Chocoholics: Love And Lists Part 14

"Are you making yourself a snack?" he asks with a laugh.

"Shus.h.!.+ Don't move and keep your eyes closed."

Bending down to stare into the fridge, I have a moment of doubt as I stare at the vast emptiness in front of me. How the h.e.l.l am I going to do this? I knew I should have stopped at the store before I came here. Glancing around quickly, I grab the first bottle I see and quickly shut the door. Pulling up on the lid, I squirt the best upside down heart I can manage on my chest.

"Okay, you can open your eyes now," I tell him.

Gavin blinks his eyes open and stares. "Wow. Okay. Still hot. But what is that?" he asks, pointing to the heart.

"It's mustard. And you're going to lick it off me," I tell him with a confident smile.

This was such a better idea when I imagined it with chocolate sauce in my head.

"Mustard ... I'm going to ... yeah. That's hot. That's totally hot. I'm okay with this."

He walks up to me and gulps before lowering his head slower than I've ever seen him move. He scrunches up his face like he's in pain, and I'm starting to get a complex here.

"Is something wrong? I have a heart on my b.o.o.bs that needs to be removed with your tongue," I remind him.

His mouth is hovering a few inches from my b.o.o.bs, and he shakes his head back and forth quickly. "Nope. Nothing wrong. Nothing wrong at all. You are totally hot and I am going to lick this ... mustard off of you. I'm going to do it and it's going to be awesome."

Right now it sounds like he's giving himself a pep talk instead of rea.s.suring me that he's good.

I know it's not chocolate sauce, but come on! Half naked woman standing here! I close my eyes as he starts to move forward again and right when I feel his warm breath on my chest and antic.i.p.ate the feel of his tongue against my skin, I hear a gagging sound. Popping my eyes open, I look down at him.

"Are you gagging right now? Oh my G.o.d, Gavin! You're totally gagging when your mouth is right by my b.o.o.bs!" I shout.

"It's ... not ... your ... b.o.o.bs! I ... love ... your ... b.o.o.bs!" he yells, gagging in between each word as he backs away.

"I cannot believe you're gagging!" I tell him, stomping my foot.

"Oh G.o.d, I'm sorry! I hate ... mustard. Oh Jesus, I thought I could do this but I can't. It's ... mustard ... f.u.c.k ... mustard is ... uuugghh ... mustard."

"WILL YOU STOP SAYING MUSTARD IF IT MAKES YOU SICK?!" I shout, reaching for a towel on the counter and quickly wiping the mustard heart off of my chest.

"Why the h.e.l.l do you have mustard in your fridge if you hate it?" I demand.

"I don't know! I'm a dude. Dudes always have mustard in their fridge!"

"There, is that better?" I ask, tossing the towel into the sink and holding my arms out.

"Yes, much better," he tells me with a sigh as he moves back toward me.

He wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me up against him. Just as soon as our bodies touch, he pushes me away and takes a step back.

"Nope, not better. I can still smell it. Oh Jesus, it's so mustardy!"

His hand is covering his mouth at this point and he's bent over at the waist. In an angry huff, I turn around and march back to the fridge, flinging the door open and grabbing random items. I take the lid off of the first bottle in my a.r.s.enal, whirl around, and start pitching it in his general direction. A-1 sauce rains down on his head and all over the kitchen floor.

His head jerks up as I empty the bottle and then toss it to the side, flipping up the lid on the squeeze-bottle of ketchup tucked under my arm before bringing it up above my head in both hands.

"You wouldn't."

"Oh, I would," I threaten before squeezing hard on the bottle. An arc of ketchup flies out and hits Gavin right in the chest.

He blinks at me in shock and then charges. Squealing, I throw the ketchup bottle to the ground and turn to run, but my foot slides right through a ketchup/A-1 mixture and I slip across the floor, landing right on my a.s.s. Gavin jumps over me and opens the fridge, quickly turning around and dumping a jar of black olives and all the juice on top of my head.

"Eeew, eew, eew! Black olives are disgusting!" I screech.

"Yeah, how do you like it now, b.i.t.c.h!"

I stop screaming and glare up at him.

"Oops, my bad. Please don't kill me," he pleads.

"Gavin, you seriously need to get your mailing address changed. I'm getting tired of bringing over your-"

Uncle Carter stops at the doorway to the kitchen and looks back and forth between the two of us. I quickly pull the chef coat closed and avoid looking at him while I b.u.t.ton it back up.

"Hey, Dad. So, what's new?" Gavin asks casually as he leans against the fridge.

