Lauren: Cookies and Wine

Hi friends!  If you didn't see that I posted yesterday, make sure you scroll down and read that one first.  I'll have quite a few posts coming this week for you!
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I sit at my desk at work, feeling annoyed by the entire day.  My client is officially passed off to Logan.  When I called to let them know, the client seemed confused and a little unhappy.  I'd be lying if I said I'm not a little pleased by that.  Not because I want it to go poorly for Logan--because I don't--but because it means that I've done a great job with them.  And maybe because I feel a little vindicated, as well.

Training Logan had been interesting.  He'd actually stopped hitting on me and intentionally trying to make me uncomfortable nearly completely.  He still makes a little quip here and there, but it feels more like a joke and I'm way more comfortable with it.  He's just generally been a lot more respectful, and I appreciate that.  It was bad enough having to train him to take over the best part of my job, I might have run someone over with my car if I'd had to suffer through his impertinence on top of it.

Anyway, I'm sitting at my desk being annoyed.  It's Friday and I'm working on a stupid, pointless busywork project given to me by Sean.  I want to tell him that he's wasting my skill-set, but I know that won't help me.  I'm also jealous because Alex isn't at work.  Instead, by this point he's on his way to Winter Park to go skiing with the guys.  I don't want to go skiing, but I'd kill to not be at work.

Alex suggested last week that I update my resume and start applying for new jobs.  I've been miserable lately and he's getting the brunt of it.  I feel shitty about it, but I've never been unhappy at work so I don't really know how to deal with it.  I did update my resume, but I haven't actually applied for anything yet.  Actually, I haven't even looked.  This was my first real world job after college, and just thinking about writing cover letters and interviewing makes me want to vomit.

"Almost finished with that report?" Sean asks from behind me, startling me.

I take a second to force my face into a neutral expression before I turn.  "Almost," I reply.  It's true, but I could have been done an hour ago.  I was purposely working slowly because I didn't want any other stupid projects assigned to me so close to the end of the day.

"Great," he replies.  "So, when's the wedding?"  He motions to my left hand.  I've finally gotten my ring resized so I can wear it on my left hand, but it's proven to be awfully confusing for people.  I don't care.

"We haven't decided yet," I answer, not willing to tell him that there is no wedding.

"Your fiancé must love you quite a bit, that's an impressive ring." I had to fight to keep from rolling my eyes.  "How big is that emerald?  Looks like it's close to 2 carats."

"I have no idea," I respond, not at all surprised by his brazenness.  How fucking rude.

He grins.  "Well, I'll let you get back to work."  Finally.  He turns and walks back to his office, just a few steps behind me.  I hate this cube.  I hate it more than anything.

I wrap up my project and get it to him about 20 minutes before the end of my workday.  I spend the last 20 minutes dicking around in my work email, pretending to be busy.  Finally it's 5, and I can leave this hellhole.  I hate how quickly my job went from something I enjoyed to something torturous.

I stop at the liquor store on my way home.  While the guys are all in Winter Park skiing, Kinsley, Kendra, Liv, and I are going to bake cookies and drink wine tonight, then do a little last minute Christmas shopping tomorrow.  Liv has the most room, so we're all heading out there tonight after work.  Liv and Kinsley are providing all the cookie making ingredients, Kendra is picking up Thai food, and I'm charge of bringing the wine.  I'm actually pretty excited for this, it's been awhile since we've gotten the girls together for something so laid back.

After much text debate, we had realized that it made the most sense for Liv to just pick us all up on her way back home after work.  She's just gotten a new car, a brand new Toyota Highlander, and it stinks.  I really hate that stupid new car smell.  But it's really nice inside, and even I can appreciate that.

We collect the rest of the group and head out of the city.  Kinsley, who is sitting in front, insists on finding Christmas music on the radio, which Liv quickly shoots down.  Liv hates Christmas music before Christmas Eve.  "You're such a grinch," Kinsley grumbles.

"I'll have to listen to it all day tomorrow," Liv protests.  "Don't make me listen to it now too."

"You're so weird, even I like Christmas music," I chime in from the back seat.  Everyone laughs at that, because it's true.  I don't like many things.

Once we're inside, Liv turns on the fireplace.  "Brody likes it to be freezing in this house," she complains.  "I'm so excited that he's gone for the whole weekend so it can be a reasonable temperature in here.

I promptly sit down on the floor to pet Eddie, who sits right next to me, then lays sideways over my legs.  "You're ridiculous," I say to him.  He just stretches further over my legs and lets his tongue flop out of his mouth.  Kinsley wrinkles her nose--she's not a pet lover.  I feel like people would expect that of me, not her, but she definitely is not a fan.

"Eddie, let's go out!" Liv calls.  He lifts his head and gives her a disdainful look, then closes his eyes and pretends to ignore her.  "Eddie!"

I stop petting him and he lifts his head again and looks at me with big, imploring eyes.  "Nope," I tell him.  "Listen to your person.  I'll pet you more later."  With a big, exasperated sigh, he hauls himself up and pads over to the door.

"Some guard dog you have there," Kendra teases.

"Oh, he can be really scary," Liv assures her.  "The UPS man leaves packages in the middle of the driveway most days because he won't get close enough to the house to leave them on the porch."

Liv gets busy pouring wine (and the sparkling cider I picked up for Kendra, because every once in awhile I'm thoughtful) while I wash my hands and Kendra gets the food out.  Kinsley regards Kendra carefully.  "You can't even tell that you're pregnant," she says.

