by H. T. Night
“Shut up. There are six muscles prominently on display. Just because this body makes you feel all tingly inside is no reason to hate on the love machine that is right before your eyes.”
“Definitely no hating here. Look, what do you want me to say? That you have a perfectly chiseled body which makes the other guys jealous? Maybe you would like it if I would drop to my knees and bow before your optimum body and ask you to please, please make a workout video that will give me abs like yours.”
“Look, Josiah, if you want to drop to your knees and show me your gratitude and your fealty, that’s on you. Just watch the teeth this time.”
“Okay, now I just threw up a little in my mouth.”
Tommy put down his weights and walked over to me. He placed his hand on my stomach. “You’re getting too skinny, Josiah. We need to start pumping iron again. Just because you’re some bad-ass vampire who is able to do a thousand things, which no other immortal can do, doesn’t mean you’re going to be naturally ripped. Take it from ‘Big Daddy,’ you need to work to look as solid as me.”
“Big Daddy? Is that what we’re calling ourselves these days?”
“I need my name to fit my stature.”
“What? You’re a middle-aged graying father who is about to have a mid-life crisis?”
“Silly rabbit, I’m talking about how the ladies refer to this mass of love flesh that is standing before you.”
“Does every day have to be this way? Where we spend an hour talking about your ripped muscles before we can move along to the topic that actually needs discussion?”
“I’m my favorite subject.”
“Of course you are. Look, do you want to go to the mall with me?”
“The mall? During Christmas time? Are you high? It’s six o’clock on a Friday night, a week before Christmas. It will be a zoo out there.”
“Shut the hell up, get dressed and meet me at my truck in ten minutes,” I said, ignoring Tommy, even though he was making sense for once. “We are going to the freaking mall whether you like it or not!”
“I love it when you take control, Josiah. It’s really hot. Will there be a Sbarros Pizza on our date?”
“Arrgh,” I growled and I left his room to get ready to go.
Tommy eventually made his way downstairs and we made our way to the mall. The mall out here is called The Mall of Victor Valley. It has a crapload of stores and was busy as hell even when it wasn’t Christmas. We were about a minute away from pulling into the mall parking lot when I needed to change lanes to get over to the right. I turned my blinker on to signal that I was moving over. There was a giant blue truck that wouldn’t let me in the lane. I honked and the jerk sped up instead of letting me in. The guy behind the giant blue truck let me in and I was now behind the asshole. This truck was the biggest thing I had ever seen on a street. I couldn’t imagine this truck being street legal.
“What an asshole!” I said to Tommy.
“You’re telling me. Look at his ridiculously-sized truck. You know, any man that would make such a public display of mechanical girth obviously has a small dong.”
“You have a lot of experience with small dongs?” I asked jokingly.
“I’m being serious,” Tommy continued ignoring my comment. “Check the guy out. There is no reason, on God’s green earth, to ever have a personal vehicle that big. It serves no purpose other than having people say to you, ‘Damn, that’s a big fucking thing you have there.’ The only guys who would need that kind of validation are men who never hear a phrase like that.”
I laughed. Tommy had a point. “So, you’re saying this dickhead has such a small pecker, that he went out and bought this grotesque-looking vehicle, just to hear the phrase, ‘Damn, that’s huge?’”
“Is there any other reason? Think of the gas alone. That guy probably gets seven miles per gallon.” Tommy then reached over and started honking at the guy by pressing my horn. Then he reached over my steering wheel and started flashing my ‘brights’ on him. I had a decent-size truck, but it was nothing in comparison to this beast that was in front of me.
“Tommy, stop it. You’re going to piss him off, and the last thing I want to do is get into it with a guy on the way to go crib shopping for my family.”
“Crib shopping? I thought you were going ring shopping for Lena. Talk about putting the cart before the horse.”
“Aw, shuddup,” I said good-naturedly. I guess it was obvious to Tommy that Lena had her panties in a twist about having a baby out of wedlock. Two babies.
