Tattoos and TaTas (Chocoholics #2.5) (8 page)

“DO YOU KNOW
how hard it was to get an appointment at the last minute?” Jenny complains as we walk up the sidewalk to Claire and Carter’s front porch.

When I called her earlier, she was about two hours away meeting with a new marketing company and said she wouldn’t be able to make it back in time to join me for my own appointment. I wouldn’t let myself get discouraged though and told her to just do it on her own and then we’d meet up later tonight at Claire’s house.

“Quit your bitching, Claire is going to love this,” I tell her as I knock a couple of times on the door to announce our presence before walking inside.

“Are you sure she’s going to like this? It makes absolutely no sense,” Jenny complains.

I have no idea what she’s talking about and I don’t have time to argue with her because as soon as we get in the house, I see Claire sitting on the couch under a pile of blankets.

She looks pale and tired and I panic for a minute. I shouldn’t want to run away from my best friend, but I do. I want to turn around and run out the door and pretend like this isn’t happening. I want to close my eyes and walk back into the house and imagine that it’s three months ago when I walked through the door to celebrate her birthday and she was already halfway to being trashed, her face flushed and her smile bright as she called me a bag of dicks and thrust a beer in my hand.

“Claire, you look like shit,” Jenny tells her.

I smack Jenny’s arm as Claire laughs.

“I feel like shit too,” Claire informs us with a low, raspy voice.

Carter walks into the living room from the kitchen with a glass of ice water and sets it down on the coffee table in front of her. I watch him slide his arms behind her and help her sit up and I want to scream. She’s the strongest person I’ve ever met and she needs help sitting up on the couch. I should have been the one to race over there and help her. I should have instinctively known she needed help but I didn’t. Or maybe I did but I’m just too fucking scared to get close to her.

“We have a surprise for you!” Jenny announces as Carter fusses over Claire’s blankets and she smacks his hands away.

Carter starts to walk away but immediately stops in his tracks when Jenny pulls her shirt all the way up until her tits pop out.

“Is that the surprise, because I like it,” Carter says with a nod.

“Oh, for God’s sakes,” I mutter, grabbing onto the hem of my shirt and tugging it up just enough to show off the skin over my ribs.

Claire stares back and forth between Jenny and I, a look of confusion on her face.

“One of these things is not like the other,” Claire sing-songs.

I lean forward to get a look at Jenny’s side, trying to avoid her tits hanging out for the world to see.

“What in the fuck is that?” I shout, pointing to whatever the hell it is.

Jenny looks down at herself and then back at me. “It’s what you told me to do! I’ll admit, it sounded a little weird when you told me on the phone, but I kind of like it and it totally makes sense.”

Carter cocks his head to the side and squints. “I believe what we’re looking at is a rack of ribs tattoo. Awesome!”

I turn to face her, pointing to my own tattoo. “Pink ribbon on our ribs, Jenny! PINK RIBBON ON OUR RIBS! How in the hell does a rack of ribs make any kind of sense right now?”

Jenny stares at me in confusion for a few minutes and then the light goes on. “Ohhhhhhh, yeah. I guess that makes sense. But, I mean, it’s a rack. Get it? Save your rack? I really think mine is better.”

Jesus Christ, when I called Jenny and told her we should get matching tattoos of a pink ribbon in support of Claire, I should have known she’d get it all wrong. I never should have let her do it on her own.

“Well, the sentiment was nice,” Claire tells us with a shrug, trying to hide her laugh.

“Dammit, now I’m hungry for ribs,” Carter complains.

Jenny finally pulls her shirt down and walks over to the couch, flopping down next to Claire. “Drew has been driving me insane since I got the tattoo earlier. He keeps wanting to lick it because he’s convinced it will taste like barbeque.”

Carter scrunches up his face in disgust. “And now I’ll never be hungry for ribs ever again. Thank you for that.”

Carter leaves us alone, most likely to go throw up somewhere and an awkward silence fills the room when he’s gone.

