I look over at Ava questioningly, but as soon as our eyes meet, she quickly looks away. I should never have said those things to her. I crossed the line and now she’s never going to speak to me again.
“Honey, calm down, it’s not that big of a deal,” Carter laughs as a cookie bounces off of his nose.
“YOU RUINED CHRISTMAS!” Claire screams.
“Hey, can I get everyone’s attention? I have something important to say,” Gavin says loudly, trying to calm the situation.
Liz gets up from the couch, walks over to Claire and pats her on the back. “The cookies aren’t that bad.”
Claire turns and thrusts the tray into Liz’s face. “Not that bad?! There are bloody frogs in Santa’s bag.”
I can’t help it. A loud laugh bursts out of me, but I quickly cover my mouth when Claire looks at me with rage in her eyes.
Gavin tries again, walking into the middle of the room. “Seriously, can everyone stop talking?”
“Hey, it was your idea to let the three of us finish decorating those cookies. What did you expect?” Drew asks.
“What did I expect? WHAT DID I EXPECT? I certainly didn’t expect you assholes to shit on tradition by writing ‘Merry Kiss My Ass’ on my Christmas cookies!” Claire screeches like a banshee as she lobs a handful of cookies across the room.
Gavin drops to the floor to avoid getting smacked in the face and Drew squeals like a girl when a cookie hits him square in the chest. “Heeeey, don’t break this one! It’s my favorite. Do you know how long I spent making flesh-colored frosting to turn these stockings in to penises?”
Claire lets out a feral scream and prepares to launch herself over the table to attack Drew but is thwarted by Liz, who grabs her firmly around the waist to prevent bloodshed.
“In our defense, Drew brought over some of his special cookies and we may or may not have eaten two dozen of them between us before we started decorating,” Jim explains.
“You three idiots ate pot cookies before you decorated Claire’s Christmas cookies? What is wrong with you?” Liz asks in amazement.
“See? Now you know why I want to kill them,” Claire adds.
Liz lets go of her hold on Claire and crosses her arms in front of her. “Exactly. They had pot cookies and didn’t share with us.”
Claire smacks her in the arm and Liz backpedals. “I mean, you three should be ashamed of yourself for ruining those cookies.”
From his spot on the carpet, Gavin reaches out and picks up one of the fallen cookies. “Does this present cookie say ‘To Gavin, from Chuck Norris?”
Claire and Carter make eye contact over Gavin’s head and they both start laughing.
“Wait a minute. I remember when I was like ten, I got a bunch of presents for Christmas from weird people. Big Bird, Captain Spock, RuPaul and Satan,” Gavin mutters.
This makes Claire and Carter laugh even harder.
“We may or may not have smoked a little pot that year under the Christmas tree while we wrapped your presents,” Claire says in between giggles.
“Seriously, you guys? When I asked about it on Christmas morning you told me the elves were pissed at Santa because he didn’t offer 401k,” Gavin complains. “That’s the year I stopped believing in Santa because you said he didn’t have fair labor laws.”
“We were probably high on Christmas morning, too,” Carter says with a shrug.
Charlotte walks up to Gavin and offers her hand, helping him up from the floor.
“By the way, Claire, if you’re looking for your rabbit vibrator, it’s in the silverware drawer,” Drew tells her casually as he gets up from the floor and drops himself onto the couch.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Claire asks. “Why were you anywhere near my rabbit?”
Drew shrugs and picks up a broken cookie resting on the cushion next to him. “Frosting cookies with a butter knife wasn’t working for me so I went digging through the drawers in your bedroom. On the lowest setting with the beads swirling, the rabbit does a magical job of frosting cookies.”
“I ate four of those cookies already!” Liz shouts, grabbing a napkin from the coffee table and wiping her tongue with it.
Gavin looks over at me and I’m fairly sure he’s about ready to throw up. This is definitely not how he envisioned proposing to Charlotte, but he should have known better with his family.
“Dude, just do it. It can’t possibly get any worse,” I tell him.
Charlotte looks back and forth between us as Claire rushes over to the couch to strangle Drew. “Do it? Do what?”
