Chapter 18
Cole
I’M FEELING WEIRDLY excited as I lead our caravan across the highway towards my house. Sure, I want to see her reaction to the frogs, but there’s also a part of me that is looking forward to having someone else live with me. When I decided I was ready to run for mayor, I also decided it was probably time to move out of the apartment I shared with a buddy of mine and into a house of my own. Mayors don’t usually have roommates. Still, I’ve lived in my house for almost a year now, and I’d be the first to admit it can be lonely living by myself.
I think that’s probably why I proposed to Ashley. Not that I didn’t love her, or at least I thought I loved her. Maybe not in a you’re-the-one-my-heart-loves sort of way, but close enough. When she said no to my proposal and we broke up, I remember being surprised that I wasn’t more upset. Disappointed, maybe. Embarrassed, definitely. Depressed and desperate to win her back, not so much. I just sort of moved on. Of course, that may have had something to do with her response to my proposal. The very thought of the things she said to me that day puts a sour taste in my mouth.
As we exit the highway, I consider leading them in the direction of the many acres of farmland in Holland just to mess with them, but we really are pressed for time so I head straight to my house figuring the frogs will be enough for one day. Hoppy moving day indeed.
We pull up to my house, a four-bedroom ranch that, in my opinion, is a far cry from a villain’s fortress. Though I suppose the laundry chute in the master bedroom could sort of count as a secret passageway. I’m anxious to see Lydia’s reaction, but when I exit my car and turn to see her, she’s already out of her car–which is parked crookedly in my driveway–and dashing towards me.
“Bathroom,” she cries, hand over her mouth. My instincts take over, and I yank the door open and lead her towards the half bath just off the mud room. Once there she screams at me to go away, and I hear the sound of retching as I hurriedly close the door.
Guilt starts to niggle at me. I did this to her. Well, not directly, but I got her pregnant, and she wouldn’t be in there vomiting if she wasn’t pregnant. Maybe I should take down the frogs. Before I’ve followed through on this whim, though, Jamie walks through the garage door shaking her head at me.
“Look what you did,” she tuts, pointing to the door. Clearly, she shares the opinion that I am culpable for Lydia’s current state of illness. “Tell me you at least have orange juice,” she adds. “You do know that’s been helping with her morning sickness, right? So you should always have some stocked.”
I bristle at her know-it-all tone. “Of course I have orange juice. I’m aware of what helps my wife’s morning sickness.” The possessiveness of my words surprises me, but it’s probably just a knee-jerk reaction to how prissy she’s being to me. Like I’m just some jerk who got her best friend pregnant. Which, fine, may be true enough, but still, at least I married her.
Jamie’s eyebrows shoot up at my words, and she peers closely at me as if trying to figure me out.
“Let’s just go get the juice,” I say quickly, uncomfortable with her scrutiny. I lead the way to the kitchen and busy myself taking out the juice and pouring it into a tall glass. When I turn back around Jamie’s head is in my cupboards.
“Can I get you something to eat?” I ask pointedly.
“You have peanut butter in here,” she accuses, pulling out a jar of the stuff.
“Yeah, so?”
“Yeah, so?” she echoes in disbelief. “You can’t be serious, Cole. I never kept this stuff in the house when Lydia lived with me! Didn’t even dare eat anything with nuts in it unless I wasn’t with her. And even then, I brushed my teeth before seeing her again.”
“What, just in case you got the urge to kiss her?” I quip, annoyed with her pushiness. I’m aware of Lydia’s nut allergy, I did spend seventy percent of my childhood at her house, for goodness sake. And because I spent seventy percent of my childhood at her house, I also know the rest of her family ate peanut butter on a regular basis.
Jamie’s face has turned a violent shade of red; she sets toward me waving her hands wildly. “You think you’re so funny and so charming and so,” she whips her hand up and down indicating my frame, “good looking, but do you even know how to use an EpiPen? Do you?” She doesn’t wait for my answer, just grabs her phone out of her pocket, punches a few buttons and shoves the screen in my face.
I watch as a man on the screen pours coffee into a cup then accidentally knocks it down, the screen going into slow motion as a voiceover espouses the merits of multi-quilted paper towel.
“This is an ad for paper towel,” I tell her, fighting to keep my face straight. She scowls, yanks her phone back to hit the skip ad button, then holds the screen back in front of me. This time a man in a lab coat comes on holding an EpiPen. “Really, Jamie? You want me to watch a YouTube video on administering an EpiPen? When was the last time Lydia even had to use hers? I know she’s super careful.”
“Cole, you married a woman with a nut allergy,” Jamie lectures, “so you darn well better know how to–” before she can finish a scream makes us both pause. Lydia. I take off running towards the sound, worry filling me. Did she miss the step down from the living room to the hallway and fall? Is the baby okay?
