2 Weeks 'Til Eve (2 'Til Series Book 3) (29 page)

Wednesday, December 20
^th

Catherine breathed hot plumes into the cold air. She’d
brought her sewing along, hoping to use Tara’s house to work quietly and
without interruption because she was running out of excuses at home. Her mother
and Cara were both hard to avoid. So here she was. On Tara’s doorstep. Someplace
she’d never figured she’d be in a million years. And certainly not today.

“Well, well, well,” Tara announced, swinging the door
open, “and you thought
I
was going to cramp
your
style.”

“I’m not here for you. I just need a room to work in,”
she said snippily, holding up her bag. Ready to work at her remedial finest.
Ready to stick four more fingers and fight with the mohair material that truly
was meant only for experts no matter what the pattern said. Ready to
do this
.

“Anything can be had for a price.”

She stared her down. “Tara, seriously.”

Her friend gestured her inside.

“Where’ve you been anyway?” Catherine challenged,
feeling slighted that she had seen neither hide nor hair of her for days. Since
the class party.

“Right here.”

“But you missed my due date.”

“Seems you missed it too,” Tara giggled, pointing to
her grandiose belly.

“You didn’t even check in.”

“I figured you’d let me know,” she shrugged.

“Well,
now
I’m letting you know that it’s
obviously never going to happen for me.”

“Every baby is born eventually, chicky.”

“Not this one. We did everything last night.
Everything,
”
she assured her. “And not even a blip on the radar.” Fast and hard. Slow and
sweet. Several speeds in between. Plenty of orgasmic activity, but no seismic
activity. They had an obstinate child. That much she was sure of.

“So what do you want me to do about it? Because I know
that some women are into fisting, but I’m—”

“I didn’t say I wanted
you
to do anything! I
don’t need a lesbian lover. And that’s just…
ouch
and… did I say
ouch?
”

“You do realize how big a baby is, right?” Tara
prodded.

“I don’t want to talk about it. Nope. No.” She shook
her head.

“You want me to throw you a pity party then? Because
you’re halfway there already, just need some balloons.”

“I just want you to care. You didn’t come by yesterday
or call or anything.”

“I was respecting boundaries.”

Catherine gave her a come-on-already look.

“Okay, so I was busy,” she gave in, allowing a
shit-eating grin to surface.

“Are you still decorating out there?” She gestured
vaguely toward the front of the house. “Haven’t you done enough yet? You’re the
one who caused the power outage on Saturday aren’t you?” Catherine accused, bored
of the whole Christmas light contest. Bored of life in general. Bored of
waiting for her thermometer to pop like the giant Butterball she was.

“Actually, no one can prove anything there. And I
am
done decorating. I can’t believe you didn’t notice.”

“Okay, so it isn’t decorating, what gives then? How
are you so ‘busy’? Don’t tell me you’re running a brothel out of this place.” She
looked around at the furniture like it was covered in
ick
. It was fair
enough to question, considering Tara had definitely been hiding a man in her
house last week when she’d stopped in. And there was a strange car out front
the other day when she happened to be passing by. Plus Tara’d had sex on the
brain and seemed to have plenty of money to throw around these days—

“Why do you go such questionable places in that head
of yours, Catherine Marie?” Tara asked.

“Because—” But she stopped as a pair of arms encircled
her friend from behind. First it was like she was seeing a ghost. Maybe the
benevolent presence Tara had mentioned. But they were solid, muscular, real
arms that made Tara giggle and squeal. Catherine’s head first went to Hotty
McHotterson from Cara’s class—Sophie Watts’s ex (Tara waging war on two
fronts—lighting and banging). But the hair wasn’t right. And this guy was
taller too, she believed.

“Hey, Catherine,” the man said familiarly.

“Uh, hello?” Snarky. Wondering why some complete
stranger, a one-or-two-night stand or maybe even just a random john for that
matter, would talk to her like he knew her.

“It’s Jason, Cat,” Tara hissed, warning her to shape
up and put on her polite panties.

