, shaking her head. “Okay, but, can I just ask one tiny thing?”

“One.”

“What do you think your colors are going to be?” she burst forth, excitement coming off of her in waves.

“Oh boy. I’m going to send you to my mother’s, and you two can plan yourselves into oblivion together,” I said, laughing when I saw how excited that made her.

“Best idea ever! Oh, Caroline, this is going to be so much fun! I’ll call her tonight, see what she’s thinking. Oh, there’s so much to do, I—”

“Mimi. Sweetie. I was kidding. Just slow down, okay? Let me be engaged for a minute without all this wedding stuff, okay?”

Her face collapsed, but she shut it. For his part, Ryan merely said
dude
a few times, Simon said
dude
a few times, and they clapped each other on the back. Damn them . . .

B
y the time we got home that night, I had thirteen emails from my mother riddled with suggestions about venues all over Northern California, and seventeen emails from Mimi with links to dresses, shoes, bridesmaids’ dresses, and cake vendors. I looked up from the desk in the kitchen where I was going through all of these when Simon came up behind me to rub my shoulders.

“That one’s pretty,” he said, pointing to a dress on the screen.

“I can’t believe these two, Mimi and my mother. They’re already starting,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief.

“What, taking over?” he asked, chuckling and digging in with his thumbs and making my head roll back with a groan. I gazed up at him.

“Totally. It’s going to be a shitshow.”

“How can a wedding be a shitshow?”

“I’d let you read these emails, but I think I’m incapable of moving my head right now. Do you know how cute you are when you’re upside down?” I murmured, groaning once more as his hands moved down along my arms, hooking around my elbows and bringing them up to rest on his shoulders.

“I like
you
upside down,” he murmured right back, leaning down to dust my forehead with the tiniest of kisses.

“How does my ring look upside down?” I teased, holding my hand out in front of me to gaze at it once more.

“Sexy.” Kiss. “Impossibly sexy.” Kiss. Kiss. “Ludicrously sexy.” Kiss. Grope. Grope.

“Ludicrously sexy?” I asked, my eyes fluttering shut as his fingertips danced inside the edge of my bra.

“It’s a word.”

“So is howfastcanyoubenotsodressed?”

“That’s . . . let’s see . . . one, two, three—”

“You’re counting?”

“—four, five—”

“Simon?”

“Hmm?”

“You should stop the counting and go back to touching.”

“Oh. Babe. I’m getting back to it.”

And he really just was. His hands were sure, specific, practiced on my body. We’d been together long
enough to know what each other liked, and what each other loved. The night before was full of love and passion. Tonight? Would be full of frantic, frenzied, crazy stupid, straight-up fucking.

His hands went from sure and specific to wild and wanton in an instant, pulling me out of the chair suddenly and spinning me suddenly, tugging at my shirt hard enough that the buttons popped. He pressed me into the wall, my face turned slightly, cheek into the herringbone wallpaper I’d agonized over, but never examined this close up. “Oh,” was all I managed to get out as his mouth closed around the tendon on the right side of my neck, nipping and tugging as he snapped my pants open and guided them roughly down my thighs.

“Off. Take them off. Take everything off,” he said, his voice guttural in my ear, his hands placed on my body, one at my throat and one on my hip. This is why I’d never get tired of Simon. He could go from loving to crazed in an instant, always able to surprise me, keep things interesting. “Off,” he reminded me, pulling me out of my head and back into the present. Where I could feel him, hard and insistent, pressing against my backside.

I slipped my jeans down, pushing my panties along with them. I must have been going too slowly, because he suddenly yanked them the rest of the way down, pushing me harder against the wall. I loved sweet and slow Wallbanger, but I loved Wallbanger Wallbanger the best!

With one hand in the center of my back and the other twisted into my hair, he pressed me against the wall, down and out, angling my hips back toward him. I heard his belt unbuckle, then the unzipping, and then I could feel him ready. Always ready. The hand on my back now slipped down to my hips, anchoring me as he shoved my legs farther apart. I gasped as I felt him, exactly where I needed him to be.

“Tell me you want this, you want me,” he breathed, heavy in my ear.

“Jesus Christ, Simon, of course I do,” I panted as his hand left my hip and traveled to my breast, twisting and turning, pinching sharply and making me gasp once more.

“Tell me you want this,” he said again, accenting his words with a final tug, making me arch into him even more, my hips searching for his.

“Yes, Simon! I want this, I want you,” I cried out, frantic now for the feel of him inside me. “I always want you.”

With one hand still tangled in my hair, keeping me against the wall, his other hand now dipped below, finding me slick and hot and ready for him by his words alone. He groaned at the feel of me on his fingers, and then let out the sexiest groan as he sank inside, inch by perfect inch. I reached back with my hands, trying to bring him closer, to get him further inside, but he placed my hands back on the wall, pulling my hips out farther.

