Baking and Babies

Page 14

 
Carter casually sticks his hands in his pockets and whistles jovially as he too rams his shoulder into mine when he walks through the doorway and down the hall to the front door.
 
Molly pulls away from her mother and rushes in front of me when her father starts to make his way in this direction, and there’s no sense in denying it, I’m pretty positive I’m going to pee my pants.
 
“Daddy, don’t hurt him,” she warns, blocking him from me and throwing both her hands up in the air to stop him from coming any closer.
 
“I’m not going to hurt him, Molls,” he promises softly with a smile that’s faker than the baby I didn’t knock Molly up with. “Marco Polo here has nothing to worry about, aside from the fact that the man who currently has the keys to his brand new Mustang felt the need to call shotgun just to make sure he sat in the front seat.”
 
I forget all about my own well-being and hope my car insurance policy covers three lunatics who purposefully slam a vehicle into every tree they encounter before shoving it over a cliff.
 
Jim kisses the top of Molly’s head, lingering there for a few seconds before telling her softly that he loves her no matter what. Charlotte starts sobbing loudly from across the room, breaking up the heartfelt moment with huge sniffles and gasping breaths.
 
When Jim pulls away from Molly and looks over at Charlotte with a raised eyebrow at her outburst, she quickly puts a big smile on her face and waves away his concerned look.
 
“It’s fine, I’m fine, no big deal,” she says with a hiccup and a smile. “I’m just so happy you still love Molly, even if she screwed up and made a huge mistake that will probably ruin her life, because she’s going to really need you to love her when she gets fat and ugly and no one else will love her anymore!”
 
She starts crying louder this time and Gavin rushes across the room to console her. Molly doesn’t have any reason to worry about our ability to pull this off since it looks like it will only be a matter of time before Charlotte completely cracks and ruins her own stupid plan.
 
While Molly and her mother are busy watching Charlotte lose her shit, Jim takes that opportunity to sneak around Molly and her attempt to protect me from bodily harm. He slings his arm around my shoulders casually and leads me quietly away from the women and Gavin.
 
Maybe he really is all talk, just like Molly told me. I mean, he wouldn’t really hurt the fake father of his fake unborn grandchild, would he?
 
“Um, I’m sure you already know this, sir, but my car isn’t really big enough for four large men,” I tell him as he opens the front door and we walk through it together.
 
He takes his arm off my shoulders to pat me on the back good-naturedly, giving me a friendly smile.
 
“Oh, that’s not going to be a problem at all,” he says with a chuckle.
 
His good humor is contagious, and I laugh along with him as we make our way down the steps of the front porch and across the lawn to my car. I try not to cringe when I see Drew sitting on the open window ledge of the driver’s side door with his feet inside the vehicle and his fists pounding on the roof to the beat of the rock song he has playing loud enough to shake the entire car.
 
“Let’s go, fuckers!” Drew shouts to us over the music. “Happy hour at the strip club is over in thirty minutes, and then I’ll have to pay full price for lap dances. Ain’t nobody got time for full-price lap dances!”
 
Jim puts his hand on my shoulder and leads me to the back of the car, rapping his knuckles against the top of the trunk twice, and I see Carter through the back windshield lean in between the two front seats from his spot in the back. The trunk suddenly pops open and Jim gives me another big smile.
 
“Nope, no trouble at all with this small, fancy car of yours,” Jim tells me as he grabs the edge of the trunk lid and lifts it open wide. “We’ll all fit just fine because your daughter-impregnating ass is riding in the trunk.”
 
With a hard shove from both hands against my back, I fly face-first into my own trunk and the lid quickly slams shut on top of me.
 
“Hold on tight, asshole, it’s going to be a bumpy ride!” Jim’s muffled voice shouts through the closed trunk as he laughs at his own joke.
 
I hear a car door slam and my engine rumbles to life through the trunk. My body slams against the inside as we take off like a shot, the squeal of tires against the street punctuating how fast we’re going.
 
Molly’s mom might not be very good at removing blood stains from clothing, but I hope to God she knows how to get the smell of urine out of the trunk of a car.
 
Chapter 7
 
– Meat Sweats –
 
Molly
 
“Molly, stop staring out the window, he’ll be fine. I’m sure your father will wait until after the baby’s born to kill him,” my mother says with a laugh as I move away from the kitchen window where I’ve spent the last twenty minutes silently brooding.
 
“Very funny,” I tell her as I lean against the edge of the kitchen sink and watch her rapidly move around the island in the middle of the kitchen. My mom likes to feed people whenever there’s a tragedy, and going by the sheer volume of cold cut sandwiches she’s been putting together since the guys left, she’s preparing for the end of the world.
 
“It’s the least your father can do,” she continues as she slathers mustard on sandwich number thirty-seven. “Maybe the baby won’t even look like Marco and it turns out to be someone else’s. Then he’s just gone and killed a man for no reason.”
 
Aunt Claire laughs and I shoot her a dirty look before aiming it in my mother’s direction. “Seriously, mom? Did you just insinuate that I’m a slut?”
 
“If it looks like a slut and quacks like a slut!” Aunt Jenny pipes up from the kitchen table.
 
“Oh, don’t give me that look, young lady,” mom warns. “I never said the word slut. It’s not like you got drunk and knocked up at a frat party and never got the guy’s name until four years later.”
 
“Heeeeeeeeey!” Aunt Claire yells, from her seat next to Aunt Jenny.
 
Mom sets her mustard-covered knife on the counter and glances over at Aunt Claire.
 
“Really?” she deadpans.
 
Aunt Claire sighs. “Okay, yeah, that was kind of slutty. Carry on.”
 
Mom goes back to her work, moving from turkey sandwiches to salami.
 
“I’m just saying, Molly, we don’t know this guy, nor did we have any idea you were even dating someone. Forgive me for being a little suspicious about your sexual activity.”
 
I shudder, grabbing the sandwich she just finished and tossed on top of the giant pile. “Please, never say the words sexual activity again.”
 
The funniest part about this entire mess is that I have no sexual activity for her to be suspicious of. I wonder if she’d go easier on me if I told her I’m the world’s first official pregnant virgin. Well, aside from that whole mother of God thing, but that happened a long time ago, and I’m pretty sure it’s a bit more rare in this day and age.
 
Figuring I should just shovel food in my mouth before I’m tempted to say something I shouldn’t, I wrap my lips around the sandwich filled with lettuce, cheese and extra salami, just the way I like it. As soon as my teeth sink into the bread, the sandwich is smacked out of my hand and it goes flying across the kitchen.
 
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?” Charlotte yells, wiping bread crumbs off of her sandwich-smacking hands.
 
“What am I doing? What are you doing? I was going to eat that!” I argue, staring longingly at my sandwich scattered across the floor.
 
I barely ate two bites of my spaghetti at dinner with Marco earlier because my stomach was tied in knots and every forkful of pasta I tried to choke down threatened to come right back up.
 
“You can’t eat lunchmeat, Molly!” Charlotte scolds with a huff. “Everyone knows you can’t eat lunchmeat.”
 
I didn’t know I can’t eat lunchmeat. Since when did this become a rule around here?
 
I really think this pregnancy has made my sister lose her mind completely so I grab another sandwich from the pile and ignore her.