CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
AN: I have a flickr gp/192435384 N06/U5483z
Peeling my eyes open on Saturday morning I take inventory of myself. I'm in the familiar bed at the Winston's house, my dog is curled up behind me, taking more of the bed then I have. I appear to have managed to take the clothes I was wearing off and am in a plain t-shirt that I don't recognise.
External inventory done I catalogue the throbbing head, the dry mouth and the churning that is beginning in my stomach.
Rolling out of bed, I land on the floor with a thud "Mother fucker." I snap. It appears today won't be much better than the day before.
The door swings open and I see Donna standing there, looking far too cheerful for how I feel. She helps me to my feet "How much did you drink?"
"Umm," I start to think, "I had the whiskey with you guys, then probably about ¼ a bottle of vodka with Jax while we had the most painful conversation of my life. Then I ended up back here and I finished the ¼ that was left."
She shakes her head, passes me a pair of jeans and tells me that there's 'hangover cure' in the kitchen.
Struggling to get the pants on I finally find myself in the kitchen 15 minutes later, having tried to tame my hair, but given up just throwing it over my shoulder. On the table I find a massive pile of scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns, sausage and toast, the grease from the deep fried foods (all of them, bar the eggs and toast) already staining the take out containers bearing Lumpy's logo. Opie enters the kitchen only minutes later, looking just as bad as I feel but we both know that after a greasy meal we'll either feel better, or vomit and feel better.
Between the two of us we polish of most of what is on the table, with several cups of very strong coffee.
When we finally make it to the lounge about 45 minutes after sitting down at the table Donna grins, obviously she didn't drink that much, after all they would still be at the clubhouse if she had. I vaguely wonder how they got back, but as I head down the hall I see my Challenger sitting in the driveway and I can't help but giggle at the thought of Opie in the passenger's side of that, he would have been rather…confined, it's not a large car at all.
Coming back into the lounge I sit in front of Donna and pass her the hairbrush I've just recovered from my room and let her sit quietly brushing the knots that have taken up residence in my haystack.
Ellie and Kenny are missing, and when I ask Opie answers "Gemma and the kids have a standing weekend date. This weekend it's Saturday morning at the pool, lunch and a movie, followed by a nap at her house and then back here for dinner. Unless they beg, which they do most weekends, to stay there the night."
"I see." I can't help but grin as I think of the way that the Donna I knew 6 years ago would have flatly refused to let Gemma have any future kids for a minute, let alone a whole day. Donna tugs sharply on my hair and I know she's worked out what I'm thinking.
"I am not that person anymore. I had the stick forcibly removed from my ass by my best friend."
"Yes you did babe," Opie responds, "and we're all thankful to the stickless, and the stick remover."
Donna throws my hairbrush at Opie who just barely misses it and it catches him right in the middle of the chest, but he's laughing so much at the outraged expression on his wife's face that he doesn't feel the moment of pain.
I haul myself to my feet and decide a nice long shower will be the final wake up I need.
The 3 of us have a very quiet day, Opie heads to the clubhouse at 1 for a short Church session, but when he returns he mows the lawn while Donna continually says "You missed a bit." Laughing every time he turns around to see that it's a bit he hasn't gotten to yet.
I commandeer their kitchen for the day, and by the time the kids arrive back at 3pm with Gemma, tired but begging for a 'Grandma sleepover' there is baking from one end of the kitchen to the other. I hand the kids a sugar cookie each Donna sends them into the backyard to eat the sugary crumbly cookies. Passing a cookie to Opie as he starts giving me puppy eyes, I put the casserole I've made for tonight's dinner in the oven and turn my attention back to the cake that I was in the middle of icing.
30 minutes later the cake is iced, the kids have been sent to Gemma's for the night and I'm trying to figure out what to do to get out of Opie and Donna's house for the night, so they can have a night by themselves.
Donna comes into the kitchen as I'm looking through the paper to see if there is anything playing at the tiny movie theatre. She snatches the paper away, "Oh no you don't. Apparently the wiseness that is Clay and the club have decided to patch in Kip and they are having the party tonight...so lots of hung over Sons getting drunk again."
I groan, I really don't want to see Jax again for a while, the final thing I said to him still echoing in my brain, despite me trying to forcibly remove it the previous night with vodka and during the course of today with mindless tasks I can do in my sleep. Sift, cream, beat, whisk, stir, measure.
"D, do I have to?" I know I sound like a whinging child, but I really don't want to spend any more time at the Clubhouse at the moment. And I don't need to even look at alcohol for at least a few weeks.
Donna is not going to let me avoid it though, "Yes, you do have to be there. Al and Cam are welcome as well, but you might want to warn them about Patch Parties if they do decide to come."
I drop my shoulders and stomp out of the room but all I hear behind me is Donna laughing as Opie comes in and says, "You told her huh?"
I pick up the phone and a couple of rings later Al is answering her end. "What?"
She does not sound happy, in fact she sounds incredibly ill. I can almost see the green in her complexion from where I'm sitting.
"There's another party tonight if you want to go."
Al groans sounding like she's attempting to move. "Nope, I'm not going anywhere tonight. My liver is going to take a year to forgive me for last night. Hang on, I'll ask Cam." A few shuffling noises before I hear a muffled conversation, the negative response from Cam coming without words as I hear her run for the bathroom and hurl.
After making sure that they are both okay, or will be a thought strikes me, "Wait, How did you guys get back to the hotel? My car is here."
"Taxi, the blonde guy that's not from Charming put us both in a cab at the same time he helped Donna get the giaganta-man into your car."
I laugh at the description of Opie and I hang up the phone and go to get my keys so I can get the other bag of clothes out of my car where they have been since I arrived 4 days ago. I stop and think, has it really only been 4 days since I arrived back. But going over the previous days, even though it feels like weeks on end it was Tuesday I arrived back and it's now Saturday.
I really feel like climbing back into bed for a few hours and trying to sleep through some of the tiredness that has just started seeping into my bones, so going back inside, bag of clothing over my shoulder I let Donna know I'm going to do just that, asking her to please wake me at 6:30, and if I'm not up by 6:45 to get the casserole out of the oven.