Death by shopping cart suffocation, in case you were wondering.

The doorbell rang and I hurried to answer it. I wiped my hands on the front of my jeans, smoothed my hair and bent forward to reach my hand down the front of my shirt and tug each of the girls up so their prime real estate was on full display. I stood back up, took a deep breath and flung the door open. My heart actually skipped a beat when I saw Carter standing there.

"You know there are windows on either side of your door right? And that your curtains are see-through?" Carter said with a smirk.

Why? WHY, for the love of God!

"I would give you my entire paycheck for a month if you bent over in front of me and fluffed your boobs again," he said as he stepped through the door, and I closed it behind him.

I closed my eyes, fully prepared to be mortified and not make eye contact, but before I could wish for a giant hole in the floor to swallow me up, Carter’s lips were on mine. He slid his arm around my waist and pulled me up against him, cupping my cheek with his hand as he slid his tongue past my lips and slowly stroked it through my mouth. I could kiss this man for days and never get enough. His lips moved against mine, soft and sensually, while his hand slid from my cheek, down my neck, and stopped on the bare skin right above my heart. I wanted to reach up and push his hand down into my bra. My fists clutched onto the front of his shirt and a whimper escaped from me as his hand inched just a tiny bit lower. If my mouth wasn't fused to his right now, I might wonder if I said that last part out loud. Or maybe he could read my mind.

Touch my boobs. Do it. The power of my mind commands you.

His hand stopped its downward descent and I wanted to scream. His tongue continued to slide against mine ever so slowly and I really wished I had one of those green flags from the NASCAR races. I would've waved that thing all around. Wave it in the air like I just don't care.

Carter, start your engine! You have been given the green flag. All systems go. Hit the gas and let your hand grab the boob.

"If you touch my daughter's boobs while I'm standing right here, I'm gonna have to put taffy in your trachea until you terminate."

Carter and I broke apart so fast you would have thought we were teenagers that just got caught ha**g s*x instead of grown adults that had a child together.

"Did your dad just tell me he was going to choke me to death with taffy?" Carter whispered.

"Yeah. He's on the letter T. Behave or an umbrella up your Uranus will be in your future," I whispered back.

My father walked over to us and looked Carter up and down.

"You got any tattoos, son?"

Carter looked at me in confusion and I just shrugged my shoulders. You never knew what was going to come out of my dad's mouth.

"Uh, no. No, sir, I do not," Carter replied.

"You own a bike?"

"Well, I have a pretty nice mountain bike that's still in storage because I just haven't had time to take it out for a…"

"Motorcycle, Cathy," my father interrupted with a sigh of annoyance. "Do you own a motorcycle?"

Carter shook his head, “No, and my name is Cart-“

"You ever been arrested or get in a bar fight?" my dad interrupted.

"No, I've never been arrested or gotten into any kind of fight, Mr. Morgan," Carter said with a confident smile.

My dad leaned over towards me.

"Claire, are you sure this kid isn't gay?" he whispered to me.

"Jesus, Dad! No, he's not gay," I yelled back.

"Hey…" Carter said, insulted by my dad's question.

My dad turned to face Carter and sighed.

"Fine, you can date my daughter and get to know your son. But if you knock her up again…"

"DAD!"

My dad looked over at me with my hands on my h*ps and smoke practically coming out of my ears and then continued with his warning like I wasn’t there.

"…I will comb the face of the earth, hunt you down like a dog, and drop her cranky ass off on your doorstep. I'm not dealing with another nine months of Miss Pissy Pants over there."

Oh for the love of God.

I looked back and forth between them as they stared each other down.

Carter nodded his head and stuck out his hand for my dad to shake.

"Deal," Carter said as they shook on it.

Wonderful. One big happy cray-cray family.

Just then, Gavin flew through the living room holding something above his head.

"Carter! Look at the new sword I gots!"

Christ almighty!

My son was running into the room with my Jack Rabbit above his head like he was a gladiator going into battle. A gladiator with a purple "sword" that had five speeds.

"Oooh, what does this button do?" Gavin asked as he stopped and pressed the button that made the beads swirl around.

