Love and Lists (Chocoholics) by Tara Sivec Page B

contaminated.”
    I shiver in revulsion as I imagine what exactly the tub would have been contaminated with.
    “Claire, I need to talk to you about getting on your cell phone plan. I’m going to need a lot of extra minutes,” Tyler tells her with a wink.
    “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” Aunt Liz asks.
    “No. But I’ll kiss Gavin’s mother with this mouth.”
    Everyone needs to stop talking right now before my brain explodes all over this fucking room.
    “Speaking of kissing, Charlotte kissed Gavin the other night,” Tyler adds.
    “WHAT?!” Mom and Aunt Liz screech at the same time, whipping their heads in my direction.
    “Oh my God, it’s happening, it’s really happening. We need to pick out a venue for the rehearsal dinner. Those things book fast,” Mom states, pulling out her cell phone and clicking on Google.
    “Jesus, Mom, it was just a kiss. Stop googling restaurants.”
    “Look up Stancato’s, I love their salads,” Aunt Liz says, standing behind my mom and looking over her shoulder.
    “Fuck you, we’re not doing the rehearsal dinner at Stancato’s. Stop being such a whore for that place,” Mom complains.
    “Hello! Will you two cut it out?” I shout.
    “I’m going to punch you right in the vagina if you don’t pipe the fuck down,” Aunt Liz argues with my mom.
    How did I lose control of this situation so quickly?
    “Ladies, could I interest you in a pool of Jell-O while you hash this out?” Tyler pipes up.
    Perfect. Just perfect. I find out my parents never actually made any important phone calls when I was growing up and locked me in my room just so they could bang, and now my mom and my aunt are back to planning a wedding between Charlotte and me when I don’t even know if she remembers that we kissed because she was so drunk.
    This day can’t possibly get any worse.

 
     
    “Jesus, Dad, what the hell happened?” I ask in a panic as I rush into the hospital room to find him in a gown, hooked up to a bunch of machines.
    Toward the end of the testing meeting, my mom got a frantic phone call from Uncle Drew letting us know that my dad was rushed to the emergency room because he thought he was having a heart attack. My mom immediately hightailed it out of there, leaving Aunt Liz and me to quickly wrap up the meeting.
    “The dragon on the ceiling has bingo teeth,” Dad says in a serious tone.
    My eyebrows rise in surprise at his response, and I turn to my mom as she gets up from his bedside and walks over to me.
    “Um, you should probably just ignore everything he says at this point in time,” she whispers.
    “No, really. There are sharks on the planes in the window of the palm tree. My chin feels funny,” Dad mutters, reaching his hand up and scratching his nose.
    “What the fuck is wrong with him? Is he having a heart attack?” I question.
    We both turn to look at him when he bursts out laughing, pointing at his feet. “There are kittens licking my toes! Look at the kittens! Hi, little kittens!”
    Mom sighs and turns back to me. “The doctor is still running some tests, but right now it doesn’t look like a heart attack or anything serious. He was at work and told Drew he felt funny—dizzy and nauseous. Then all of a sudden he told Drew he couldn’t feel either of his arms so Drew freaked out and brought him here.”
    Dad continues to point and laugh at the kittens that aren’t there, and a few minutes later, Tyler joins us in the room.
    “I parked your car in the garage, Gavin. Saw Drew and Liz outside. They’re going to call everyone and let them know what’s going on.”
    Tyler tosses my car keys to me and I put them in my pocket. I was so worried when we got here that I jumped out of my car in front of the emergency room and told Tyler to go park my car.
    “So what’s going on with big daddy? Is he dying?” Tyler asks as he sidles up to my mom and puts his arm around her shoulder.
    She elbows him in the ribs and moves away. “I’m going to chop