At the light, the giant blue truck turned right into the mall parking lot. I didn’t trust Tommy’s antics. So, I decided to whip around the truck and move on with the situation. As I whipped around the truck, there was a stop sign on the other side of him. So, I was right next to his vehicle. I was on his left side which meant Tommy was right next to the guy. I knew that was not going to be good.
As predictable as my best friend could ever be, he rolled down his window and motioned to the guy. “Roll down your window!” Tommy yelled out the window.
“Tommy, freaking stop it,” I said, sounding just like my father.
The guy rolled down his window and said the worst thing he could possibly say to a guy like Tommy who was itching for some drama. “What the fuck do you want, dirtbag? Nice puny truck. Why don’t you go fuck yourself?”
Tommy looked at me and said, “Oh, hell no!” Tommy hopped out of the car and yelled, “Listen, two-inch wonder! You don’t own the road! If someone has his blinker on? You don’t speed up to cut him off!”
“I don’t, huh!” the guy yelled out. “Who the fuck are you to do something about it?”
“Why don’t you get out of the car and I’ll show you who I am!”
“Tommy, stop it! Get back in the truck,” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “This guy isn’t worth it.”
I was too late with the comment. The guy had opened his door and was now standing in front of Tommy. It didn’t get any better for the guy because he towered over Tommy. He was about 6’4” and weighed around 300 pounds. He fully expected Tommy to back off once he saw how enormous he was. No dice. Tommy ate guys like him for lunch.
“Get in the fucking vehicle, Tommy,” I yelled. “I’ll take care of this.”
I jumped out of my truck on my side. Now we were holding up traffic. “Look, man,” I said. “No harm, no foul. I’ll make it real easy for you to walk away. You cut me off and I am a polite driver, so it’s no big deal. I’m going to give you a chance to be able to walk away from this situation in one piece. I know that sounds absurd because we are both half your size, but trust me on this one. This would not end well for you.”
The guy stared down at me and was shocked at my boldness. “You’re obviously joking, blue eyes.”
“He thinks you’re joking, Josiah. Let’s show him how we like to joke,” Tommy laughed.
“Tommy, get in the truck!” I turned the guys and said, “Look, we’re holding up traffic. If you want to continue this, we can pull into the Carl’s Jr. parking lot and we can take care of business without stopping traffic, which is a crime. People want to get home from work and eat dinner. Let’s not hold up their fun.”
The guy stared at me and my confidence was throwing him for a loop. He had no idea why a guy half his size would be so sure of himself.
“All right, blue eyes, I’ll meet you over at Carl’s Jr.”
The guy jumped back in his truck and screeched to the exit.
I sat back in my truck and looked at Tommy. “All right, let’s go get the cribs.”
“Are you kidding, Josiah? We’re not going to show that guy he can’t act like that?”
“Seriously, can we have one time where we aren’t saving the world from fuck-ups in society? Let’s let this guy go. He is so not worth it. And you picked a fight over almost nothing.”
“Wow, Josiah, never thought I’d see you back down.”
“It’s not backing down. I’m prioritizing my choices. I would muc
h rather buy cribs for my kids than bash some fat ass guy’s head in. If I don’t go home with cribs tonight, my children might have to sleep in a cardboard box with a blanket in it.”
“You’re an idiot if you don’t also go in a jewelry store and bring Lena home a set of rings and get on your knees to her. What’s wrong with you, Josiah?” And Tommy made some chicken clucking noises.
“Hey, I’m not chicken and we were talking about the guy who cut me off in traffic, not Lena’s naked ring finger. Think about all we’ve been through and tell me if some redneck in an oversized truck is worth getting into a fight over because he cut me off?”
Tommy calmed down for a second and then smiled. “You know, five years ago I would have let that go?”
“Five years ago, you would have killed him.”
“Yeah, you’re right. But you’re gonna be a father any day now.”
“God, Tommy. I am. What the hell am I going to do with twins? I’ve never changed a diaper in my life!”
“I think you’ll have plenty of chances to do that, bro,” Tommy said drily.