Reaching over, I smack him in the leg and hold my hand out to him with an angry glare. He quickly grabs my hand and pulls me up off of the floor, moving me behind him so I'm not standing in front of his father, half-naked and covered in black olive juice.

"Well, at least you're not naked with Tyler again," Uncle Carter says with a sigh.

Gavin looks at me and whispers. "Don't ask."

Uncle Carter turns and walks out of the kitchen.

"Follow me," he shouts back to us.

Gavin and I stare at each other for a few minutes before he shrugs and grabs my hand, pulling me into the living room behind his dad. We find him sitting on the couch with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped. I'm not going to lie, I'm a little freaked out right now. Uncle Carter is usually never this quiet. Is he going to yell at us? Be disappointed that we're kind of sort of together and haven't told the family?

"I was really afraid of this happening," Uncle Carter finally says with a sigh as we stand in front of him with our heads bowed like two kids at the princ.i.p.al's office.

Oh my G.o.d, here it comes. He's going to tell us what a bad idea it is for us to be together. He knows Gavin doesn't love me and that it's only going to end in disaster.

Uncle Carter raises his head and looks back and forth between the two of us. "Be honest with me here. How long has this been going on?"

My heart is racing a mile a minute and I kind of want to cry. I can't believe this is happening.

"Um, like a week? Or something," Gavin mumbles.

"A week. Okay. Okay, we can fix this. That's not enough for any long-term damage," Uncle Carter says rea.s.suringly.

Except I am NOT rea.s.sured. I am not rea.s.sured at all. What kind of long-term damage is he talking about? It's official. I'm going to have to marry my fake, gay boyfriend and spend the rest of my life never having awesome s.e.x with the man I love ever again.

"I don't think we'll need hypnosis. Maybe just some mind-altering drugs. I wonder if acid would work. I've never done acid. It should be perfectly safe in small doses," Uncle Carter tells us.

"Dad, what the f.u.c.k are you talking about? I love Charlotte. We're not taking acid and nothing needs to be fixed," Gavin argues.

Wait, what the f.u.c.k?!

"I know you love her. Love has nothing to do with this," Uncle Carter complains.

I say again, THE f.u.c.k?!

"Love has everything to do with it!" Gavin shouts.

"Gavin, I don't think you understand the seriousness of this situation. Look at the two of you. You're so young. It's not a path you want to go down."

"Dad, are you high right now? Seriously. Has Tyler been to your house? Did you eat any little pieces of chocolate he might have left behind?" Gavin demands.

"Gavin, listen to me. Whatever Uncle Drew and Aunt Jenny have taught you, there's still time for you to unlearn it. There's still hope for both of you to live normal, happy lives," Uncle Carter pleads.

"Dad, you are talking out of your a.s.s right now. We are already living normal, happy lives." Gavin wraps his arm around my shoulder and pulls me in close to him. A black olive covered in ketchup drops out of my hair and lands on the ground by my feet with a splat.

Uncle Carter looks back and forth at us. "But you're covered in food. First it's food, then it's Skittles and a trip to the emergency room, and the next thing you know, you're out on the streets begging strangers for honey and jumper cables. JUST SAY NO to weird s.e.x, GAVIN!"

Gavin starts to laugh and I probably would too if I wasn't in complete and utter shock at the words that came out of his mouth a few seconds ago.

"Dad, we have not been taking s.e.x lessons from Uncle Drew and Aunt Jenny. Don't worry," Gavin rea.s.sures him.

Uncle Carter gets up from the couch and rushes toward us, wrapping his arms around both of us and squeezing us to him. Just as quickly, he lets go of us and backs away toward the door.

"Well, alrighty then. You two kids have a nice evening."

It's Halloween and my favorite holiday of the year. I should be a little more excited right now, but I'm not. Gavin and I still haven't discussed the bomb he dropped on me last week. Well, I haven't discussed it. I've done everything I can to avoid talking about it, including taking advice from Aunt Jenny.

"If you ever want to distract a guy from talking about something serious, just mention your period. It works every time. When Uncle Drew asks me if his b.u.t.t looks big in a pair of jeans, I just tell him I've got cramps and he runs away screaming."

We've spent almost every day together and it's pretty obvious at this point that I'm not ready to talk about the whole "love" thing.

"So, don't you think we should talk about what happened at my place the other night?" Gavin asked.

"My ovaries feel like their being ripped out of my body right now, and I'm losing so much blood it could kill a horse, and you want to talk?!" I shouted in panic.

