Jack

I shake my fist at the copier, too afraid to curse it out loud in case it hears me and stops working altogether and grab my copies, dropping down on my haunches when I hear the door crash open and the distinctive sound of Kim’s shoes clicking on the wood floors.

“I know you’re here, you maniac! You may as well come out right now and explain yourself. You stuck my fingertip to my clit!” Kim rages, making me suck in my lips to stifle a giggle.

I shouldn’t laugh because it isn’t funny. Really it isn’t, but in my defense when I snuck into Kim’s place last night with Bay silently crawling behind me–I needed her lock picking skills, so I traded her help for never ever breathing a word of this to Kim–well, I was still in a horrible mood and the tequila…

Okay, well, I wasn’t even tipsy, but I need something to blame for what I did. Even I know it was over the top but in my defense, for real this time, I only used mild adhesive instead of the concrete Bay suggested.

It’s not like I didn’t know that it wouldn’t dissolve with some water and a little acetone! And she deserves it! I’m walking around with my eyebrow penciled on for at least the next three weeks until I get some new growth.

I crawl forward slowly, cringing when my heels scrape against the floor and almost come out of my skin when a pair of canary yellow heels plant in front of me.

Don’t look up, my mind yells, run.

I look up, I blame my genes for making me suicidal, and my gaze meets a pair of blazing green eyes that are just like mine, only meaner.

“That was low!”

“You waxed off my eyebrow!” I yell, jumping to my feet to take a step back when she scowls and reaches for me.

“It was an accident, Jack,” she rages, her face screwing up when she steps too fast and bends at the waist, grabbing her vagina. “They had to use burn cream on my vagina. That glue took some skin.”

Oh God. Ouchie.

“Yeah? You wanna take another look at my face?” I scream, pointing to the purpling bruise above my eyeball where the blood pooled under the skin from trauma. “That’s just mean, and I know you did it on purpose because I heard you on the phone with mama this morning and you’re just scared I have a crush on Cord Dixon.”

“Because you do, Jack,” she yells back, hobble marching after me when I stomp to my office, tossing the papers down to my desk and falling into my chair.

“So?”

“So, you are planning the guy’s wedding, Jacobie! It’s not like this crush is going anywhere and you can’t sleep with him. I know you’ll sleep with him if he so much as flashes his nuts at you,” she accuses.

I blush because it’s probably true, not that I want to sleep with a guy who’s intended to another woman but I so have an angry crush on Cord, and I want him bad. Bad.

“That’s beside the point! And how did you even know this since he only spoke to me last night?”

She flushes, her face clashing with her hair and chews on her lip.

“Mama told me last night. She called just after I left work and started raging about daddy making a deal with him and how she wasn’t too happy about it if it meant you seeing him again and…I was just trying to help.”

“By mutilating me?” I ask, accepting the coffee Bay hands me before sitting in one of the three seats in front of my desk.

“Oh, get over it, your eyebrow will grow back. It doesn’t even look that bad,” she says, biting her lips.

“Kimberly, I had to cut some of my hair off this morning, stick it to double-sided tape and use that dissolvable glue to keep it stuck to my face. It looks like parts of me have gone werewolf,” I mumble, self-consciously covering my patch job.

Dee struggles not to laugh but I know she finds it funny and Bay just watches me, her eyes twinkling when the brow in question chooses that moment to come unstuck and flop into my eye, dangling like a dead animal.

Ironically it’s Kim who jumps up when I start bawling and coos while she re-sticks it, slapping my face a little hard when she’s done–her idea of comfort.

“Fine, I won’t kill you or cut your brake lines but only this one time!” she says, cutting me some slack as I hiccup and sniff loudly.

“Thanks,” I mumble, my eye watering when I think about how this all started and the events that occurred last night.

Cord, my Cord who I hate and adore all at the same time, is getting married to some nameless, faceless piece of something or other and now I won’t ever get to have little grey and blue-eyed babies.

It’s so dumb, I know it is but I’ve kinda always had this strange fantasy that one day he’ll want me and I’ll stop despising him, and our private parts will merge to create a whole family of babies my mom can torture like she did us girls.

Nowhere, nowhere in that fantasy have I ever mentioned marriage, take note. Frankly, the thought of ever walking down the aisle makes me want to go into a catatonic state and foam at the mouth.

