Chapter 7 #3
She snorted. "You do know they have bars there? And you are currently a cocktail waitress, despite having a BS in psychology from fucking Stanford.”
"There are no jobs here."
"Exactly! In Ketchikan, you can do what you're doing while paying less in living expenses and figure out what you want to do that's not serving booze." Her eyes narrowed. "Unless there’s—ah-HEM—some other reason you may have for wanting to avoid Ketchikan.”
"No!" I said, too immediately and too vehemently.
"Methinks the lady doth protest too much," Rune said.
"You just…shush." I said, pinching her lips together. "Shushy time for you."
She blew a raspberry at me, but it just came out the sides, along with some spit, which sent us both into paroxysms of laughter.
Once we'd regained our composure, Rune pushed me out of the kitchen toward the front door. "Shoes, phone, keys, purse."
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"To get you some fresh air and sunshine."
"But the daystar burns us."
"Lindsey."
I stomped a foot. "Ugh! You're mean. I don't like fresh air and sunshine."
"Oh, stop being dramatic. It's good for you, and you know it. Now get your shit, woman, we're going."
Which is how I found myself sweating like a pig as we hiked through hell—I mean, some ridiculous trail or other in the hills.
I don't know. This girl doesn't hike; I walk where I need to go and no further.
I know, I know, I used to be an athlete, I should be able to walk a slightly challenging and well-groomed trail without falling apart, but here we are.
Duncan trailed behind us, earbuds in his ears and a happy smile on his face.
Rune was waddling along happily as well.
I was the only one with a murderous expression on her face.
Eventually, Rune, puffing, called a halt as we reached a bench on a crest with a sweet view of LA. We sat, and Duncan fished a pair of water bottles from his backpack and handed them to us, wandering away to sit by himself.
"Start talking, Linz," Rune ordered. "Leave nothing out."
"Well, it all started roughly six billion years ago, when an ape decided it wanted to be a homo sapien…"
Rune rolled her eyes at me. "Ha fucking ha."
"Rune—"
She stuck up an index finger. "NO! No excuses, no rabbit holes, no bullshit. Tell me what happened and why is it Dane?"
I sighed. "God, pushy."
"I know you. You can squirrel out of conversations with other people, but not me. I know your tricks. Spill, bitch, or I’ll have to get creative."
That usually involved bribery—I could be persuaded to do just about anything if you offered me high-quality gelato. Don't tell Dane, though.
Why did I think that?
Fuck!
"I see that brain doing things. Make word sounds, woman. You know you'll feel better. Talk to Mommy."
I reared back with a horrified expression. "No, no, no, no. Nope. Absolutely the fuck not. You wanna have Duncan call you mommy? Cool. But we are not doing that."
She grimaced. "I don't know what came over me. I'm sorry. That was weird, and it just sort of came out."
"Hopefully, the baby comes out as easily."
"No rabbit holes. We aren't talking about me being a mother. We're talking about what happened between you and Dane and why it led to you going full hoarder in your apartment."
I had to just tell her. She wouldn’t let up until I did, and she really would get creative in making me talk.
"If you promise me gelato later."
She rolled her eyes. “Fine, I’ll get you a fucking ice cream. Jesus, you child."
"It is not mere ice cream, you peasant. It's gelato.”
“Lindsey Snelling.”
"We fucked." It popped out of me like a hemorrhoid.
"When?"
"When Duncan and Dane came down here to get you back with Duncan. While you and your folks were getting to know Duncan, Dane and I left. We got dinner, drinks, and boned."
"Okay." She gave me a look, rolling her hand. "And?"
"I sort of freaked out."
I related the whole story—every gory, embarrassing detail. Even the fingering.
"Wait, he let you do that?" She asked, looking speculatively at her husband.
"Yes, ma'am. Claims it was an all-time best orgasm."
"How much of your finger was it?"
I indicated my first knuckle. "Just like that. It's not about plundering his booty, it's just a little added stimulation to increase the intensity."
She whipped out her phone and sent a text message, watching Duncan with hawkish intensity, a smirk on her face.
A second later, Duncan tugged out his phone, tapped, read…
and his eyes widened. He was mid-sip of his water and spluttered, coughing.
He turned a look on Rune, who was cackling. He sent a reply without looking away.
Rune's phone dinged, and she read his message, biting her lip. "It's about to go down.”
I snickered. "He's interested in the idea, I take it?"
"You could say that." She looked at Duncan with a sly, seductive look, licked her lips, and then mimed giving him oral—you know, moving your fist toward your mouth and sticking your tongue into your cheek. She also curled her finger in a come-here gesture.
Duncan turned beet red.
"Be warned, babe," I told her. "It'll turn him into a geyser, so if you do that while giving him head, be ready to swallow a gallon of his man-juice."
"Mmmm," she hummed. "Sounds good to me. I've legit been craving his baby batter as I enter the third trimester."
"Shut up," I snorted. “You do not."
"I do! My libido is through the fucking roof. He's gotten more head from me over the last ten days than in all the time we've been together since we met. He had to stop me from blowing him in the backseat of the Uber on the way here."
"I bet he's happy about that."
She laughed. "I've had to convince him that he doesn't need to match me one-for-one."
"Why on earth would you do a silly thing like that? Let the man nosh your taco as much as he wants."
"It takes me less than five minutes to make him blow his load, but it takes me twenty to get there. We don’t have that kind of time. Plus, I don't crave that. I crave his dick. It's an oral fixation or something, I dunno. Pregnancy does weird-ass shit to you, man, I'm telling you."
"Not that I’ve known a lot of pregnant women, but this is the first I’m hearing of this side effect. Maybe you just like giving your man head."