“Jason?” Confused. “…Oh! Jason! Hi. I didn’t recognize
you without your clothes on—I mean without your suit on… or a tux even… and,
you know… dressed for a wedding and all.” But the first statement was actually right.
He was half naked or possibly more so considering he was hidden the rest of the
way behind Tara. They’d probably been having sex repeatedly or endlessly or
whatever it was that they did. Not that she should be bitter considering her
night last night, but she was
huge
and huge people were bitter.

She gave Tara a questioning glance and then went back
to admiring Jason’s pecs, or what she could see of them. It didn’t show in the
suit—his body, that is. She never would have known what he was hiding
underneath. Her own man had a rugged exterior that had pretty much assured her
of what she would find underneath, but Jason, on the other hand, had been a bit
more of an enigma. A Clark-Kent sort. Now the puzzle was solved. Superman it
was.

“How long have you been here? Didn’t you leave?”
Catherine asked.

He shook his head. “Why would I?”

“No, he’d rather stick around and give me a hard time,”
Tara said with a wink. “And I just keep taking it like the whore I am.”

“At least you’re my whore,” Jason said in all kinds of
googly-eyed, baby-voiced yuckiness.

“And you’re my best customer,” she mewled back in
slathery grodiness.

“You bet I am. You know what I like.”

“I know just what you like.”

But how? Tara had stood him up in the middle of moving
to live with him, disappearing like there was a Bermuda Triangle in the Midwest
by the name of Joliet that was sucking up U-Hauls and sending them north. To
Minnesota. And here he was smitten; the two of them like peas in a pod, ready
to pork right in front of a woman on her last nerve. Their sickening sweet
happy-happy-joy-joy coupledom was gag-worthy.  

Catherine turned to go, unable to take it.

“No, wait, Cat!” Tara blurted, pulling away from Jason.
“Don’t go.”

“You two seem pretty busy. I can go… to the library or
something.”

“You can stay right here,” she insisted, pulling Catherine
through the house and sitting her down at the table. “I need to talk to you
anyway.” Serious now.

“What? Are you two getting—”

“We are figuring things out,” Tara cut her off, firmly
and definitively.

“Then what is it?” she grumped.

“I have an idea.”

Catherine shook her head, denying anything Tara had to
say. Those four words never went anywhere good.

But Tara continued anyway, “You know that blog I
wanted to start, about working on my house? Well, I was thinking I could call
it
theLIRNIhouse.com
. Get it? LIRNI? Life is real, not ideal? It’s
perfect. Because not everything goes smoothly. DIY projects go bad. Entire
shows are made about it. We aren’t all Martha Stewart, you know. Hell, even
Martha herself probably isn’t a “Martha Stewart”—if you saw her doing all her
projects in real time she’s got to screw things up here and there too. And if
she doesn’t, then fuck her. I don’t have any interest in being little miss
perfect.”

Catherine’s body slackened some as she realized this
didn’t have to do with anything crazy that Tara was trying to drag her into.
Actually, it wasn’t an awful idea either.

“Of course, I need your blessing to use it.”

“Use what?”

“The name. I mean, it’s your mother’s slogan.”

“I don’t know that she would care. It’s just something
she says.”

“Everything that is anything is just something someone
said once,” Tara said philosophically.

“Huh?”

“You know what I mean. A slogan like that can be huge.
In fact, we could go even further with it.”

Oh no.
And here it was, the part of the idea
that was about to get dangerous or legally questionable.

“Don’t look freaked out. I’m just talking swag. It
would be perfect for you. You’ve been kind of lost since you moved here and it
would give you something to do.”

“I’m perfectly happy.” Though she sounded weary
instead of what she claimed to be.

“Regardless, I definitely think you could use some swag.”

“I’m a wife and a mother; I’m not trolling for dates,”
she pointed out, brushing her off.

“Not swagger, Cat. Swag. Merch.”

“What?”

“Customized merchandise.”

Catherine rolled her eyes.