It’s a phobia with me now. Sure, I can watch other suckers do it just fine because it’s not me taking that walk and risking the possibility of having the groom reject me.

But still, me…no fucking way. Not ever. Ever! I’d die first, but I can be an unwed mother and have my mama calling me a whore if only to live in monogamous unwedded bliss with a man like Cord.

Now that won’t ever happen, and it hurts. Even if it is unrealistic. Don’t you judge me, I bet you probably have some horrible fantasy about marrying Leo Di Caprio and having his strangely attractive babies. My fantasies at least are not crazy.

Anymore. Look I’ve been the Di Caprio route too, but you know what I’m saying. Truce?

“You shouldn’t take this wedding, Jack. Let’s all be honest here, you’ve had a huge crush on Cord Nixon since you were in middle school. Yeah, you might think you hate him, but really that’s just your black heart trying to fool you because he embarrassed you,” Dee says softly.

“And Ky?” I taunt, making her blush and curl her lip.

“You leave him out of this! I don’t even like him,” she mumbles, making Kim snort.

“Oh yeah? So, I guess it’s just a coincidence that you keep making his mom all those peanut butter squares every Sunday?”

She blushes, giving us all the finger and sinks down in her seat defensively.

“She’s nice and besides, I know I can’t go there because he still has a girlfriend and I’m seeing Zac.”

I shudder along with Kim and Bay because the one thing we never do, it’s a Brady by-law, is date the law. Never. We don’t mix with the fuzz, but Dee’s taken it in her fool head that having him in the family will give us an advantage.

You know for that one day when the cops actually figure out my Uncle Jimbo has a whole network of stills around the county and sells enough to have his bank account sitting well within a five-figure amount.

To most business tycoons that’s chump change but consider that my Uncle Jimbo and Aunt Luanne have seven kids and live in three mashed up and converted trailers…that’s a lot of bank.

“I hate that guy! He’s always threatening to arrest me,” Bay mumbles, her face dead as a corpse’s.

“Bay, honey, you keep spray painting the words roast in hell on old Mrs. Gantry’s headstone,” I point out, shuddering because she goes to the cemetery at least once a week to renew her efforts when the Gantry clan clean it up.

“Because I mean it. I hope she roasts in hell along with that dog she always set on me when I was a kid.”

I nod, along with Dee and Kim because Bay still has a scar on her upper thigh where that dog got her one day when she was sneaking over Mrs. Gantry’s wall to steal peaches for mama’s cobbler.

Yeah, she deserves it as does that dog that mysteriously died–we take no blame until proof is provided.

“I like him. And he is crazy good in bed,” Dee says as if that even matters.

I’d rather proposition a rabid raccoon than risk mama’s wrath by making eyes with a cop, something Dee doesn’t seem to mind because, as she puts it, her and mama needed a break anyways.

Long story that involves mama, Dee and an old family recipe that mama won’t give up.

“Fine, screw the cop, and I mean that in many ways, but at least don’t sit there and lecture me about having a crush when you know for a fact you like Ky Hollis,” I say, flicking through some orders on my desk distractedly.

“I don’t like him, I think he’s sexy with all that blond hair. But that’s it! He’s not my type. You know I don’t do jocks,” she grumbles, her veto on the sporty type having lived a long life since her days in high school when she got her ass kicked by the cheer squad for baking Ky cookies.

Of course, it was a different story when it wasn’t six to one, and me and my sisters made sure those loose-limbed freaks couldn’t walk straight, never mind flip their scarily thin asses that Friday night at the football game.

If I remember correctly, that was Kim’s ass phase and by that I mean she had this weird habit of carrying around a sharpie that she liked to make them feel. Brutally. Lissy Michaels walked wrong for an entire week, and I’d put money she will never be into anal.

“Girl, jocks are hot. I slept with that baseball player from Mississippi; you know the one with the solid eyebrow. He had him some anger, girl. It was wild,” Kim says, smiling angelically because that’s the face she uses when she knows she’s done wrong.

I shiver, making a promise never to date a baseball player if that freak recommends them, and sit back with a grumble.

“He’s just so hot, and I hate him so much that it makes him irresistible,” I whine, knowing myself and being honest, even if it sucks.

Jack, don’t go there!

That’s what my head says but my girl parts, they’re traitors who want me to just throw caution to the wind and–

Wait a minute! The man is getting married! Married. As in he’s in love and he’s going to marry someone else. What the hell am I thinking, worrying about how I’m going to resist him when the facts are, I won’t have to.

