Another One Bites the Dust (23 page)

However, nothing is ever as perfect as it seems.  I just knew things would go wrong.  That something was going to happen, and that it wasn’t going to be bad.  It was going to be gut wrenching.  Whatever it was was going to tear my heart out.  It was going to hurt so bad that I wouldn’t be able to live through it without something to guide me through.  I wished with all my heart that I was wrong, but in my soul, I knew something was going to take my perfect and shred it.  I just hoped we would be able to pick up the pieces.

Chapter 12

Couples that have been together a long time finish each other’s sentences.  The most popular ending in “shut the fuck up.”

-E-card

Payton

I shuffled out to the kitchen, socks inside out, pants on crooked, and way too small shirt hitched up over my belly.  Don’t even start me on what my hair looked like.  I looked like a poster girl for the ‘what not to wear, People of Walmart’ funnies you see floating around the internet every so often.  I’d managed to get myself out of bed in the middle of the night, but only because I woke up chewing on my pillow mistaking it for the beef jerky I was eating in my dream.

I glared at Max as I exited the bed, making sure to throw my pillow over his snoring face as I left the room.  The bastard had kept me up for three quarters of the night with his incessant snoring.  I’d tried everything short of leaving the room.  Hell, I’d even gotten some duct tape and taped it to either side of his nose, and even that didn’t work.

I opened the door and scanned for the other half of my hamburger that I’d had to sneak out of the restaurant with.  Freakin’ Max bitched the entire time the waiter was gone to get out change.

He’d told me repeatedly that I didn’t need to take that home, that it was half a hamburger, and barely enough to be a light snack.  I’d told him that a light snack was all I needed sometimes, and shoved it into the pocket of my hoodie while he was signing the bill. 

Now here I was eight hours later, yearning for that cheeseburger as I’d never done for anything before.  Except that, it wasn’t there.  The mother humper was gone.  I couldn’t see it anywhere.  I scanned the counter tops, praying that I didn’t forget to put it in the fridge, except I didn’t see it there either.  I know for a fact that I’d brought it home, because the whole time we were driving home, I could smell it, and was quite concerned that Max would figure out that I’d brought it home, even though he told me not to bother.

I was getting into a real lather now.  I wanted that burger so bad, that I thought I’d die if I didn’t get it.  Walking into the living room, heading for the keys on the coffee table, I stopped dead when I saw the empty to go bag I’d shoved it in, as well as three empty beer bottles, two snack cake wrappers, and an empty glass of chocolate milk.

I saw freaking red.

Who in their right mind would eat a pregnant lady’s half-freakin eaten hamburger that she practically had to hide to bring home?  What kind of spineless, no-good, worthless rat would do that to his wife?  Turning a circle in the living room, my eyes landed on the dowel rods that I was going to use for a Pinterest project.  Then on the fabric beside it.  My mouth stretched up in a wide smile.  He was going to kill me.

Forty-five minutes later, I was done, and now determined to wake the sleeping beast.  It was now three A.M. and I was going to make that little shit go get me a freaking hamburger if it killed me.  He had to pay, and by the end of this day, he would never eat my hamburger again, or anything of mine for that matter.

  Stomping with determined steps, I walked into our bedroom and snapped the light on with an audible snap.  Max came awake instantly, and had his .45 in his hand before he even knew what the situation was.  He slept with that bastard under the pillow.  It was held in a firm grip as his eyes surveyed the area, and then came to rest on me.

His mouth curved into a large smile.  I looked down, and yep, my pants were still crooked, one pant leg up and one down, my socks in a bunch at my ankles, and my shirt was sideways, half covering my belly and half not.  I looked hideous, but there was no time to dwell on the state of my clothes.

Hitching my hands up on my hip, I glared my fiercest glare and said, “Where. Is. My. Hamburger?”  I punctuated that statement by bursting into tears.  My whole badass persona dissolved in the tidal flood.

He lost his grin, and his eyes widened when he saw how upset I was.  “I honestly didn’t think you would want it.  Seriously, if I’d have known you actually wanted it that bad…”

I won’t subject anyone to what I said next.  I might or might not have gone overboard.  I’d only thrown a few things, but none of them connected, so it doesn’t even really count.  Let’s just say that I tried not to go all Exorcist on him, but by the time I was done, he was dressed and heading to his truck to get me a new hamburger. 

