He has broken more items in my cottage running around on one of his sugar highs or playing catch with Owen that I’ve finally realized I’m just not meant to have nice things. But he takes care of me, makes me laugh and not take things so seriously all the time, is a great listener, and gives great advice. Yes, he can be childish as fuck the majority of the time and can drive me up the goddamn wall some days, but not when it counts. For the first time in my life, I feel defensive over a guy I’m dating. The guy I thought would be a one-night stand six months ago who’s been sleeping on my couch ever since.
Okay, fine, so he only sleeps on my couch when I break up with him when he really annoys me, which is only like, three times a month. What the fuck ever. This is all his fault for making me have feelings and shit. He’s the first guy I’ve ever dated who lets me be me without making me feel bad about who I am. He understands I’m always right and it’s my way or the highway, and it actually turns him on when I stomp my foot and order him around.
He doesn’t puff out his chest and try to act like just because he has a penis he needs to make all the rules. He doesn’t have a giant ego that can’t handle being with a strong, independent woman, and when I ask him to pick up tampons at the store, his only reply is “What’s the flow situation today on a scale of light to this looks like a crime scene, and do we also need chocolate?” And if I even think about how excellent he is at giving orgasms, I’ll probably black out. I know I’m a bitch. I know I’m prickly and mouthy and generally hate people and I’m not the easiest woman to get along with, but for some reason, Bodhi likes that about me. And that scares the shit out of me, because it actually makes me think I want disgusting things with him like weddings and babies.
My eyes well up with tears when I suddenly have the same vision I’ve been having way too much lately of Bodhi slipping a hemp ring on my finger—because what else would Bodhi slip on my finger?—which just makes me growl again and add in a foot stomp for good measure until the tears subside.
“Is this actually you having a freakish mood swing right in front of me, or are you going to blame it on a brain tumor again?” Birdie asks with a quirk of one eyebrow.
“Tiny Tim the Tumor is the only reason I’ve been so off lately,” I remind her. “I’ve had fevers, a sinus infection, blurred vision, dizziness, and I keep daydreaming about weddings and babies. I am broken, and the only plausible explanation for my brokenness is that I’m dying of a brain tumor, and it all started the night of the damn blowjob proposal. Bodhi gave me a tumor.”
“Be serious.” Birdie laughs and takes another sip of her ball juice. My friends don’t seem to want to board the tumor train with me just yet and refuse to take me seriously, but it’s fine. They’ll be punching their tickets soon enough. “Well, you’ll be happy to know I have officially passed the torch to Bodhi and sent him a text explaining what is required of him, and now he has the big boy responsibility of being the one the doctor calls with your test results instead of me. You are literally going to play the worst game of High Telephone ever. I can definitely see the doctor telling Bodhi you have heart burn, then he’ll smoke some weed and wind up telling you that you need a triple bypass.”
I roll my eyes when Birdie calls it a big boy responsibility, even though that’s exactly what I called it when I got home from the doctor the other day, pissed he wouldn’t do a full body scan to find Tiny Tim the Tumor and only wanted to take eleventy billion vials of blood. Which resulted in me snapping at Bodhi and telling him he wasn’t coming near me with a hemp ring unless he took on the big boy job of getting my test results for me instead of Birdie to see how responsible he can be when he has to tell me I’m dying. Yes, I have a freakish case of anxiety when it comes to doctors and getting test results. Birdie has always been the one who gets the call from the doctor first so she can break whatever it is to me gently, ever since that time I thought I was dying from bladder cancer and refused to answer the phone, and it just turned out I had a UTI.
And since I haven’t exactly been forthcoming about all my wedding and baby nightmares, the hemp ring comment really confused Bodhi. I’m pretty sure he only agreed to my demands to get me to stop screaming and throwing his socks in the fireplace.
I just want to disappear somewhere and have a quiet Christmas while Bodhi gives me multiple orgasms until my death sentence arrives. Is that too much to ask?
“Well, good luck with that. I’m sure Bodhi will be very responsible when the doctor calls, and he has to officially inform you that you’re batshit crazy,” Birdie declares with a smile while I reach for the long-stem lighter I used to light the candles in all the holly-and-pine centerpieces. “So, anyway, don’t forget we’re having a Christmas craft night at Wren and Shepherd’s tomorrow night because he needs our help with all those last-minute holiday shirt orders. Sunday is Sundaes with Santa at the Dip and Twist. Then we’ve got the ornament exchange party with our book club, the ornament exchange party with the ladies from high school, the ornament exchange party with the SIG employees, the ornament….”
Birdie trails off when I repeatedly click the ignite button on the lighter so the flame blinks in and out of existence while I glare at her.
“You know what? I’ll just text you the list of all the fun Christmas stuff we still have left to do.”
“I’m so overcome with joy I can’t handle it,” I deadpan.
Birdie waves me off and finally turns and disappears into the crowd of happy partiers to go find Palmer. Setting the lighter down, I distractedly pull the bar towel off my shoulder and start wiping down the shiny wooden bar top as I stare around the room, wishing I could go back to the way it was when I was normal. I’ve been feeling like shit mentally and physically for the last two months. Ever since Bodhi blurted out a marriage proposal when I had his dick in my mouth. Which is mostly the cause of my orneriness whenever anyone asks me about our future. Who does he think he is, throwing something like that out into the universe when he knows damn well neither one of us are the settling down forever type, and that’s exactly why we work? I finished that damn BJ like a champ after telling him to fuck off, but that’s definitely the night everything started to decline. My health and my mental state.
Fucking Bodhi and his stupid fucking marriage proposal…
“Hey, Tess! So, when are you—”
“Fuck off. Bodhi and I are never getting married, and I’m never squeezing demons out of my Christmas cookie, because frankly, Amber, I’d rather have a fully functioning vagina instead of a cavernous sinkhole,” I cut off Amber Ellenburg, the owner of Summersweet Island Realty. “Can I refill your spiked eggnog? Light your Christmas sweater on fire?”
Amber doesn’t slowly back away from the bar like Jan and Birdie. She full-on turns and flees from the room, shoving people out of the way as she goes until she disappears into the pro-shop just off the bar, where they’ve set up pictures with Santa. I immediately feel guilty about what I said, then get pissed off at myself for feeling guilty. Tess Powell doesn’t feel guilty about jack shit.
At least I didn’t until that stupid blowjob proposal.
Birdie and Palmer are busy making wedding plans for next summer, and Palmer won’t shut his face about knocking her up as soon as Birdie says I do. Shepherd is planning on proposing to Wren in the middle of a baseball field when they take Owen on a trip to a college in California after the first of the year. And I’m sure it won’t be long until she pops out a sibling for Owen. And Emily… well, Emily’s love life is a goddamn shitshow right now, but it’s only a matter of time before she has wedding bells on the brain. I’ve been to two baby showers in the last month, and I’ve gotten four wedding invitations in the mail in the last week. I’m surrounded by weddings and baby fever on this island, and for the first time in my life, I want to get the hell away from Summersweet. It’s this place that’s wreaking havoc on me and making me feel all mushy and pukey; I just know it. Well, this place and good old Tiny Tim.