“I’m serious. You could design it. It’ll be fun. I
have some seed money and you have the slogan. We could make lots of dough.”

“Seed money?”

“I have some family members, who shall remain nameless,
who are into some things, who like to invest in stuff—”

“If this avenue ends in cement shoes and a dirty
river, I want nothing to do with it.”

“I thought the mob shit was over. I told you my family
is on the up-and-up for the most part.”

The last wasn’t lost on Catherine. “You can do what
you want, Tara, but I’m—”

“You’re sitting on a gold mine. The saying is perfect.
The possibilities are endless. Shirts. Hats. Signs. All kinds of products. All
emblazoned with Life Is Real—”

“You want to open a
shop
?”

“An online shop,” Tara corrected.” And it doesn’t have
to end at ‘Life is real, not ideal’. We can think up other slogans and sayings
and stuff. I’m spitballing here, but I think we can really go somewhere.”

Catherine was shocked, wondering if her blood sugar
was low or if Tara did in fact have a good idea.

“And I’m serious about the money. It’s all on the
right side of the law.”

She looked back at her friend dubiously.

Tara sighed. “Look, my family is into Christmas
displays,” she admitted, like
that
was a dirty little secret while the mob
talk through the years had always been a point of pride.

“Come again?”

“That’s why I said that stuff at the mall the other
day about inspecting their display. I actually do have ties to the largest
special event exhibition house on the east coast. That’s why they set me free. It’s
what my people do, Cat.”

“Lie?”

“No, we build and supply displays. Christmas is our
biggest season.”

Catherine looked at her speculatively.

“God’s honest truth.” Tara crossed her heart. “Where
do you think I got all the stuff for my own place?”

She didn’t answer, but must have looked guilty.

“You thought I stole it?”

“No.
No.
I didn’t think anything.”

“Listen, we are going to have to come to some sort of
understanding if we are going to be going into business together. You have to
trust me.”

“I didn’t agree to go into business together.”

“But you will. I know you will. I mean, seriously,
what do you have to lose?”

“What about Jason, though? You guys seem to be getting
along great. How does he feel about your new plans?”

“At least Minnesota is closer than New York.”

“So you’re sticking around?” Catherine asked
carefully.

“Of course I’m sticking around. You need me here.”

She shook her head the slightest.

“After the way you showed up here today wanting to
know where I’ve been and how come I haven’t been around, you’re seriously going
to try to tell me you don’t need me here?”

Friday, December 22
^nd

“Is nobody else around here concerned that I haven’t
had this baby yet? Because I’m pretty sure she’s deciding to go the distance in
there. Live out her dreams in my uterus until she gradually eats away at me
from the inside.” Catherine put aside the gifts she’d been boxing up, the last
of the wrapping she had to do, pushing it over to Fynn’s side of the bed where
it could be his problem.

“Are you calling our daughter a parasite?”

“If the name fits.” She stretched and yawned and
thought about taking a nap since nothing else was happening.

“You heard the doctor. He said that you’re having a
textbook pregnancy and he isn’t worried one bit.”

“I think if it was ‘textbook’ I’d have a baby in my
arms right now.”

Fynn shut his mouth into a firm line, fighting against
fighting her.

“I just don’t understand it. We’ve been having sex
constantly. It’s supposed to work. Are we doing something wrong?” Catherine
whined.

“I think the fact that we have a baby in there in the
first place tells us we’re doing it right.”

“But there could be some special technique for induction
sex.”

“Induction sex, really?”

“Maybe there’s such a thing. They say certain
positions are better for conception, so why not induction?”

Fynn sighed, a dramatic heaving sound.

“Am I boring you?”

“I understand that you’re annoyed, but there’s nothing
we can do except wait it out.” Levelheaded as always.

“And meanwhile complete idiots are having babies all
the time. They create them, grow them, and deliver them without a problem. I’ve
seen it on daytime talk shows. People who have no business having kids are
having kids like nobody’s business, and here we are, a perfectly nice married
couple with better-than-average intelligence and all our shit together and
we’ve got nothing. No labor pains or contractions. Nothing.”