Thankfully, Jenny doesn’t know how to shut up for more than two seconds so she starts rattling on and on about barbeque sauce in places one should NEVER put barbeque sauce and I tune her out.

Claire stares right at me like she’s waiting for me to say something. I know I should apologize for not coming over sooner, but I can’t make the words come out. Is there a book called
How to Talk to Your Best Friend When She Has Breast Cancer For Dummies?
I might need that. I’ve always been there for her when she needed me. I’ve always known the right things to say, why should now be any different? Maybe because all the times in the past weren’t life or death situations. To quote
The Breakfast Club
, when Claire messed with the bull, I shoved my horns up someone’s ass to make them pay. Okay, I’m paraphrasing there, but whatever.

If Claire had a problem, I fixed it. End of story. Why in the fuck can’t I fix this? Why can’t we just go back to when things were crazy and fun and I could make everything better for her?

Twenty-five years ago…

“THIS IS FUCKING
BULLSHIT! If you don’t have drugs then get the fuck out of my room!” Claire screamed at the poor nurse who came in to take her vitals.

The nurse took one look at Claire, told her she’d come back later and ran from the room.

“Oh, that was really nice. Great attitude, Miss Exorcist. Will there be green vomit spewing from your mouth for your next trick?” I asked as I handed her a cup of ice chips.

She snatched the cup out of my hand and snarled at me. “Eat. A bag. Of Dicks.”

“Classy. I hope those are your son’s first words,” I told her as I pulled a chair up to the edge of the bed and sat down.

“Where the hell is Jim? He left like three hours ago to get me a grape Popsicle. I WANT MY FUCKING GRAPE POPSICLE!” Claire screamed.

“He left five minutes ago, cranky ass,” I reminded her.

Claire had been in labor for exactly one hour. ONE HOUR and she was already losing her shit. I feared for anyone within a mile radius of this woman when she actually had to start pushing that thing out of her.

“Come on, it can’t hurt
that
bad,” I joked, dodging out of the way when her hand flew up to smack me. “I’m kidding! Jesus, you know I’m kidding. Lighten up, dude. After today, you’ll finally be able to see your feet. And just think of all the booze you can drink in the middle of the night when you can’t sleep because he’s screaming his fool head off.”

Claire started to curse at me, but thankfully another contraction ripped through her and she had to concentrate on breathing instead of kicking my ass.

I grabbed onto her hand and let her squeeze the life out of it, watching the contraction monitor next to her bed and letting her know when it was almost over.

“You’re doing good, keep breathing, just a few more seconds.”

When it passed, she let out a huge sigh and slumped back against her pillows.

She turned her head and stared at me, tears filling her eyes. “I’m so scared, Liz.”

I knew immediately she wasn’t talking about the whole pushing a human out of her body-thing. While that thought was scary and more than a little bit gross, I knew she was thinking about what happened
after
he was here. She was a strong woman who could handle a few hours of pain, but I could tell just by looking at her that she was second-guessing her ability to be a mom.

“You’re going to be fine. He’s going to come out and he’s going to be perfect and you’re going to be FINE. It’s going to suck for a while and you’re going to miss out on a lot of sleep and you’ll probably never take another uninterrupted shower or piss again, but it’s going to be okay, I promise you. You are amazing and you’re strong and you’re going to get through this. You’ve got me and Jim and your father and we’re going to be there every step of the way. No matter what you’re worrying about right now, just remember that you aren’t alone. You will
never
be alone. I’ve got you, babe.”

Another contraction hit and I stood up, brushing her hair off of her face and helping her count through the pain. I felt so helpless that I couldn’t make the pain go away, but it didn’t matter. For the first time in our lives, this was something she had to do on her own. All I could do was be there for her and help her any way I could. I decided that humor was always the best medicine. I couldn’t take the pain from her, but I could make her laugh.

“So, have you thought about how horrific your vagina is going to look after you push that little guy out? Like meat curtains flapping in the breeze every time you walk. Man, your poor vagina.”