The longer he was gone, the more guilt I felt.  I might have over reacted a tad bit and I felt like a total heel.  It wasn’t until the thirty-minute mark of him leaving that I started to worry.  It took me ten minutes to get to Dairy Queen and back from Free.  If you added the five-minute wait time it takes them to make the food, then he would have been back here fifteen minutes ago.  Picking my cell phone up off the table, I called Max’s phone only to hear it vibrating from the other room.  Hanging up with a huff, I paced from window to window.

Maybe he wasn’t leaving to get me Dairy Queen.  Maybe he was more upset then he seemed to be.  As I sat, I knew that worrying wouldn’t help anything, but I have the type of mind that always thought the worst.

My mind takes weird leaps.  For instance, my mom wasn’t home to make dinner meant she was lying dead in the grocery store parking lot.  My dad didn’t make his usual weekly call, which means he was taken for ransom by some terrorist organization, being tortured for the government.  My brother didn’t come home on time from football practice, then he knocked some girl up at a party and he was trying to find a way to tell my parents.

Oh, wait.  He already did that.  The amniocentesis was scheduled for this coming Monday.  We would know as soon as forty-eight hours from then whether or not he was going to be a father at seventeen or not.  We still had yet to tell my parents.  We felt it prudent not to shock my father twice in six months.  He was still going on and on about the Navy, and how his dream for his son was to follow his example.  We felt that this would be too much for my father, and didn’t want to worry him if it wasn’t actually necessary.

The loud rumble of Max’s truck pulled up in front of the house, and I dropped the blanket from around my shoulders and took off outside, launching myself into Max’s arms.  He caught me awkwardly, partly due to the food he was juggling, and partly due to my stomach.  I wasn’t being deterred though.

“I’m sorry!”  I wailed as my emotions went haywire yet again.

“For what?”  Max asked as he kicked the door shut behind him.

I didn’t let him go, only wrapped my legs tighter around him when he patted my ass lightly telling me to get down.  I ignored him, and let my hand sneak down into the bag and grab a fry.  “I’m sorry I’m such a bitch.  I don’t know what came over me.”

He grinned, and sat down onto the couch with me.  I straddled his lap and ate my burgers and fries.  Yes, I did say burgers.  This was one of the only times in a woman’s life that she was able to eat what she wanted without ridicule, and I was going to live it up.  Sucking down the vanilla milkshake, I was in hog heaven when I finished the last slurp of the shake.

I gave a lady like belch and then laid my head down on his chest, “Excuse me.”

His chest shook, bouncing my head up and down with his laughter.  I gave a small smile, and promptly fell asleep.

ɸ

Max

“What the fuck is that?”  Jack asked from behind me.

My head swung in the direction he was looking, and I saw the ugliest cake I’d ever seen.  Large, lopsided and rectangular, it had puke green icing, and Halloween sprinkles.  The message on it simply read, “I’m sorry I’m a bitch.”

“What does it look like, Jacky?”  I asked jokingly.

“I don’t know, or I wouldn’t have asked.”  He said seriously.

The man was a freaking robot lately.  The only time I saw even a semblance of his old self was when the curvy waitress at The Back Porch waited on him.  Just last week he saw her at Skinner’s grocery store and about tripped over his feet to follow her through the store.  If I didn’t know the man better, I’d have called him a stalker.

“Payton was possessed by the devil last night, and I had to go get her a midnight snack.”  I deadpanned.

He blinked twice, and then went over to the drawer closest to the fridge, pulled out a knife, and sliced himself a huge chunk.  He did however make sure to leave the piece that said ‘bitch’ intact.  He was nice like that. 

“What did you need?”  Sam asked as he came into the kitchen, followed closely by James and Elliott.

With the entrance of those three, the cake was withered down until nothing was left except for the ‘ch’ in bitch.  “I had a problem last night.”

“You mean beside the fact that your wife had a breakdown over the fact that you ate her hamburger that she snuck home?”  Gabe said as he walked in, grabbing the piece of cake that was left and popping it in his mouth.  His eyebrows were raised in question.

I wanted to shove the last piece of cake into his face, but I didn’t.  You shouldn’t hurt the love of your sister’s life.  If you did, you might end up having her screeching like a banshee in your house, too.