“I just wish you could look at the bright side. You’re
healthy. The baby’s healthy—”

“Optimism is overrated.”

“Oh, wait, is that Cara’s Christmas present?” Fynn
asked, attempting to distract her by pointing to the small box she’d just
packaged up to wrap.

Catherine nodded sadly at what was yet another example
of why optimism was overrated. She’d really believed that mind over matter
would come through for her in the spirit of Christmas and giving and all that
froufrou gobbledygook. What a chump.

“You finished it? Good for you! Can I see it?” His
tone trying way too hard.

She begrudgingly opened the box and lifted out the
little elephant. Yes, it was done. No, it was not a triumph.

“… It’s… ah… cute and… ah… furry… and kind of—”

“You don’t like it,” she growled, yanking it away from
his critical view. She’d wanted to believe that the simple fact there was no
stuffing bursting out of the seams was a boon, but that was where the positives
ended. The legs weren’t the same length and the ears were lopsided and the
trunk twisted to the right, not to mention how jagged those gap-free seams were.

“No, I do. I think you did a wonderful thing making it
for Cara,” Fynn said diplomatically, spinning his answer so fast it was a
surprise he didn’t get dizzy avoiding the truth.

“Do you think it looks like the picture?” she challenged,
holding the picture on the front of the pattern aloft.

“It’s an elephant,” he whispered, like he was just
figuring that out.

“Yes, Fynn. Just what she wanted.”

“With all that scraggly hair it’s kind of… you know… messy
furry. But I see it. Right there. An elephant. A cute little—”

“It’s supposed to look like that, you know. It’s not
messy fur; it’s called mohair.”

“More like hairball,” he joked.

“You’re telling me the
gift
I made for Cara
looks like something a cat puked up?”

“No. It was just—I was just playing around.”

“Because I can’t fix this, Fynn. It is what it is.
There’s nothing I can do with three days left until Christmas. Not to mention, I
could go into labor at any moment.”

“I wouldn’t count on that. You yourself said you don’t
think this kid ever wants out—”

“Seriously? You’re going to turn my words on me?
That’s where you decide to go with this?”

Fynn softened his features like he was dealing with a
crazy person threatening to jump. “It’s all going to work out, Catherine. Of
course it will.”

“Like magic?” she challenged. “Tell me, how is it
going to work out if
I
don’t work it out.”

“You’re putting way too much on yourself. You could
have just asked your mom for help with it. She sews.” A no-brainer.

“I wanted to do this on my own, Fynn! For Cara. I
wanted to be the—”

“Hero?”

“The mom. The one who can do anything. The one she can
rely on.”

“She thinks it’s coming from Santa.”

“But someday she’ll find out. She’ll know. Even if she
doesn’t ever call me Mom, she’ll know that I have always loved her that much.
Like she’s my own daughter. That I’ll do it all. Anything. Everything.”

Fynn sighed, his eyes welling up just enough to show
that he got it. That he finally understood why she was driving herself crazy to
do something she had never done before. Why it was so important.

“Listen, you need a break. Why don’t you go out,” he
offered.

“Clubbing? Barhopping? What can I do like this?” She
pointed at her belly.

“No, I mean with the girls.”

“What girls?”

“Drew and Tara.”

“Tara’s been busy with Jason, and Drew has a full
house of her own. Besides, I’m not in the mood to go out. And I should stay
close to home anyway, just in case.”

“I don’t mean
out
. Just maybe to Tara’s house.”

“Are you trying to get rid of me?”

“I know Tara asked you to hang tonight to celebrate
her lighting victory. In fact, she even kicked Jason out. And Drew is going to
Tara’s, so Klein is having some guys over.”

“So
you
want to go out.”

“Klein has kid duty. Babysitting. We’re just going over
to make it less painful. I think you and I could both use a breather. We’ve
been cooped up for days.”