“Besides, guys, come on, the man is engaged and he’s planning his wedding. This is my trial run. When it’s over, I’ll possibly get us a big contract, and he’ll be on his honeymoon sleeping with his wife,” I say, following Bay’s lead and dropping all expression.

It’s a lot harder than it seems so I give props to her for her work ethic, it’s brutal.

Bay just stares at me while the other two roll their eyes and get to their feet, giving me pointed looks.

“That man has always wanted you, and you better pray that woman he’s with is Angelina Jolie or he’s getting in that pu–”

“Shut up, Kim!” I yell, making a face when she smirks and crawls out, throwing me the finger over her shoulder.

Dee follows and I almost have a heart attack when I glance over to see Bay staring at me silently. Swear to God I should be used to this by now. Creepy baggage.

“He used to watch you all the time when we were younger, like he was dying to be near you. If he’s getting married, Jack, you gotta stay away or he’ll do something the both of you will regret,” she says, rising to give me one of her very rare smiles.

No seriously, it was her gift to mama one year for Christmas, and the poor woman was so overcome she couldn’t stop crying for half the day.

“I love you too, Bay. Now go order the flowers for this damn four-day wedding or I’m not going to need to watch out for Cord Nixon because I’ll be in coveralls with a cellmate named T-Bone.”

She leaves as silently as I have come to expect for Bay and I sit alone, just staring at my computer screen hoping to hell I can do this without jumping Cord like a cowgirl and riding him even harder.

The problem with this whole situation is me. I’ve had a thing for a man who I both adored and hated at one time in my life, no easy feat for a chick who in all the Brady clan chose not to be the angry one.

Sure I give people shit and I tease, but on the whole, I’m the good one. I do what I have to do, love my family, keep the peace when it’s necessary like now with mama and Dee who are at each other’s throats or ignoring each other.

I’m the go-between.

With Kim and daddy who love to argue, daddy lecturing and Kim getting lippy, I keep them in line and make sure they don’t stop speaking for weeks on end.

Bay doesn’t count because she just generally sticks to her own shit and doesn’t bother to get involved if she can help it. Unless it’s fun, like last night.

I’ve never really been one of the out of control Brady’s because for a long time it was about school and getting good grades before I realized that what I really wanted was…

I don’t even know anymore, but I bet if I’d skipped college–locally of course because my daddy near died when I said I wanted to go as far as New York–I’d still be right where I am now.

Doing a job I love in a home that I love with people that I love. And yet I’m…lonely. My sisters would rip me a new asshole if I ever said anything that pitiful, but it’s the truth.

I’ve thought a lot in the last few months since my disaster of a wedding, and I don’t think I was heartless enough to say I didn’t love Felix. I never would have agreed to marry him if I didn’t.

I mean, I get when women are hurt and they say things like they never loved the man, or they wanted to or whatever. Sometimes it’s true and it’s more about getting something out of nothing.

But for me, I did love Felix. Maybe it wasn’t all about passion and emotion, I’ll concede that point because it’s clear that a lot of it was about companionship and building the family I want.

More than anything I think I wanted to be in love and so it was easy for me to love. I get that maybe I wasn’t in love, not all the way or it would have hurt me a lot more.

Instead of crying on the couch for a week, I’d have been inconsolable, so I admit that for me, love with Felix was…warm at best. But it was love and now…I’m lonely.

He was a companion, a warm body to cuddle up to at night and contrary to what you may think, Felix is hot. I would never just fall for a guy I didn’t absolutely want to rip the clothes off. He’s got this light brown hair, hazel green eyes, and a nice body. The man takes care of himself.

I miss…not being alone all the time because that is exactly how I feel lately. I work, go to visit mama and daddy, go home. Sometimes I’ll go and sit at the drive-in and eat in my car while the sun is setting just so I’m not all alone, but mostly it’s just me, Gnome my little Pomeranian, and the TV.

Which is fine, for now, but eventually I want to go out, meet someone and have sex again.

Not for keeps or anything like that; I am so done with wanting a relationship. Just some good flirting, some anonymous, I won’t ever see you again, sex.

I can’t have that kind of sex with Cord Nixon. There isn’t anything anonymous about that man but hell, a girl can dream, right?