Chapter Six
Tommy and I found a parking spot that was about a mile from the mall, and walked back, so I wouldn’t have to deal with big blue-trucked douche bag in the parking lot. I had shit to do before the stores closed.
We ended up at a baby store in the mall. They had a giant sale on cribs but I was pretty sure they always had a giant sale on cribs. I’m not sure what I would have done, in terms of money, if it wasn’t for Hector’s generosity. The guy literally gave each of us an allowance each month. He even gave us a bonus this month because it was Christmas. Ha, vampires celebrating Christmas. Who would have thought it? I had never asked Hector, ever, to give me a dime. But each month, I had about $10,000 dropped into my bank account. He even had been helping Tommy out since the ordeal in Mexico. Tommy proved his loyalty to the group after what he endured in Mexico.
Hector had had a girlfriend a while back, but they broke up around Halloween. Since then, he and Wyatt had made up for lost bro time. The two of them were always together. I used to think they were gay. I later realized that they just have each other, best friends—like Tommy and me. No one else understood either one of them, but somehow, they understood each other.
So, here I was with Tommy in the mall, each carrying a very heavy box. “Have mercy, Tommy. On the box. it says this crib is a two-man lift.”
“Hey, I am carrying a two-man-lift crib, too, ya pussy,” Tommy quipped.
“Ah, thank you, bro. My back isn’t killing me, now that I know you have to carry one, too.” Tommy and I had a history that rivaled epic twosomes. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid had nothing on us. We were brothers to the core.
“Pizza, dude,” Tommy hinted. “Before Sbarro closes.”
We dragged our cribs and bags of baby blankets and stuff to Sbarro and I watched Tommy wolf down a large pepperoni pizza in about five minutes, while I ordered two slices of Hawaiian pizza, a la carte, and ate them at a normal pace. We washed them down with large Cokes and Tommy’s belch was the signal that we were done eating.
“Onward,” I said to him. As we made our way to the front of the mall, each carrying a hefty crib in a box, I saw a jewelry store and stopped in front of it. “Hey, Tommy, hold on. I need to go in there.”
“A jewelry store?”
“It’s for Lena.”
“No shit, Sherlock! What have I been saying to you tonight? But then again we could get matching BFF bracelets made out of gold.”
“Shuddup!” I said and grinned at him.
And then, Tommy was egging me on. “It’s the right thing to do, Josiah. Screw what is done or not done in Mani society. You love her. She loves you. Kids are coming. And she’s a girl with serious emotional needs. If you don’t marry her, she’s gonna nag you and whine for years about how you wouldn’t marry her when she was pregnant. Your kids will know it when they are old enough. And they will think you were a shithead for not marrying her after you knocked her up and put those two buns in the oven. Man up, sucka!”
“You’re making sense, Tommy. Don’t make me say just what a standup guy you are and how politely you talk about Lena.”
“Damn straight I am standup, bro. And... you are the Chosen One and you can set a precedent for all of us. If anyone says boo to you about marrying Lena, I have your back. You know this.”
I nodded. “I love you, man. You always have my back.”
Tommy and I set our boxes down at the front of the store. He punched me in the upper arm.
“Ow, what the hell was that for?” I asked.
“For luck. And to remind you that you should always listen to Tommy.”
I rubbed my arm and we walked in the jewelry store. Somewhere in the back, a little bell tinkled to let someone know they had a customer in the store. The shop was dead, considering it was Christmas time.
And, just like a starved bird waiting for a worm, the second we walked in, the lady from behind the counter put down her Cosmo magazine and pounced on us. She was a cute girl, around our age. Early twenties. She hung her boobs over the glass counter at us, wearing a low-cut dress with a diamond necklace that disappeared into her cleavage.
I tore my eyes away from her rack and looked inside the cases and quickly saw why business might not be blooming. I wasn’t into jewelry, but I knew when prices were ridiculous.
“You know, diamonds are a girl’s best friend,” she said as hokey as I ever heard an opening sales line as I ever heard.
