“I hope you don’t mind, but I took the liberty of making you a postpartum emergency kit.” She walks past me and sets the brown paper bag down on the counter.

I smile at my best friend, suddenly feeling inadequate. When she gave birth to triplets all I brought her was a casserole and a jumbo box of diapers. I'm still a handful of weeks away from my due date, and this broad has come bearing gifts every time she's visited. Tara is spoiling me rotten. Or maybe I'm just a shitty friend? I'll just chalk it up to being childless and clueless. Tara’s a pro at this momming stuff, so I'll listen to everything she tells me. Well, almost everything she tells me.

“That’s really sweet of you, T! You didn’t need to do that.” I don't bother fighting my smile.

“Stop that. Of course I did. Lord knows your mother is probably worthless with the real stuff. And as your very bestest friend in the whole universe, it is my moral obligation to make sure you are more than prepared for all the shit that’s about to throw down down there.” She waggles her eyebrows and shoots a look down toward my nether regions.

“Okay, I thought I was prepared after the baby shower. What else could I possibly need, oh wise one? Lay it on me.” I hoist my ass and my belly up onto a bar stool at the island and hold onto the edge of the counter to keep from tipping over. The last thing anyone needs is for Humpty Dumpty to have a great fall right now.

“For starters this.” She tosses me a bottle of dry shampoo. “You’ll be lucky if you’re able to shower. And for the days that you don’t, dry shampoo will help. But when you do get ninety-four seconds of peace and quiet to jump in super fast, don’t make the water too hot. You’ll start spraying yourself.”

Spraying myself? What the …?

She must catch the look of confusion on my face. “Your boobs. You’ll start spraying all over the place like one of those wacky kid’s water toys that look like an octopus and shoots water thirty different directions. And that shit is liquid gold. Don’t make the water too hot because you don't want to waste it down the drain.”

I nod my head firmly, slightly mortified that this is a thing women have to deal with, but admittedly excited that I might be able to put out a small fire using only my boobs. “No hot water. Got it.”

“And no matter what Jeff says, him tasting your breast milk isn’t kinky. It’s disgusting. If you’re going to be doing any fifty shades shit, make it the fun kind of kink. Trust me—Cam learned the hard way.”

I cringe, willing her sage advice to my long-term memory and trying to erase the thought of Cam indulging in a cocktail courtesy of my best friend’s boobs.

“Okay, next we have seasons one through ten of Friends on DVD. All that baby is going to do is sleep the first six weeks. You’ll be bored out of your gourd because you’re not supposed to wake a sleeping baby and all those other clichés about motherhood. But you will quickly learn that non-baby responsibilities are overrated, and you can milk visiting family into doing all that crap like laundry and dishes for you, at least the first couple of weeks. And selfishly, I need you to have a refresher course in all things Friends because once your ass can drink again, we’re going to dominate the Friends trivia night down at our old watering hole. So these are on loan. I want them back. Don’t even think about keeping them, woman.”

I smile. She knows me too well. But I really want her to rewind and explain a little bit more on how I can convince family members into becoming my short-term personal maid.

“And when you don’t feel like watching television, you can always read.”

She pulls out a stack of books. I recognize a few from our defunct book club where we never actually read the books, but instead drank wine and gossiped. As I scan the titles, I see a couple of light romances by some indie authors, but the vast majority are erotica. And if there’s anything I don’t read, it’s erotica. It’s not that I’m stuck up or anything. I just can’t get through the absurd alpha dirty talk and impossible sex positions without turning cherry red and choking on fits of laughter. Seriously. How many times have you ever had an explosive orgasm at the exact same time as your billionaire boyfriend?

That's what I thought.

“I know these aren’t all your cup of tea, but don’t judge. You’re going to be starved and sexless for weeks—maybe even months! And I can promise that while you will have zero interest in riding the train to pound town in the beginning, reading about it will suffice and at least give you sexy thoughts during this inevitable drought.”

“Fine,” I lie. “I’ll give the books a chance. But I can’t promise I’ll actually enjoy them.” Yeah. Sooooo not reading them.

“I bet if you asked Jeff to do a dramatic reading of this one, not only would you get all hot and bothered, you might actually enjoy it.” She places a sleek, black paperback in my hands. On the cover is a white flower where the petals are turning to liquid at the tips. It's gorgeous. “Careful, bitch. That one’s signed.”

I nod, perusing the back cover before placing it down on the coffee table. I think she's right. I just might enjoy this one.

“And finally, I brought everything you need for twatsicles.”

I choke on her words. “Excuse me?” I ask once the coughing finally subsides.

“Twatsicles. Surely I told you about the world’s greatest postpartum secret, didn’t I?”

“Um, you’ve told me about a lot of things over the past few months, but twatsicles wasn’t one of them. Trust me, with a name like that I would have remembered.”