"Oh, I do, no doubt about that at all. He just gets so pathetically, hysterically stupid and grateful. It makes me laugh. But it’s not that. It's literally when I hit the third trimester mark that my libido got hit by an afterburner. I want his dick all the time."
"Lucky man."
"Lucky me," she countered. "He went out at three in the morning looking for Skittles and Frito-Lay corn chips because I got a craving.
He rubs my feet whenever I ask. He doesn't bat an eye when my mood swings like goddamned Tarzan.
He didn't ask a single question when I told him to put my pillow in the freezer. "
I coughed, choking on a laugh as I took a drink. "I'm sorry, what?”
"I get hot, okay? Really, really, really fucking hot, especially at night. Our suite at the resort had a full fridge, so he got me an extra pillow and put it in the freezer. Then, when I got hot in the middle of the night, he went and got it and put the other one in. Boom, cold pillow."
"Never having a baby," I muttered. "Turns you into a fucking lunatic."
"Legit, it does," She agreed. "I find myself doing and saying things, and I'm like, is that me?
What the fuck am I saying? But then you get a craving, and you just…
there's no ignoring it. It's a kind of madness, I tell you.
And the sex drive! Oh my god. I'm worried I'm gonna deplete him or something. Like, burnout from too much fucking—this trimester, at least. I couldn’t even touch him until the second trimester, the poor guy.
And we're not gonna talk about the pee situation. "
"Pee situation?"
"Every ten minutes, all day, all night. More frequently if he or she starts dancing on my bladder."
"You don’t know the gender?"
"We decided we don't want to know. When we have our baby shower, we're asking for gender-neutral gifts."
"Why wouldn't you want to know?" I asked.
She shrugged. "The baby was a surprise, obviously, so we figured what the hell, might as well keep the surprise theme going.
" She eyed me. "You know, the apartment over the bar where we're gonna be living has several bedrooms. We'll need one for a nursery, but I feel like you could have the other one.
I'd have to clear it with Dunc, of course, but wouldn't it be fun to live together again? "
“You, your husband, your baby, and me, huh?"
"And Dane…?"
"Rune, no. I can't even handle the idea of having feelings for him. We are so far away from joking about living together, it's not even funny."
"Who's joking?"
"Did you hear nothing I said?"
"Yeah, I heard you." She shrugged. "I just think you're fighting a losing battle. He told you he loves you, Linz. He's a good guy. He's perfect for you. He won't bat an eye at your craziness. If anything, your individual brands of crazy complement each other."
"You are spectacularly unhelpful."
"What, you thought I'd think you're being rational about this?"
I stared at her. "Of course I'm not being fucking rational.
You think I want to be like this?" I rapped on my temple as if knocking on a door.
"I feel as fucking nuts as I must seem. I know Dane is a good guy. He’s sweet, he's funny, he's sexy, he gives fucking incredible dick, goes down like a pro, and isn't scared of how kooky I am. He's patient. He's understanding."
“You're not making a great case for having kicked him out of your life, Linz."
"I know,” I groaned. "I don't have a good case for it. It's stupid—I'm stupid. I just can't seem to…" I shook my head. "I'm too scared. Too messed up."
"What's the worst that could happen if you were to try and be with him? Like for real."
"He would discover that I'm impossible to love. I'd be unable to ever enjoy a normal sexual relationship with him because of what happened. It'd last all of a month before I did what I always do and sabotage the whole thing before he had a chance to break my heart."
Rune leaned her head on my shoulder. "You do realize that's fear talking, right? That's not reality. None of that is a given."
My heart twisted, coiled, flipped on itself.
"I recognize that intellectually, Rune, but convincing myself of it is a whole different thing, and I am nowhere even close to that.
" I stood up. "If there was a quick fix for what's wrong with me, I'd take it.
But there's not. I don't know if there is a fix. "
"What if the fix is what you're afraid of?"
"You can ask what if all day long, Rune. No amount of logic is gonna change anything. I wish it would. I really, really do. And now, if you please, I'm hot, hungry, and tired of talking about this. I'm tired of fresh air and sunshine. I want to go back to being a cranky recluse."
"I'm not letting that happen."
“I’m considering getting twenty-six cats and becoming a crazy cat lady with a collection of cute sex toys.
I'll get all my food delivered and become a quirky best-selling romance novelist living in a tumbledown Gothic Revival mansion in Upstate New York, where I'll also have a pet hedgehog named Spike Flea.
Except when a handsome city boy gets lost and ends up on my property, I'll run him off and go back to being a recluse, because Hallmark can go fuck itself with its false and misleading advertising. "
Rune stared at me from the bench. "Are you finished?"
"Yes."
She extended her hands to me. "Good. Help me up—I'm a beached whale."
“You're not even that big yet."
"Goodyear Blimp, coming through."
She waited until we were back at the trailhead before grabbing both of my hands and facing me with a serious expression.
"If you don't give Dane, and yourself, a chance, you'll regret it for the rest of your life.
No, he can't fix you—because you're not broken.
You've suffered a lot. You have scars and open wounds.
He can help you heal, Linz, but if you won't give him a chance, he can't. And if you don't let him try, I promise you, you'll look back at this when you're a sad, bitter, lonely old hag with your cats and your hedgehog and you'll regret letting fear win.
You'll hate yourself for it. You'll be your mother, Lindsey.
I bet if you asked her, assuming you could get the truth out of her, she'd tell you the same thing.
At some point along the way, she let an opportunity slip away because she was too afraid to try. "
I had no response to this, but she didn't seem to want or expect one.
We went to her parents' house and spent the rest of the day helping them box up their lives. I faked cheerfulness and my usual spastic, inappropriate humor, but down deep, I had a pit in my stomach.
A hot knot of knowing that Rune was right.
I just didn't know where to find the courage to do anything about it.