"I just ... I think my phone's ringing. At work. I'm going to get in my car and drive to work to answer my phone. The phone. At work," Gavin mumbled before turning and racing out of my house."

It's killing me not telling him I love him. But I have to figure out a way to get rid of my pretend gay boyfriend and still keep him as my friend without Gavin knowing what I've done. Piece of cake.

"Later."

"When later?"

"Just, later, alright?"

"But when? Isn't it time yet?"

"Jesus Christ, Drew, will you stop asking if it's time to go yet? We'll go when the pumpkins are finished being carved," Uncle Carter complains as I walk into Aunt Claire and Uncle Carter's kitchen.

Uncle Drew grumbles and flops down in one of the kitchen chairs.

Every year, we all go to a Halloween Walk in the Woods that the local Metro Park puts on. Uncle Carter always volunteers to carve a few pumpkins for their displays, and each year he tries to one-up the other volunteers on the level of pumpkin carving difficulty. This year, I think he's taken it to a whole new level.

"Sweetie, you should know by now to never tell Drew we're going somewhere. You just throw him in the car when it's time to leave," Aunt Claire reminds him as she comes into the kitchen. "Hey, Charlotte! Cute costume."

I look down at my knee high white socks, black four-inch Mary Jane's, short plaid skirt, and white b.u.t.ton-down tied under my b.o.o.bs, and I have to say, I'm pretty proud of myself. Rocco brought the outfit over earlier and helped me get dressed and even put my hair into pigtails.

"Where's Gavin?" I ask as I take in the scene in front of me. There are pumpkin guts everywhere, and Uncle Carter is so deep in concentration on carving the pumpkin in front of him that he doesn't even notice Uncle Drew has carved an extra piece of pumpkin into the shape of a p.e.n.i.s and is currently pinning it to the back of Uncle Carter's pumpkin.

"Jenny's with him in the bathroom helping him finish up his costume. Oh my G.o.d, Carter. Who's going to get the pumpkin guts off of the ceiling?" Aunt Claire asks as she stares above the table.

"Don't worry, I'll sc.r.a.pe them off. It's my fault. The electric drill had a mind of its own," Uncle Carter replies as he starts gathering up all of the newspapers from the table with piles of guts on them.

"Is there any particular reason why you thought power tools were necessary when carving pumpkins? Our kitchen looks like Home Depot covered in s.h.i.+t right now," Aunt Claire complains as she looks around the room and sees a drill, a sander, an electric nail gun, a circular saw, and a soldering iron, along with enough extension cords to plug something in all the way to China. "Oh my G.o.d, there's pumpkin on the curtains."

"What's up, b.i.t.c.hes and hos?!" Tyler shouts as he walks into the kitchen with a five-year-old little boy in tow.

"Yay, Tyler's here," Uncle Carter deadpans.

"Who's the kid?" Uncle Drew nods in the little boy's direction.

"This is my little cousin, Josh. Josh, say hi to everyone," Tyler tells him.

"This is stupid. I hate costumes," Josh complains as he tugs on the neck of his Batman cape.

"Tyler, your cousin's a d.i.c.k, dude," Uncle Drew replies.

"I know. But my aunt and uncle are out of town and I got stuck babysitting him so-OWWW! SON OF A b.i.t.c.h!" Tyler screams as Josh kicks him in the s.h.i.+n.

"You're a d.i.c.k," Josh tells him.

"Never mind," Uncle Drew says. "Your cousin is awesome."

Gavin walks into the kitchen then and we both stare at each other with wide eyes. Word hasn't seemed to have spread through the family yet that we're sort of together so for right now, we decided to just try and act normal when we're with everyone. That's going to be impossible with the costume he's wearing right now and the way he's staring at mine.

"Is everyone ready to go? We should probably leave soon so we can get a good parking s.p.a.ce," Gavin finally says, tearing his gaze away from me.

"Dude, what the f.u.c.k are you wearing?" Uncle Drew asks, getting up from his chair and walking over to Gavin.

"What?" Gavin asks in confusion, looking down at his costume and then back up at Uncle Drew.

"Seriously, that's what you're wearing? That's embarra.s.sing."

"What's wrong with what he's wearing? He's a cowboy and I think he looks very handsome," Aunt Claire replies.

"He looks like that h.o.m.o from Brokeback Mountain. I JUST CAN'T QUIT YOU! That movie was like ten years ago, Muppet f.u.c.ker," Uncle Drew says with disappointment.