Gavin takes a deep breath and gets down on his knee. The entire room goes silent and Charlotte’s eyes go wide as Gavin digs into the front pocket of his pants.
He pulls out the ring and holds it up in front of him. “Charlotte, you are my best friend and I love you more than I ever thought possible. I want to spend the rest of my life kissing you goodnight and waking up to you every morning. Will you marry me?”
Charlotte doesn’t miss a beat. She immediately starts jumping up and down screaming. “YES, YES, OH, MY GOD YES!”
She throws herself into Gavin’s arms and everyone starts cheering and clapping as Gavin gets up from the floor.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Put the ring on her finger already!” Claire says excitedly.
Gavin looks down at the ring, up at Charlotte and then back down. “Um, I think I’ll wait.”
Charlotte holds her left hand out for him. “Don’t be silly, put it on!”
Gavin pulls the ring in close to his chest. “No, really, I think you’re going to want to wait to put this on.”
She rolls her eyes at him, holding her palm out. “Give me the ring.”
“No,” Gavin shakes his head.
“Gavin, I want my ring.”
He holds the ring tighter to his chest and continues shaking his head.
Oh, for the love of God.
“Charlotte, Drew shit out that ring about twenty minutes ago. It needs a good bleaching before it comes in contact with your finger,” I tell her.
Gavin gives me a dirty look for spilling his secret and Charlotte’s hand recoils in revulsion.
“Drew, I thought we decided a few years ago that putting jewelry up there was dangerous,” Jenny scolds. “My mother still isn’t happy that I haven’t been able to return that strand of pearls I borrowed.”
Everyone starts talking all at once while Gavin explains about Drew eating the cupcake with the ring inside. Ava has been quiet through this entire debacle and I can’t help but stare at her across the room. She looks sad and I want to go to her, but I don’t want to cause a scene in front of everyone right now. This is a happy moment for my best friend and I’m not going to ruin it by getting into another argument with Ava. I’m sure she just needs to cool off a little and then everything will be fine between us and we can go back to having amazing sex.
“Jenny, why do you have photos taped all over your wall?” Aunt Liz asks.
She wanders over to the wall in Aunt Jenny’s office at Seduction and Snacks that is covered in pictures she took at Christmas.
“That’s my Facebook wall where I post my pictures. See? I tagged you in the pictures you’re in,” she explains, pointing to a picture with a sticky note attached to it that says Liz. “Here, I’m sharing the pictures, too.”
Aunt Jenny grabs a stack of pictures from her desk and starts passing them out to us.
“Jenny, honey, you know that’s not how Facebook works, right?” Aunt Claire asks, looking up from the paperwork on her desk as Aunt Jenny drops a few photos in front of her.
Fed up with the moping I’ve been doing for the last few days, my mom asked me to come in to the original Seduction and Snacks store and help with paperwork instead of going in to the main headquarters. I wanted to protest, but coming here would be better than going in to the office where I might run into Tyler.
“I don’t understand most of Facebook, but this I totally get. I just need to ge
t some addresses so I can mail the pictures I want to share with other people. I’m going to mail them a friend request, too,” Aunt Jenny smiles excitedly.
Pulling my cell phone out of my purse, I check my messages and can’t help but feel like shit when I don’t see any from Tyler. I thought for sure he’d text me apologizing or asking if we could try anal again… something. I haven’t heard from him in three days. Three long days without arguing with him, listening to him say stupid things, feeling his hands on me, kissing him, being annoyed with him… why hasn’t he contacted me?
“Ava, either call the boy and make up or find someone else and move on. Quit pouting and help us file these invoices,” my mom scolds.
I give her a dirty look as I shove my phone back in my purse. “I wasn’t pouting, especially over Tyler. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She laughs and shakes her head at me. “I’m not as stupid as your Aunt Claire looks.”
Aunt Claire gives her the finger. “Shut up or I’ll cut off your dick and make you eat it.”