"Well, I'm not even three months pregnant yet," Kendra points out.

"Wait a second..." I say, the wheels in my head spinning.  "Oh my god.  Did you get pregnant at Liv's wedding?"

Kendra snorts.  "Well, not at the wedding," she replies, rolling her eyes.  "That would have been inappropriate.  But it's possible that I got pregnant after her wedding."

"Lauren, you can't just ask people when they had sex," Liv chimes in.

"I didn't!" I protest.

"You basically did," Kinsley replies.  "You do know where babies come from, right?"

We all laugh at that, and Eddie looks confused when he comes back in.  "I'm used to it by now," Kendra assures us.  "And let's be real, Lauren has no qualms about talking about people's sex lives."

"We're all friends here," I say, shrugging.  "So Liv, how's married sex?  Is it as awful or non-existent as people would like us to believe?"  I smirk as Liv turns pink.  I love to harass her about sex.  She can be such a prude about talking about it.

"It's great, thanks.  Even better, actually," she retorts.

Kendra smirks and says, "Hello?  Clearly it's still existent."  She points to her completely flat stomach and wiggles her glass of sparkling cider at me.  "You do know where babies come from, right?"

We laugh again, and it feels so good to be hanging out with them and having fun.  I manage to forget all about the bullshit happening at work.  "Guys, why did we stop doing this regularly?" I ask, taking a big bite of my pineapple fried rice.

Kinsley shrugs.  "We all got so busy with our own stuff.  You're right, though.  We need to do this regularly.  Every month, maybe?"

We agree to that and finish our food.  Then we get to the cookies.  Even with the size of Liv's kitchen, we're constantly getting in each other's way.  That increases as we open our fourth bottle of wine, and soon we're just sitting on the couch eating cookie dough.  Well, Liv, Kinsley, and I are.  Kendra is popping chocolate chips into her mouth because salmonella.  Whatever.

"We shouldn't even bother baking these," Kinsley says.

Kendra shakes her head and wrinkles her nose.  "You guys are disgusting.  I'm baking some of these cookies so I can actually eat them."

"You'll have to pry this bowl out of my cold, dead hands!" Kinsley challenges her, grinning.  In the end, we end up baking what's left of the cookies. We honestly probably ate half of the raw dough.  No regrets.

Kendra ends up in bed shortly after eating a couple warm, gooey cookies.  Apparently being pregnant makes you really tired.  She opts to take the downstairs guest room in hopes that we won't keep her awake with our drunken shenanigans.

Turns out she has little to worry about.  Instead of getting ridiculous, we end up curled up on the couch, passing the last bottle of wine around (because we're classy as hell) and talking about relationships and marriage and babies.

"So is Alex okay with not ever getting married?" Kinsley asks me curiously.

"I think so," I reply, shrugging.  "I mean, he said he was.  One time he said if it was up to him he'd like to get married, but he'd rather be not married and with me than married to someone else."

"You guys have the strangest relationship, but it works for you."

"Like you should talk?" Liv crows.  "Your relationship is weird too."

"So is yours!" I exclaim.  "You guys never even see each other."  We all dissolve into drunk giggles and admit that we all have our weird relationship things.  I look at Liv.  "Are you guys going to have kids?"

"Someday," she says.  "Not yet.  We both want Brody's schedule to be more reasonable and predictable first.  He's actually making a bunch of changes at work to make it happen, so we'll see.  I'm thinking not for a couple years though.  We both have things we want to do first."

We both look at Kinsley.  "What?" she asks, confused.

"Have you and Damien talked about the future?" I ask.  "Marriage, babies?"

Her eyes widen slightly and she shakes her head.  "No, not really.  I mean, yeah, a little in general terms.  But we're both really happy with how things are right now.   I think about it sometimes, though.  I love watching him with his niece and nephew.  It makes me think about him being a dad, you know?  I'd kind of given up on having kids of my own, but I think I'd like to have kids with him if everything works out."

"He'd be a good dad, I think," Liv says, nodding.

I yawn, quickly setting off yawns all around.  Kinsley and I are sharing the guest room on the main floor, and we head in that direction while Liv turns off the lights and fireplace.  Eddie gets up from his bed near the fireplace and follows Liv over to the door so she can let him out one last time for the evening.

I wake up to the smell of breakfast, and find Kendra in the kitchen cooking.  I'm surprised no one else is up, but neither of them take much longer to make their way down to the kitchen.  We eat breakfast and get ready to go out shopping.  I don't know how I let myself get talked into braving the crowds to shop the weekend before Christmas, but here I am.

Despite the crowds, we have fun.  But I'm definitely still relieved when Liv drops me off at home and I can kick off part two of my weekend: the "me time" part.  I start by immediately ditching my jeans and sweater for fleece pajama pants and a hoodie.  Then I order a pizza.

I've been parked on my couch for several hours when my doorbell rings.  I ignore it.  If I'm not expecting you, I generally don't answer the door.  If you can't be bothered to call me before you stop by, I can't be bothered to get off the couch to let you in.

Seconds later, my phone vibrates.  I look and I have a text from Liv.  It says, "It's me.  Let me in, please."  

I haul myself off the couch, unlocked the door, and pull it open.  "You know, you really should call first," I say grumpily.  I'm about to say more, but the look on Liv's face stops me.  "What?" I ask, getting nervous.

She slips past me to step inside, then turns back to me.  She touches my arm gently and says,  "Lauren, we're going to Winter Park.  Alex is in the hospital."