All Grown Up (7 page)

Chapter
Eight
Fuck Men

Chloe

I woke up Thursday morning around nine at Christy and Randy’s place to the sound of
Michele crying and Christy clanging around the kitchen. I stretched and groggily headed into the kitchen.

"Morning
." Christy hadn’t seen me and she jumped.

"Sheesh, Chloe, I didn’t hear you coming" she half giggled.
Michele was crying in her arms and Christy was trying to get a bottle warmed up for her.

"You need some help?" I reached for
Michele and started walking her around patting her bottom.

"Thanks
, Chloe. Randy had to get to work early this morning and I didn’t want to wake you after you stayed so long for us yesterday with Michele." She smiled as she finished getting the bottle ready and walked over, taking Michele to feed her.

"It was no big deal
. You know I absolutely love watching her." I yawned out.

"Do you want something to eat?" Christy asked without looking up.

"Nah. I have to meet Mina and Roni in a couple of hours, so I better get going." The thought of Lucas and our break up started to really sink back in and my voice was reflecting that.

"You okay?" I nodded to answer Christy’s question but I told her about what happened last night. "Oh, Chloe, you should’ve called me. We could have come home earlier and…"

I cut her off. "Christy, I would never have done that. Yeah, it hurts a little, but it’s not like it was the love of my life crushing me. Lucas was a great friend and we cared about each other. Well, at least he used to care about me. I guess that’s what hurts the most. He didn’t care to talk to me before….UGH! I don’t even want to talk about it anymore." I side smiled at her. "It will all be dealt with Saturday." I smirked.

"
Ahhh…." Christy caught on. She had taken part in many of our ‘man hating nights’ after different break ups. "It’s one of those nights." She laughed. "Well, just remember that I’m not far away. If you need me, call me."

I got up and hugged her tightly, kissed
Michele on the head and headed home.

I was taking my last step onto Mina’s balcony from the tree house when I overheard Roni’s voice. "So that fucker was making out with Heidi?!
Eww!"

"Quit discussing my personal life without me
, tramps!" I shouted as I walked into Mina’s room.

Mina spun around on her bed smiling. "It’s about time you got over here!" I rolled my eyes.

"Mina, I’m early. You told Roni afternoon and it’s only a little past eleven." I sat down at her computer desk and started messing around with the new monitors we had gotten for her.

"Step away from the computer
, super geek." Roni came over to pull me away by my arm. "We have plans to make for tomorrow night." You could hear the eagerness in her voice. Roni loved these nights.

I yanked my arm away. "I have a lot of work to do in order to get this all working correctly
. Cut me some slack, Roni." I resumed looking over Mina’s computer configurations. "Besides, you guys always plan all this out and I just show up. It’s the way we roll." I smiled widely at them, knowing that they would just shake their heads and laugh.

"Leave Gates over there to do her thing" Mina chimed in. "Besides, I can’t wait for those touch screens to be set up with the new program she
designed for me." She grinned at me widely before her and Roni sat together on the bed to discuss Friday night.

I spent Thursday night at home with Dad, Judith and Roni. They had complained
that they never saw us and that we needed to spend time together before Roni left for college. Roni and I had agreed with them.

After dinner Roni and I sat in our room doing our own thing. Roni was reading over some car magazines and I was on my computer working on Mina’s fashion program that I promised to have done by the end of the summer. Mina was going into fashion design and merchandising, so the program that I was putting together gave her the ability to design electronically
. She would be able to enter measurements, textiles, textures, shapes and anything else she needed for her virtual creations. I knew that Mina was going to be famous. It was inevitable. Looking at Roni, you would think that she was destined to be the hottest model and/or actress. However, Roni was an enigma. She knew she was attractive but she was ridiculously smart. Mechanics were her thing. She could rebuild an engine. Hell, she could build a car from scratch if she wanted to. She also loved the shock that came across people’s faces when they became aware of just how smart she was when it came to cars and mechanics. She was going to major in Mechanical Engineering and I would love to be there the first time her professors and fellow students got to soak in her looks before hearing her ramble out the mechanical aspects of some piece of machinery. Just the thought made me smile.

"What are you smiling about? Did you hack the national treasurer?" Roni giggled.

"Har-har-har. I was just thinking about the first time you enter a mechanics class full of testosterone and then blow their minds with your intellect." I smirked and she smiled huge. We discussed her dorm arrangements and college a little as we both got ready for bed.

Most of Friday was spent gathering things that Mina thought we would need for tonight. Roni was in charge of music, I was in charge of food and drinks and Mina,
well, Mina was in charge of everything else.

Mina
was already at the beach when Roni and I arrived. She had wood already piled in a fire pit and four tiki torches set up. I shook my head. "Jesus Christ," Roni sighed out in disbelief. "You would think that by now I would be used to her, but sometimes she still just…"

"Freaks you out?" I smirked at Roni.

"Yeah!" She laughed.

"She could take over the world, I’m telling you." I grabbed the blankets and the cooler heading toward
s Mina.

As soon as my toes touched the sand
, I felt the night begin. It was time for frustration, anger and hurt to be released. These nights were always held in honor of bad break-ups, but they were so much more than that. It was a night where we could let it all out, completely release our stress and just let go; it was empowering. Girl bonding at its finest.

"Finally!"
Mina shouted as she ran up and grabbed the cooler from me. "What took so long? I was gonna start without you."

"Well, since I’m the one who got cheated on
, I would like to thank you for waiting on me." I laid on as much sarcasm as I could and chuckled.