Claire attempted to call me an asshole, but she couldn’t get the words out. She started laughing instead. “Oh, my God! It’s going to look like a wilted, roast beef sandwich.”

“Jesus, I’m never going to be able to eat at Arby’s again. Thank you for THAT visual,” I told her with a shudder. “On the bright side, it could be a great pick-up line. ‘Hey, there hot stuff. Do you like beef? I’ve got some in my pants just for you.’”

Claire rested her hands on her huge stomach as she continued laughing. “Vagina, the other white meat.”

“Beefy vagina: it’s what’s for dinner!” I shouted.

The doctor chose that moment to walk in the room. He looked at both of us, laughing so hard we were crying and I shrugged my shoulders. “Just giving her a little encouragement, Doctor. Would you like to place your vagina bet? I’ve got ten to one odds right now that her vagina will resemble ground zero of a bomb blast. What say you?”

The doctor ignored us, pulling the privacy curtain around the bed to block the doorway. “I’m just going to check on you and see how things are progressing. How are the contractions?”

“They hurt like a motherfucker,” Claire told him honestly.

“Good, good. That means things are moving along.”

I quickly reached over and grabbed onto Claire’s legs when I saw a look of murder in her eyes. She was about one second away from kicking the good doctor in the face.

Once he got the blanket pushed up over her knees, he snapped on a pair of rubber gloves and went to town between my friend’s legs.

“Don’t look. Whatever you do, you are NOT allowed to look down there,” Claire threatened.

She winced at whatever the doctor was doing and I winced right back in sympathy. “No need for
that
warning. I wasn’t about to stick my head down there to get a look at the crime scene you’ve got going on between your legs.”

The curtain suddenly slid open. “Who wants a grape Popsicle?!”

Claire and I both looked up at Jim and watched the smile on his face fall.

“Oh, no,” he muttered as the Popsicle dropped out of his hand and hit the floor.

“OH, MY GOD! GET OUT! STOP LOOKING!” Claire and I both shouted at the same time.

My poor fiancé didn’t budge.

“Monster. Help. Popsicle scary,” he mumbled.

Claire tried to close her legs but the doctor was knee deep in vagina and there was nothing she could do.

“GET OUT RIGHT NOW!” we both screamed in unison again.

His eyes were glazed over at this point and I was thanking God we were in a hospital because I was pretty sure he was going to pass out any minute now.

“I like Popsicles. And puppies. Just think about puppies,” he muttered to himself.

When I realized that my poor man was in a pregnant woman vagina daze-slash-nightmare, I took action. I hustled around to the end of the bed and stood in front of him, blocking his view.

“Breathe, Jim. BREATHE!” I reminded him.

He took a huge breath and finally blinked. “I’m just gonna leave.”

I nodded at him and turned him around, pushing him back towards the door. “That’s a great idea, honey. How about you just go back into the waiting room with Claire’s dad and never, ever step foot in this room again, okay?”

“Never step foot in this room again?” he questioned as I walked him to the door.

“That’s right, never step foot in this room again. Good boy.”

I patted him on the back and shoved him into the hallway, closing the door to the room behind me before going back to Claire’s bedside.

“Your future husband saw my vagina,” Claire stated.

“Better him than me.”

The doctor stood up, pulling his gloves off and tossing them into the trash next to the bed. “Well, you haven’t dilated at all, but it’s still early. We’re going to put a fetal heart monitor on the baby just to make sure he’s handling the contractions okay and I’m going to have one of the nurses give you some Pitocin to try and move things along. I’ll come back to check on you in a little while.”

A few hours later, long after the Pitocin and Claire threatening to kill everyone who came near her, the doctor decided it was time for an emergency C-section. Claire was scared to death. I was scared to death. Everything started happening so fast at that point. Doctors and nurses were running around, making calls and before we knew it, Claire was being wheeled out of her room and down the hall to the operating room.