“Well, then I’m glad I brought my boyfriend with me,” I said jokingly.
“Hey, diamonds are anyone’s best friend. Whatever floats your boat. I say live and let live.”
“I was kidding. I’m sad to say we are just friends and, I’m buying something for my girlfriend.” I looked down at her name tag: Theresa.
She nodded, waiting.
“So, Theresa,” I said, “I’m actually thinking about a diamond ring for my girlfriend. An engagement ring with a matching wedding ring.”
“Seriously?” Tommy said to me.
“Yes, Tommy, I have a pregnant girlfriend. I’m sorry I can’t return the romantic feelings you have for me.”
“You know what I’m talking about. You’re seriously planning on proposing to Lena?” He was just playing with me now. He knew darn well that I hated shopping so much that I just never go in a store to look. If I go in a store, I buy what I came for.
“Why wouldn’t I? She is carrying my twins.”
“I know she is, but you have never mentioned it to me. That you planned to make an honest woman of her.”
“Funny boy. We just talked about it and you punched me for good luck. Do I need to run everything I do by you?”
“Of course not.” Tommy was quiet. “But, the really big stuff, I would think you would. I didn’t know you were serious when you said you were buying her a ring tonight.”
“Well, sorry I didn’t run this one by you. Lena had a big talk with me this morning about us, and I figured it was time for me to make the plunge. To man up, just like you said. I was thinking about it the whole time she was pregnant and you said it out loud, probably picking up on my Lena vibes.”
“Look, I can’t believe it took you this long to propose.”
“I didn’t. Yet.”
“Oh. I just wish you would have told me. That you were going to really marry her.”
“Look, I wasn’t even sure myself. But yeah, I’m planning on proposing. What do you think?”
“For serious? I think it’s incredible.”
“Good, now can I pick a ring out for my future wife before our kids get here?”
Tommy laughed. “Of course, just don’t get anything too gaudy. Dainty and elegant, like Lena.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
After about an hour of me looking through rings, I finally settled on one that was a beauty. It was a little over $14,000. It was a two-carat Asscher-cut diamond. It was the most gorgeous rin
g in the store. Theresa wrapped it up in a velvet black box.
I felt a bit numb at the experience as I tucked the receipt into my pocket as we left the store. I didn’t know if I felt bad about putting fourteen grand on Hector’s credit card for Lena instead of for our cause or if it was about what I had ahead of me: Married with children.
“You’re awful quiet, bro,” Tommy said.
“Yeah. I am. Asking Lena to marry me is a bit sobering. I have had a lot of responsibility as of late, but marriage and family will be a whole new chapter in that category. My balls are shrinking up thinking of it all, how I will change, and how she will. I don’t even know how to ask her without it sounding like I am doing it just because she is pregnant.”
“Aren’t you?” Tommy challenged me.
I exhaled a hard breath.
“No shame in admitting that to yourself, Josiah. You’ll do fine, bro. And I was just razzing you about marrying her and all that junk about what your kids would say if they found out they were born out of wedlock. I was just talking outta my ass like you know I always do, because I am the world’s biggest bullshitter. I didn’t mean for you to take me seriously and run and buy a ring that same freaking hour.”
“Well, you were right, Tom. About all of it. If there was ever a time to man up, it’s now. Later would just be anticlimactic. And it would hurt Lena if she had to wear me down with whining to get what she wanted. For her heart. For our sons.”
“Yeah,” Tommy said. He looked thoughtful. We stood in front of the mall, each of us with a giant heavy box of crib parts to assemble. “Let’s put these down,” Tommy said, and we each rested our crib boxes on the ground. “I want to say something. I feel like I am losing you as my best friend. You’re going to be married and Lena and your kids are going to be your world. I hardly get enough bro time as it is.”
I shook my head. “Our friendship runs deeper than a wife and kids,” I assured him. “Why don’t you wait here? I’ll run and get the truck. There is no reason to kill ourselves carrying these heavy crib boxes to the truck.”