We were all sitting around on blankets
, our legs crossed, listening to a random playlist that Roni had put together while eating some sandwiches that Elaine had made for us. It was almost time to start the ‘ritual’ of the evening. Mina started digging through the cooler for a drink when she blurted out "Chloe, I love you so much!"

I looked up at her smiling. I knew she had found the vodka. "What did she get?" Roni questioned
, trying to peek over Mina’s shoulder. Mina sat back with three different bottles; blueberry, watermelon, and raspberry vodka. They were our personal favorites: watermelon was Mina’s, raspberry was Roni’s, and blueberry was mine. Roni smiled at me appreciatively.

Mina grabbed the traditional cups (pilsner cups that have rainbow light up effects at the bottom), filled them with ice and our preferred vodka. After passing the drinks out
, we gave our toast.

"Here’s to the men we love
. Here’s to the men who love us. Here’s to the men that we love that don’t love us; FUCK THE MEN LET’S DRINK TO US!" We said in unison, laughing.
Ah, thank you Willa Ford.

Man bashing ensued
. We trash talked past boyfriends, joked about guys and ragged on men in general. We laughed, we joked, we got pissed off, we screamed. It is so liberating and ridiculous. They say laughter is the key part of healing, so we laughed and laughed.

"Okay, okay…" Mina broke up our hysterics. "It’s dedication time
!" She smiled and pulled out her IPod as I grabbed mine. "Okay, Roni, you first." Dedication time was where we each took turns choosing songs that described our mood for the evening.

"Alright, first song is…drum roll please…" Roni stood up and we followed suit, making a drum roll sound as we did so. "
Loser
by Saving Jane!" she plugged her IPod into the radio and started it. We laughed and started dancing around wildly, loudly singing the words to each other.

Once the song ended, Mina picked her first.
"Okay, my first song,
Don’t Bother
by Shakira." I saw a gleam in Mina’s eye and knew this one was going out to Oliver. She plugged in and hit play, as we started moving to the beat, singing the lyrics.

"Okay, my first song for the night…" I smiled since it was one of my favorites. "
You Oughta Know
by Alanis Morrisette." Roni smiled. We started singing, once again, to the gritty lyrics, getting louder and louder while our inner angry rock stars’ made their debut. The song ended and we collapsed to the ground. Pouring another drink, we each sat in silence for a moment, lazily sipping.

Mina spoke up first. "Okay, song two…" She stood and we
followed. "
Smile
by Adele" she hit play and we started up again. Roni’s second choice was
Caught out There
by Kelis and mine was
I Can Do Better
by Avril Lavigne.

By the time we got to the end of our ‘Fuck the Men’ night we were extremely drunk, loud and barely able to walk.
It was perfect, just what we needed. I sat up to take one last drink and play the ‘last song’. It was tradition that the last song was always ‘A Toast to Men’ by Willa Ford. The song started and we let our drunkenness take over, singing and laughing loudly to the anthem of the night.

Leo

"I can’t believe we are already driving back to
Tillamook, dude." Max grumbled from the passenger seat of the truck.

"Look
, Mom is giving us the leather couches from the basement, along with some other stuff like the flat screen television for the new place. So suck it up." I shot back at him. He straightened up.

"I guess it’s worth it but
, still, couldn’t we do it another weekend?"

"You have practice starting up again. This is the best time to do it." I rolled my eyes at him. He was whining worse than a girl.

"Fine." Max huffed and then sighed. "What’s up with you and that Eve girl? I haven’t seen her for a while." Max had his head thrown back onto the seat with his right foot up on the dash of the rented truck.

"Nothing."
I shrugged.

"Yeah.
So, did you drop her or did she drop you?" He smirked.

"It just wasn’t working out between us. We were just too different." I shrugged again.

"In other words, you got tired of another girl and moved on…again," he chuckled.

"Fuck you. I don’t see you settling down
, my man-whore of a friend." I shot back.

"Dude, I don’t make them my girlfriend knowing that I am going to get tired of them and have to go through all that
, ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ bullshit," he laughed, "you are a glutton for punishment, man."

"So
, what? I shouldn’t even attempt? I should just tell them that I want them to fuck me and then leave?" I cocked my eyebrow at him.

"That is so not…okay, well
, I have done that, but that’s not what I am saying. I don’t make any promise I can’t keep, dude. I tell them up front that I don’t want anything serious and that it is just hanging out for fun. If they can’t handle that then that is their choice. I don’t lie to anyone." He was being smug now.

"I don’t lie to them." I spit at him.

"Dude, you lie to yourself!" I was going to counter him but he stopped me. "Can you pull over somewhere soon so I can eat? I am starving."

We finally arrived to my parent’s house late Friday afternoon. After loading up the truck with the furniture
, we sat down to eat some sandwiches that my mom had made for us.

"
Mom, where’s Mina? I haven’t seen or heard her since I’ve been here." I leaned over my plate and took a large bite.

"Oh
, the girls went down to the beach." She had a small smile on her face when she said it.

"Is there a beach par…fire there tonight?" Max asked with his mouth full. I slapped his arm and
my mom chuckled at us.

"I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think so." She started cleaning up the kitchen.

"So, they are just on the beach while it’s getting dark? Shouldn’t they be heading back by now?" I questioned.

"Leo
," Mom turned and gave me a stern look, "leave your sister alone. She is going to be eighteen and it’s only the beach. Kenneth has the officers patrol down there all the time, even with your parties." Damn, Mom knew about the parties. I should’ve suspected as much, she’s too fucking smart.