I flew over to him and tried to snatch it out of his hand, but he wouldn't let go. I frantically pressed all of the buttons to get it to stop while I played tug-of-war with Gavin and suddenly I hit one that switched it to warp speed and made the whole top part start rotating and vibrating so hard Gavin's arms shook.

"M-m-m-m-m-o-o-o-o-m-m-m-m-m th-th-th-th-i-i-i-i-s-s-s-s t-t-t-i-i-ck-l-e-s-s-s."

Fucking hell. When did this kid get so strong?

"Gavin, cut it out. This is not a toy," I said through gritted teeth.

I was playing tug-of-war with a rubber penis and my son. This is not okay people!

"It is too a toy. Why do you get all the good toys?" Gavin huffed as he put all of his weight into pulling the thing out of my hand and I actually stumbled forward.

"No, really guys don't worry. I've got this," I said sarcastically at my dad and Carter. They were standing shoulder-to-shoulder, a few feet away watching the show. They looked at each other and burst out laughing.

Of course. NOW they bonded - when I was trying to wrestle a sex toy out of my kid's hand.

"Gavin, let go NOW!" I yelled.

"You better do as your mom says, Gavin. She gets grumpy when she can't play with her toy," my dad laughed.

Carter laughed right along with him until I shot him a look that clearly said "If you don't shut the f**k up and help me, I will never let you in my pants again."

His mouth quickly shut and he finally moved.

"Hey, Gavin, I got something for you I left on the front porch. And it's a much better toy than your mom's. Why don't you run out and grab it," Carter suggested.

Gavin released his death grip on the vibrator without another word and ran out the front door.

"You are so lucky you helped me when you did or there would have been serious repercussions," I told Carter angrily.

Obviously he didn't get the severity of the situation since he was actually giggling right now. And my dad was wiping tears out of his eyes. Then I looked down and realized I had been enunciating my point by shaking the vibrator in Carters face.

I quickly put my arm down, opened one of the end table drawers and shoved the damn thing inside just as Gavin ran back into the house with a toy gun, cowboy hat and sheriff’s badge stuck to his shirt.

"Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do when they cut your wiener," Gavin sang as he pointed his gun at random objects.

"Wow, cops have gotten pretty hardcore lately," Carter muttered.

***

I forgave Carter on our ride to the bar because come on, look at him. I couldn't hold a grudge and fantasize about his penis. It was a major conflict of interest.

Business was just starting to pick up at the bar as the after-work crowd started filing in around seven. Liz and Jim ate dinner with Carter at one of the booths and the three of them moved over to the bar after they were done. On one of my many trips walking past them, Carter reached out and grabbed my arm. He swiveled his seat to the side so he could pull me between his legs. I set my empty tray on top of the bar next to him and he rested his hands on my hips.

"Remember when I told you that I would always tell you if your ass looked fat?" he asked.

Oh man, I knew I shouldn't have licked the bowl of milk chocolate clean last night after I finished making turtles. I could feel my thighs getting bigger while I stood here. Were they rubbing together tonight when I walked? I bet he was worried my rubbing thighs were going to start a spark.

Only you can prevent thigh fires. That Smokey the bear jerk only cared about the forest. Fuck the forest. My va**na could catch on fire because Carter thought I was fat.

"Shut your brain off. I wasn't going to tell you that you looked fat," he scolded.

I knew that.

"I was just going to say, I forgot to also mention that I will always tell you when your ass looks so f**king amazing that I want to wrap my hands around it every time you walk by."

I bit my bottom lip and smiled.

"Anything else?"

Yeah, I was fishing for compliments again. I just had a meltdown about a thigh inferno. I earned this.

"Yes," Carter answered after kissing me softly. "I will also always tell you when your legs look so long and sexy that all I can think about is having them wrapped around my waist."

He kissed my lips again.

"And I will always tell you when you are so beautiful that somebody better call God, because he's missing an angel."

"Awww did you just use a cheesy pick-up line on me?" I asked.

"I've been waiting to use that since I was fifteen," Carter said with a smile.