“Look at you—Jesus, just look at you,” he moaned, pulling out almost all the way and then slamming inside almost instantly, bowing my back and making me gasp. “So hot like this, you’re so sexy . . .”

“When you’re fucking me?” I asked, blinking innocently over my shoulder. Which he then bit down on . . . hard. Then he pulled out. Which I barely had time to process, because the next thing I knew he was on the floor between my legs, with his back to the wall, pulling me against his mouth. Hard.

Here’s the thing about my fiancé. He loves to take a taste.

His mouth was furious as his tongue licked and lapped at me. One hand was firm against my backside, holding me against his beautiful face as I rocked my hips into him. The other hand held me open to him, keeping me open as the room began to blur and the colors began to run . . .

“Don’t stop, don’t you dare stop,” I chanted as he circled his tongue against me, his lips and his mouth covering me, sucking and biting and licking and kissing and loving and . . .

I exploded. He stayed until I exploded again. And then once more for good measure. And when I was boneless and unable to stand, he pulled me down onto the floor, lifted my legs onto his shoulders, and absolutely wrecked me for any other man.

It’s very possible that I passed out on the kitchen floor. Because when I woke moments or hours later,
I was covered by a pea green and orange afghan, and Simon was standing at the kitchen island eating a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. Naked.

T
he week after Simon and I got engaged went by in a blur. I worked, he worked, we told everyone we knew our exciting news and our phones filled with congratulatory emoticons and best wishes. Jillian even had the outgoing message on the overnight answering service at the office changed to announce my engagement. At the end of the message of course, after our address and operating hours were given.

I’d always spoken to my mother often, usually two to three times a week typically. Now she called me every day, multiple times. As early as 7 a.m. and once as late as eleven thirty, when I just had to turn on Jimmy Fallon to see an outfit that Drew Barrymore was wearing and wouldn’t it make for a pretty bridesmaid dress? Mimi was unrelenting as well. In her typical bulldog sensibilities, she’d brought every single bridal magazine that was currently in print to my office Monday afternoon, along with her back issues of
Martha Stewart Weddings
, starting around 2002. Took her two hand trucks and three rides in the elevator to bring them all up, but by god she did it.

I was beginning work on a redesign for an existing client of mine over in Dolores Heights, and the time I was supposed to be working on her kitchen remodel
I found myself running interference on a Skype call between my mother and Mimi debating the hotly contested topic of full or partial veils and why a forehead such as mine was able to pull off a more ornate lace fall. I didn’t have a clue what any of these things meant, but it was exciting and fun and overwhelming and wonderful all that the same time.

By Friday night I was exhausted, and over take-out Thai food eaten on our living room couch, I told Simon that I absolutely refused to let the planning of our wedding overtake the actual moment that we were celebrating. Our marriage. With a curry-scented kiss on my forehead, Simon shook his head at my naïveté and simply smiled.

Famous last curry.

Months later
 . . .

“Mom, you can’t put the Royers by the Boccis, they hate each other. Ever since Mr. Bocci ran over Mrs. Royer’s cat. How can you not remember this? Golden Graham got smushed under the front wheel of the Royers’ new Mercedes. It was all Mrs. Bocci talked about all summer long, it’s why we stopped inviting them to pool parties, because all she wanted to do was talk about her dead cat . . . Yes . . . Yes, summer before I went to college . . . Yes, it’s gone on that long . . . Yep, you got it. Put them by the Schaefers, everyone likes them . . . Okay . . . talk to you tomorrow . . . Bye . . . Bye . . . Bye . . .”

I hung up the phone, rubbing my ear. It was hot. It should be. I’d been fielding calls from my mother for the last thirty minutes, after spending the last thirty hours with her in our home.

Our home, which had turned into Wedding Central. My mother had come in for a weekend blitz of wedding details, the likes of which I’d not been the least bit prepared for. My mother, Simon, Mimi, and I, along with Jillian and Sophia for certain portions, had been shuttling across the bay and back again for two days of cake sampling, menu tastings, flower designing, dress fittings, and big band listening. The listening had been my favorite part, actually. The rest? For. The. Birds.

How do people get married without losing their minds? Without losing their wallets? Without being convicted for assault by petticoat? I’d now been front and center for two weddings that I’d been directly involved with, first Jillian and then Mimi. And I’d thought from the outside, even as involved as I’d been, I’d be prepared for the onslaught of decisions and complications and the sheer terror of putting a foot wrong on
our important day
.

I’d been blissfully ignorant. Not this time. I was full metal jacket in the middle of this tulle and lace torture extravaganza and it was going to drive me to the nuthouse. When my mother finally left to drive back home, leaving me in a house stacked with early wedding gifts, seating charts, and maps of the immediate areas surrounding both the church and the reception to help Mimi predict the traffic patterns on
our important day,
I’d closed the front door with a cheery wave and collapsed right there in the entryway. Simon found me there several minutes later when he handed me a cell phone.