Nicer ways to go

THIRTY-TWO

WINTER

"You and Sean are close, aren't you?" Alex says as he peels his fiftieth potato for the afternoon and shoves it in the baking tray, wrestling to find space for it amongst the others of its oily kind. I roll my eyes

"We're dating, Alex, of course we are close"

"I've never seen you cling to anything so tight, not even Mr Snugglepot" Alex grins at his comment, getting just the reaction he was pining for when I shriek

"Do not bring Mr Snugglepot into this!" throwing my flour and egg coated hands in the air as I look at him, spying a smudge of flour on the bridge of my nose from the corner of my eye.

"What even was it? It was like a mouldy tomato decided to have sex with a teddy bear who had two uteruses and was also having sex with a cat thus creating the love child of all three" Alex leans back against the kitchen counter, wiping his hands on a coth he finds behind him before looking at me, waiting for an answer. In all truth, I don't really know what my favorite childhood toy was trying to depict in its appearance, but whatever is was it certainly wasn't all that aesthetically pleasing, he got that right in his description. The teddy bear/cat part was correct too, but not the tomato part.

"He was beautiful" I say, coming up short for a viable answer as I go back to crumbing the fish for our 'Jake's home so let's have a celebration involving us, Winter's boyfriend and Winter's pregnant bestie' party. Spencer heard the words 'fish' and 'chips' being mentioned on the way back from the horror scene at the mall and quickly accepted her invitation. She still hasn't told her mother about the fact there is a growing fetus inside of her, but I'm sure she'll get the drift when her daughter arrives home this afternoon with a tiny pair of converse she decided to buy for the unnamed un-gender confirmed child whom we all now identify as 'J'. 'J' for junior, 'J' for something else I don't know, all I know is that it definitely won't be 'J' for Jack Junior, as Spencer shares my common belief that people who name their kids after themselves are tonks... most of the anyway.

"Wait so... let me try and remember your group..." Alex says, holding up his index finger in thought as I shove the potato chips we made into the oven and switch it on. "So the bubbly hacker blond is Shelby, the 'call me the Asian one because I don't care' one is Kiara, the one who's always eating cupcakes is Penelope-"

"Penny for short' I interject and he nods

"Yep, that too. The pregnant one is Spencer and her boyfriend is Jack, the one with hazel eyes- Patrick- is gay for the one who looks kind of like a high end fashion designer with unusual flair"

I nod "His name's Owen"

"And the smoking British boy called Sean is your boyfriend" Alex adds, having no qualms whatsoever about any of my unusual herd. I bite my lip, unable to hide the flush of heat in my cheeks as I say

"Yes, he is". I jump at the sound of a knock on the front door and I bump into Alex racing to get it, looking at him "Let me" he sulks back to the kitchen and I walk to the door, opening it to find Spencer standing there cradling her arm as tears run down her cheeks in fat droplets.

"Do you have a sling? Or something to turn into one at least?" she asks me and I look around, finding nothing before glancing over my shoulder

"Oh Alexander!" I call and I hear the faint response of

"Myup?" from the kitchen as a knife or some other metallic utensil gets chucked into the sink with a loud crash and Alex pads out in all his glory, flipping his dark hair from his eyes. "The pregnant one!" he beams, having taken a liking to my friends almost instantaneously, wiping his slightly floury hands on the front of his gray t-shirt before stepping forward to give her a half hug. She chuckles through a sniffle, looking up at him with a kind of squashed facial expression as he lets her go