She reaches into another shopping bag and pulls out an economy size package of ultra super thick supreme absorbency “these suckers could stop a flash flood” maxi pads and a bottle of store brand witch hazel. Tara rummages through my kitchen drawer and pulls out a measuring cup. She tears open the package of maxi pads that could probably double as a diaper for this baby in a pinch and opens one up on the counter. Next, she carefully measures out a half cup of witch hazel and pours it over the maxi pad.

I blink at her wordlessly. “Usually in the commercials, the liquid in these experiments is blue. Just saying.”

“Yeah, I never understood that.” She shrugs nonchalantly. “Either way, this isn’t an experiment. All you do is pop this puppy in the freezer, and when things start throbbing—because things will start throbbing and not in a good way—you just slip this in your panties and have yourself a twatsicle. It’ll soothe everything and surprisingly bring you a lot of relief.”

This girl never ceases to amaze me.

“Sounds cold.” I’m not sure what I was expecting a twatsicle to be, but this surely wasn’t it.

“It is. Don’t mock it till you try it. Your vagina can thank me later.”

I take a mental note to hide this magical maxi pad in the back of the freezer to avoid scarring Jeff for life when he goes to grab ice.

“So, you’re what — two, three weeks from your due date? Is everything all set?”

“Yes, by some miracle, everything is in order. We were finally able to buy our furniture thanks to The Late Night Buzz. All the tiny clothes have been washed and put away, and the house is as clean as it’s going to get. We’re pre-registered at the hospital, so the only thing missing is this kiddo.” Even though Tara is indirectly the reason we were bestowed with the nursery makeover, I still haven’t forgiven her for that stunt she pulled.

“And everything down there? It’s primed and ready to go?” She points her finger in the general vicinity of my nether regions and raises an eyebrow.

“Um, yeah?” I’m almost afraid to ask.

“Good. Because between the blood and fluids already going on, no doctor also wants to be elbow deep in fur.”

Gross. I shake my head at the mental image and shift in my seat. “I’m sure my OB won’t give a damn either way.” I shrug, trying to brush off the subject.

“Oh, come on. It’s common courtesy. You should get a Brazilian blowout before it’s too late. Lord knows you can’t see anything south of the equator even if you wanted to trim and keep things tidy.”

I divert my eyes to the other side of the room trying to remember the last time I even attempted to take care of things. Jeff hasn't complained, and frankly, ignorance is bliss. Besides, I’ve never been one to tolerate the pain of waxing. The one time I had it done back in college, I jumped so I high I grabbed the ceiling tiles as an earsplitting Michael Jackson “Ow!” escaped my lips.

“Based on the disgust drawn all over your face, this is news to you. I’m going to call and make an appointment for tomorrow. We’ll grab lunch, run some errands, and get you some new hardwood floors.”

“That’s okay. You don’t have to do that, Tara. Really.” I know my effort is futile. Once she sets her mind on something, we're all just along the ride.

“Nonsense. And don’t even think about the pain. It’ll pale in comparison to childbirth. Think of it as your pre-birth warm up.”

Oh, God. I completely forgot about the white hot searing pain that comes with hair follicles being yanked from one of the most sensitive spots on the body. It took me months to block the memory of the one and only time I got waxed. There is no way in hell she’s taking me to get waxed again tomorrow. Besides, I’d probably end up peeing all over the table.

“Anyway,” I emphasize, trying to change the subject. Everyone is so keen on talking about my vagina these days, I’ve nearly become immune to it, but I’m still trying to lose the visual she just created for me. “I’ve been so preoccupied with getting everything together for the baby, I don’t think I told you Jeff got a job offer. Two job offers, actually.”

“Really? That’s so awesome. I knew he’d land back on his feet quickly.”

“Well, his newfound fame from that little viral video stunt you pulled came in handy.”

I watch as her jaw drops and the corners of her lips curl up in a subtle, wicked smile. “Shut up. No way.”

“Yeah,” I say, still in disbelief. “Apparently the gal who came across his resume in Human Resources recognized the name from TV and thought he was hilarious. She put him at the top of the candidate pool once she saw his work credentials, and the team loved Jeff during the interview process.”

“What's not to love about Jeff?”

I can think of a few things. Like his inability to put dirty underwear in the basket instead of on the floor next to the hamper, or how he leaves soda cans upside down in the sink rather than toss them out, but I bite my tongue because Lord knows I’m not perfect either. But still, I love him because of his flaws, and in spite of them.

“Absolutely nothing. He’s perfect. He's my lobster.” I beam, referencing one of my favorite lines from Friends.

“The One with the Prom Video,” Tara exclaims triumphantly. “Season two, episode fourteen.”

I cock an eyebrow, unsure if I should be impressed or intimidated.

“Oh, come on. You didn't know that?”

I shake my head.

She puts her fist on her side and cocks her hip with attitude. “On second thought, if we want to have any chance of winning trivia night, I should probably draft you up the season by season CliffNotes for Friends.”