The scream stops, replaced by a loud slew of angry words interspersed with my name. I think I hear the words “enemy number 1,” but I can’t be sure. My worry fades, but my footsteps don’t slow. She’s seen the frogs! I’m disappointed that I missed the initial sighting, but at least I got to hear it. I allow myself a small smile before I round the corner to her bedroom and replace it with a practiced look of concern. A look I have to fight hard to keep on my face when I see Lydia standing in front of my frog wall with eyes so wide they rival those of the tree frog she’s staring at.
“Is something wrong with your room?” I ask her, and she whirls to face me. Behind me Jamie enters, and I hear her gasp.
“You!” Lydia advances on me. “You did this!” She gestures to the new pride of my existence, the frog wall, her eyes flashing.
“Lydia,” I say, holding my hands up in front of me, “calm down. What’s the matter? You don’t like the decor? I remember you loving frogs growing up.”
“Liar!” she screeches. “You know I hate frogs with their slimy skin and, and their crazy bugged out eyes!” Her gaze flits to the tree frog, who I’ve decided to name Geronimo, and she shudders.
“Lydia, really,” I cross my hand over my heart, “it was an honest mistake.”
“This was no mistake,” she declares. “You did this on purpose, and then you tried to Super Trooper me with your whole ‘hoppy moving day’ spiel.”
“Oh, come on meow,” I can’t keep in a laugh, and I hear a snort that gets quickly stifled from Jamie.
“This is not funny, Jamie!” Lydia transfers some of her wrath to her friend.
“You’re right, not funny at all,” Jamie agrees quickly. “That was a cough.” She looks back and forth between us. “So are you two not sharing a room then?”
We both freeze. We’ve been caught. On day one.
“Jamie,” the anger is gone from Lydia’s voice, “don’t freak out at me. You know the situation.”
“I’m not freaking out at you,” Jamie insists, though her voice has gone up an octave. “Why would I freak out that my best friend decided to marry her one-night stand turned baby daddy, but they’re sleeping in separate bedrooms which means she’s going to be trapped in a loveless, sexless marriage for the rest of her life all because some hot guy got the best of her hormones one time!” Her voice breaks off at a level sure to crack glass. I break off too, realizing I’ve been nodding along as she voices concerns that I share. Although I don’t care for her phrasing at the end.
I’m about to announce that I think she’s made some good points when Jamie starts pacing the room. “Lord, help this situation,” she begins, and I realize she’s praying. “Seriously, God, these two are in way over their heads.” It’s like we’re not even in the room as she continues, “But I know you have a plan. I know you care about the sanctity of marriage, so Lord I ask that you would be a part of this marriage.”
What the actual heck? I look over at Lydia to see if she’s as weirded out by this as I am, but to my surprise she’s got her head bowed and hands folded too. Good God, I’ve married a religious fanatic. I tune back in to Jamie’s words just as she wraps up her prayer with an, “In Your name we pray, Amen.” Lydia echoes her then they both look at me.
“Uh, amen,” I say, trying to hide my discomfort. I don’t think I’ve ever said amen outside of a church.
Beep, beep, beep. My phone alarm interrupts the religious revival taking place, and I yank it out of my pocket.
“Time for lunch,” I say without thinking.
“You set an alarm on your phone to eat?” Lydia’s bemusement is evident.
“No,” I shoot back, even though, yes; the answer is yes. I’m not very well going to admit that to these two women. Somehow, I think it would just make their day to find out that twice in the last three months I got so caught up with work that I forgot to eat and fainted. It’s not exactly macho. Hypoglycemia is something old people deal with or that women who don’t think they should be hungry yet blame their hunger on.
“I just knew that today we’d be on a time crunch with moving you in then racing off to our appointment. I wanted to make sure we got you fed. You’re growing our child, after all.”
Lydia raises her eyebrows like she doesn’t quite believe me, but she doesn’t push the subject.
“I suppose I am hungry,” she admits. She pulls her suitcase across the room. “But first I’m taking this to my new bedroom.” She smirks at me. “You had one flaw in your battle plan Frogman; you forgot I could just go sleep in another bedroom. I don’t need an adjoining bathroom this badly.” She huffs off, wheeling her giant suitcase behind her. I suppress a smile as I hear her open the door across the hall, my home office. She closes it, and her suitcase wheels down to the final unoccupied bedroom. As I hear the doorknob turn, her words settle in my brain, “battle plan.” Is that what she thinks this is? That we’re engaged in some sort of wa–
“Argh!”
This time Lydia’s scream isn’t one of fear, but rage. A few seconds later she’s in front of me, having dragged the five-foot frog stuffed animal I placed in the entryway of the room across the hall. “Cole Jacobson, this,” she rips off the “Hoppy Moving Day” sign I taped to the frog’s chest and tears it in half, “means war!”
Well, that answers that question.