“Anyway,” mom continues, “even though the guy irritates me the majority of the time and the sounds I’ve heard coming from your bedroom make my ears bleed, I don’t like seeing you so sad over him.”
If only she knew that he isn’t the only reason I’m sad. With a deep breath, I decide to listen to what Tyler said and try talking to her again. She’s got to understand how miserable I am at Seduction and Snacks.
“Drew likes to make horse noises during sex sometimes. I thought it was weird at first but it’s kind of hot now,” Aunt Jenny muses. “Look, I even shared it on my wall.”
She points to a hand-written piece of paper taped to the wall that says ‘My husband likes to whinny like a horse during sex’.
“Can you guys tell me you like it? No one ever likes what I post,” she complains.
We all ignore her and I walk up next to my mom as she unpacks and stocks a delivery of lube. “So, I’ve been thinking about giving my notice at Seduction and Snacks.”
“Hey, Claire, did you ever get a reply back from Channel 5 news about the feature they wanted to do on us?” she yells over to my aunt, completely ignoring me.
“They’re going to come out next Thursday to film some footage. The interview will be on Friday,” Aunt Claire answers.
I try again, a little louder this time. “I don’t want to work at Seduction and Snacks anymore.”
“Fuck, Jenny! Will you stop poking me in the side?” Aunt Claire complains from the other side of the room.
Aunt Jenny huffs and crosses her arms in front of her. “Why the hell do they have poking on Facebook if no one likes it? I poked a customer the other day and she smacked my hand.”
Taking a cue from Aunt Jenny, I shove my finger into my mom’s side until she yelps. “What the fuck, Ava? Don’t tell me I need to explain Facebook to you, too. Jenny, for God’s sake, you’ve given my child the dumb. Stop fucking poking people.”
My mom and Aunt Claire share a laugh and I reach the end of my rope.
“I HATE WORKING AT YOUR FUCKING COMPANY AND I QUIT!”
The room goes silent after my outburst and I take a step away from my mom when she glares at me.
“That fucking company has kept a roof over your head and put you in designer clothes since birth,” she says in a low, menacing voice.
It’s never good when my mom lowers her voice. Never.
“Mom, I didn’t mean-”
She cuts me off. “Without that fucking company, you wouldn’t know the difference between a Coach purse and a pile of shit.”
I continue backing away from her until I bump up against my Aunt Claire. She wraps her arms around me in a comforting hug and leans down to whisper in my ear. “I’ll distract her with a dildo to the face. When she’s down, RUN!”
My mom continues walking until we’re toe-to-toe and I swallow nervously. “Your Aunt Claire and I worked our fucking fingers to the bone to make this company what it is today. People would KILL for the job you have and you want to just throw it away because you’re bored? You should be ashamed of yourself.”
I choke back tears as my mom stares at me in disappointment. I should be ashamed. This is a job opportunity that anyone would be thankful for and I am throwing it all away. I just want her to understand that I’m not throwing my job away because I’m ungrateful or because I’m bored. I’m doing it because I have different dreams. Why the hell is it so hard to say that to her?
“Hey, ease up, Liz. Not everyone is cut out to work at Seduction and Snacks,” Aunt Claire says softly from behind me, giving me a reassuring squeeze on the arm.
“Not everyone should be cut out to work there, but my kids damn well should be! This is my dream, this is what I’ve worked my entire life for and is it so wrong I want my family to benefit from the good fortune we’ve had?” my mom asks her.
Her dream, her dream, her dream… I wish she would listen to herself.
“It’s not wrong, hon. I’m not going to lie about the fact that I love having Gavin here. I love it even more that working here has always been his dream. That’s just it, though. It’s what he’s always wanted to do,” Aunt Claire tells her.
My mom rolls her eyes and turns away from both of us, stalking to the other side of the room to angrily dig into a box of furry handcuffs. “Ava has no idea what she wants to do aside from shop. If she wants to quit, fine, but she better not ever come crying to me about how she made a mistake.”
She won’t even look at me now and she’s talking about me like I’m not standing right here. This went just as well as I imagined.
So much for taking Tyler’s advice.