“We’ve already gotten over that.  Now we are talking about the bitch that did her up most best to shoot me last night.”  I answered.

The silence in the room was deafening.  I went to the coffee pot and poured myself a refill before walking to the table, and shoving Payton’s unmentionables to the floor as I sat.  Then I thought better of it when I remembered the reaction to the trash and hamburger from last night.  Bending over, I picked them up and tossed them into the middle of the table with my boxer briefs before I thought better of it.

“Whose are those?”  Jack questioned.

It was then I’d remembered that Payton’s underwear weren’t normal.  Of the five that were not in the middle of the table for everyone to see, every last one of them were from the boys section.  Although two of them were solids, you could still tell exactly what they were.  There were even two tighty whities.

“Uhhh…”  I said not knowing what in the hell to say.

“Hey, aren’t these the birds that Janie calls Bubbles?”  James supplied helpfully.

My head went to the table and I started to beat it in slow rhythmical knocks.  She was going to kill me.  There was no way that they were going to keep this to themselves.  After the eleventh time I lifted my head back up and leveled each one of their laughing faces with a serious stare.

“I swear to you, if you bring this up and she cries, you will die.”  I said in a low voice.

“All right, boys.  Let’s get back to this matter at hand.  What happened last night?”  He asked.

“I left at oh-three-hundred.  I was in line at Dairy Queen for three minutes, and then was on my way back home when the first shot came from my flank.  It hit my rear bumper; the other three followed shortly after, but the shooter was the driver, and didn’t have a clear shot.  I went down to the Tally Bottoms trying to get them to turn around on themselves, but they didn’t follow.  It was the long brown ponytail that clued me in on O’Hare again.”  I recounted.

“Vehicle?”  Elliott asked.

“Rental.”

“Fuck.”  Elliott said.

“I didn’t have my piece on me.  She had my head all fucked up last night, and I didn’t take it.  I should have had her.”  I said, disappointed in myself.

“My man, your six month pregnant wife went Hannibal Lector on you.  You’re allowed some leeway here.”  Gabe said lightly.

“There was this one time at band camp,” Elliott started and then snickered.  “No really, there was this one time when Blaine was about seven months pregnant that we went out to eat.  When we got home, I ate the last scoop of ice cream, and she went ballistic.  All screaming and crying, so I went to the store, brought it back, and we started the process all over again because it was the wrong fucking brand.  I refused to go back, and she didn’t speak to me for two days.”

“When Cheyenne was pregnant with Phoebe, I decided to be helpful and get rid of all the old Tupperware containers in the fridge, except I didn’t know that that was where she had a stash of pudding that she was hiding from me.  I’d just tossed them, loaded the dishwasher, and even ran it the damn thing.  Three hours later when I’m in bed, she comes in there and literally rips me a new one when I was only trying to help.”  Sam related.

Gabe’s story was interrupted by the sound of my cell phone ringing from the other room.  Getting up, I went to pick it up.  Reading the screen, I saw a number I was unfamiliar with.

“Hello?”  I answered.

“Hi, Max.  This is Trish.  I was wondering if you’d have some free time to meet with me.”  A cheery voice said.

“Trish, as in my neighbor in Hainseville, Trish?”  I asked.

“The one and only, honey.”  Trish laughed.

Trish and my parents got very close since they both purchased their acreage around the same time.  They both logged with the same logging company, and put cabins not very far apart.  When my parents died, Trish watched over our land for me while I was unable.  Ember hadn’t even returned to the place since their death until very recently. 

Concern flashing through me, I asked, “When and where, sweet girl?”

“Can you come soon, like today perhaps?”  She asked as fear crept into her voice.\

“I can be there in an hour if you need me to be.”  I explained.

“Come up to the house.  Gate’s unlocked.”  She said steadily.

I hung up well and truly concerned.  That woman was as tough as they came.  Her husband died in the war when she was nineteen and he was twenty-one.  She never remarried, and worked their farm by herself until her body just wouldn’t allow her to do it anymore.  She retired at the age of seventy and bought the land beside ours not long after that.  There she raised quarter horses in her spare time, and watched out for those around her.  She was what you would call a busy body.  She knew everything that went on around her, and most of the time knew it before the cops.