"Are you guys done yet? I just threw up in my mouth a little listening to this shit," Liz muttered from her seat on the other side of Carter.

"Well aren't you two just the cutest couple?"

I turned away from Carter when I heard the female voice behind me dripping with sarcasm.

"Tasha, what the f**k are you doing here?" Carter demanded as he stood up behind me.

Whoa, f**king whoa! Tasha? The ex? This was who Carter dated before he came here? Isn’t this just a pickle on the crap sandwich that is my life. Of course she had to look like a p**n star. Miles of long blonde hair, bright blue eyes and a perfect complexion. Not to mention the tiniest waist known to man and the nicest set of boobs I’ve ever seen. They had to be fake. Real boobs weren’t that perfectly round. If I didn’t hate her on sight, I might have asked her if I could touch them. She looked familiar. She flipped her hair behind one shoulder and it suddenly came to me where I knew her from.

"Hey, you were at Jenny’s sex toy party a few weeks ago."

I felt Liz walk up next to me.

"Oh yeah, I remember her. Twat Face Tasha," Liz said with a smile as she crossed her arms in front of her.

Twatty huffed in irritation. "It was Tantalizing Tasha."

"Nope, I'm pretty sure it was Twat Face," Liz said, looking to me for confirmation.

I nodded in agreement.

"Oh it definitely was. She probably doesn't remember because we talked about it behind her back," I said with a shrug.

Before I knew it, Cunty was up in my face.

"Listen slut, just because you're Carter’s new flavor of the week doesn't make you anything special."

All hell broke loose then. Carter started yelling at Tasha, Tasha yelled at all of us and Liz pushed her away from me. I just stood there in the middle of the commotion in shock.

"That's enough Tasha," Carter said angrily. "Tell me what you want, or leave. You will not just show up here out of the blue and insult Claire."

She gave me another snide look before turning her gaze back on Carter.

"Wow, it sure didn't take you long to find some little whore to dip your wick into did it?" Tasha asked Carter sarcastically.

Oh hell no! She did not just call me a whore.

I took a step towards her, my hands shaking with the urge to punch that smug look off of her face.

"That's pretty rich considering I heard you f**ked your way through the phone book when you were with Carter. Your va**na is a giant gaping hole like the one the iceberg left on the titanic. It's a crime scene in your pants with hundreds of people screaming in horror and trying to jump the f**k off."

I didn't even know what I was saying at this point. I was just spouting nonsense because I was pissed. And it looked like I hit the nail on the head - or the vagina. Tasha charged me like a bull. Everyone moved at once. I moved out of the way, Carter, Liz and Jim all got in front of me and grabbed onto Tasha while she screamed about killing me. It turns out, p**n star-slut-ex-girlfriends aren’t so pretty when they have tomato-red faces, spit flying out of their mouths and their limbs are flailing all over the place.

Carter finally managed to grab Tasha’s elbow and started pulling her with him over to the front door while she continued to yell insults and death threats at me. Carter made eye contact with me and mouthed ‘I’m sorry’ before he disappeared out the front door with the nut job.

I'm not gonna lie, I was a little freaked out. It felt like everyone in the place was looking at me. It was so loud in here, no one had any clue what had just happened, but it still unnerved me. I hated being the center of attention. And I hated how insecure I felt because right now, Carter was outside, alone, with his ex-girlfriend. Granted, she was obviously one window lick away from riding the short bus, but that knowledge did nothing to ease my mind.

I let one of the other waitresses know when she walked by that I was going to take a break for a few minutes. Liz pushed me down onto her barstool and Jim stood behind me rubbing my shoulders to try and ease the tension. Neither of them said much. I think they were waiting for me to have a mental breakdown or curl up in the fetal position and suck my thumb. I had never been in any kind of a fight before. I talked a good game but the first time someone came at me I ran the other way. One time in high school, Liz and I were walking through the mall and some crazy emo chick walked by us and slammed her shoulder into mine. Without thinking, I turned and shouted “Stop writing poetry and crying and watch where you’re going!”