Take A Number - Amy Daws Page 0,2
birthday explosion, and I’ve been thinking about a croinut all morning. Tire Depot’s Danishes don’t hold a candle to your baked goods.”
“Aw, you’re too sweet,” Norah replies, looking touched. “I know how much you love those Danishes.”
“Mostly just because they’re free, and I’m cheap,” Kate says with an awkward laugh. “Seriously, if your bakery was complimentary, I’d do all my writing here.”
Norah nods her head awkwardly. “Well, then I’d have no bakery because I’d have no money.”
“Right!” Kate barks out a laugh. “Maybe you should start doing oil changes here.”
“That would kinda get in the way of my bakery.”
“Obviously!”
The two grin at each other for a second, and then Kate says, “I’m gonna go grab a booth. Later, Norah. See you at the next Gilmore meeting.”
“Nice seeing you again, Kate.”
Kate turns to leave, and Norah busies herself back at the glass display case, rearranging the donuts that don’t require patrons to take a number.
My voice is low and strange when I state, “I have no clue what either of you was talking about, but is it odd that I am slightly turned on from watching what just unfolded here?”
“Moser!” Norah snaps, and I quickly take a number and rush over to join Kate at the booth.
Moments later, I’m seated across from my two friends, Kate and Lynsey, who are currently tits deep in wedding plans for Kate. Kate even has some sort of wedding binder spread open as they work through decorations and shit. Before the wedding talk, they discussed Lynsey’s sex life and how hard it is to bone your husband when you have a one-year-old who won’t sleep at night.
I glance over at Julianna, who’s seated in a high chair beside us with eight pounds of pink frosting smeared all over her face. She’s one now and looks like she’s about to slip into a diabetic coma any second.
When the fuck did my two closest friends become grown-ups?
It feels like yesterday I was rolling a keg of beer into Kate’s house to celebrate the completion of her smutty bed-n-breakfast series. Kate, Lynsey, and I were all neighbors making the city of Boulder our bitch. Now Kate lives in the tiny town of Jamestown with Miles, the mechanic she met at Tire Depot who smokes licorice like cigarettes, and all they do is talk about their rustic-themed wedding coming up. And Lynsey’s married to the doctor who knocked her up, and their brown-eyed little cutie is old enough to eat donuts like a well-seasoned trucker.
Jules’s eyes begin to close, and her head slowly descends to the table. “Is she okay, Lyns?” I ask, pointing at the bizarre sight.
“She’s fine,” Lynsey replies, waving me off as she asks Kate for the eighty-seventh time how many Mason jars she needs to paint for the centerpieces.
“She doesn’t look fine,” I add as Julianna’s forehead rests on the table.
Lynsey stops talking long enough to pull Julianna’s head up. She holds her hand in front of her mouth and nods. “She’s breathing, she’s fine. It’s just a sugar crash. It happens.”
My head jerks back because Julianna’s eyes are slightly rolled back into her head, and that does not look normal. Suddenly, Julianna comes to. “Mo dony!” she bellows, and her tiny finger reaches out to press down on a stray sprinkle on the table. She puts the sweet into her mouth before lowering her head and falling fast asleep again.
Fuck me, that was a disturbing sight. I’ve never been gladder not to have kids.
There are a lot of disturbing sights as of late. Like Kate staying in on a Friday night instead of coming down to Pearl Street Pub to have a beer with me. Or Lynsey having a ribbon cutting at her new family practice she opened with Dr. Dick.
He has a real name.
Josh something.
He’s okay, I guess. Both Miles and Josh are decent guys, and the girls are madly in love with them, so I guess they’re happy. But those two little smokies have officially taken away my wing women, and because of that, they must be my mortal enemies.
Clearly, I’m bitter.
My two best friends have completely different lives, and I’m here doing what I do best—trying to figure out how big Norah’s tits are beneath that ridiculous uniform she wears and avoiding all conversation concerning weddings and babies.
“Dean, did you hear me?” Kate asks, and I pull my gaze away from Norah as she artfully glazes a fresh batch of croinuts. She always looks so technical when she does that, like