I shrug out of Aunt Claire’s hold, grab my purse from the desk and leave before anyone can see me cry.
“Hey, Ava, I just posted on my wall that you quit. I already got one ‘like’!” Aunt Jenny shouts as I walk out the door.
“It doesn’t count if you just say you liked it,” Aunt Claire tells her with a sigh.
Screw everyone. I don’t need my mother’s approval and I certainly don’t need Tyler. I’ll be just fine on my own.
I pace back and forth nervously outside of Liz’s office, waiting for her to finish her conference call. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to regret it.
Ava went back home to her parent’s house Christmas night and we haven’t spoken since. As much as I want to be pissed at her for the things she said, I can’t. The more I thought about it, the more I realized she was probably right. I was delusional for thinking my dad could be some famous Brony and that I would be able to pick him out in a room filled with thousands of people. I wanted it to be true so badly that I didn’t even stop to think about how far-fetched it sounds. I’m also in love with her and love makes you do asinine things.
After our fight in her parents’ backyard, we stayed on opposite sides of the room for the rest of the night. We spent the remainder of the evening celebrating the holiday and toasting Gavin and Charlotte on their engagement before I walked out of there without even a wave good-bye from her.
That was a week ago. I was determined to walk away from her and chalk it up to us just not being meant for each other, but I know it’s not true. Regardless of what I said to her, she’s the strongest person I know. She’s sweet and funny when she wants to be and I like being around her. No, fuck that. I love being around her. She gets my crazy fetishes even if she doesn’t want to and she puts up with my childish behavior. I’m not about to let her wallow in her own misery.
“Come on in, Tyler,” Liz shouts from inside the office.
I take a deep breath and walk through the doors, sitting down in one of the chairs on the other side of Liz’s desk.
“If you came in here to demand I tell you where our masturbation room is, I’m going to stop you right there,” she begins.
“Liz, one of these days you’re going to be honest with me. I know this room exists and, as an employee of Seduction an
d Snacks, I think it’s only right that you lead me to heaven.”
She puts her elbows on her desk and her head in her hands.
“Actually, I’m here on a more important matter,” I tell her.
She looks up and her eyes widen. “Wait, you actually want to talk about something other than the masturbation room that may or may not exist?”
I can’t believe I’m doing this. Ava better appreciate this shit because I’m pretty sure I can get Liz to crack.
“I want to talk to you about Ava.”
Liz sighs and leans back in her chair. “Well, good luck with that. I’m not too happy with Ava right now, so you’re on your own with that one.”
Gavin told me that Ava tried to talk to her mom the other day about quitting her job here and it turned into one big clusterfuck. I feel bad that I sort of pushed Ava into doing that and I want to make it right.
“Have you even looked at her blog lately?” I question her.
She picks up a pen and starts tapping it against her desk. “That jenky-looking thing she created on Wordpress with a couple of pictures of her in different outfits? Yes, I’ve seen it,” Liz states sarcastically.
“It’s not jenky anymore. She had Jenny create her a whole new site with graphics and it’s pretty awesome. Did you know she gets more hits on that thing every day than the Seduction and Snacks website? I checked.”
Liz stops tapping her pen and stares at me.
“She also has a shit ton of sponsors paying her for ads now. She’s making more money on that blog than she makes here. This is what she’s always wanted to do. Can you understand that?” I ask.
I hold my breath, waiting for her to vault over her desk and choke me out. Liz scares me just a little bit, but I need to keep going and say everything I came in here to say.
“Ava is smart and amazing and this blog she’s doing, it’s not just a hobby. It’s something she really cares about and loves. She’s been working her ass off on this blog. It’s real for her. This is what she wants to do with the rest of her life. She loves shoes and clothes and all that other girly shit. Seduction and Snacks isn’t her dream, it’s yours. Her dream is to talk about all that girly shit and she’s turned it into a good paying reality. She needs you to understand and to give her your approval. I’m sure not everyone was on-board with the whole sex-toy shop slash bakery when you and Claire dreamed it up. How would you feel if the most important person in your life belittled your dream?”