Courtney
If there weren’ttequila shots and loud music, then having fun was probably not happening.
The worst part of an annual doctor visit wasn’t actually the exam, in Courtney’s estimation. Yeah, that was no fun because… speculum and no tequila. She shivered.
While not a trip to Dairy Queen for an Oreo Blizzard—royal-style, because, duh—the exam was not the worst part.
No. The worst part was wearing an open-backed gown while sitting bare-assed on the crunchy sanitary paper thing covering the exam table, while trying not to move too much and rip said paper.
She squirmed. Not too much. Not so she’d rip the paper.
Because that was the only thing that made this exam worse—sitting on torn paper.
Which was sort of a metaphor for her life recently.
The job security was iffy, since the band was imploding. Though, Courtney had hope that Linx would hire her as publicist for his new band, and she figured she could always bribe him. Like Hans did with Em—he paid her right off.
Linx was seriously ready to leave the band. For real this time. And sending Bax and Knox to the tropics as part of the say-nothing-don’t-be-seen PR plan was not helping the band bonding situation.
Linx, meanwhile, was in Denver taking a much-needed Dimefront respite and apparently forming a new band.
The Dimefront guys were tired, tired of each other and tired of the business. Which gave Courtney a lot of time to focus on herself.
As part of her focus-on-Courtney plan, she’d been getting caught up on her appointments. Namely, this one.
She glanced at the pamphlet she’d snagged from the rack behind her. The one about uterine fibroids, since she’d already read through the one on endometriosis three times.
Her cell buzzed from her purse hanging on the wall across the room, like it was challenging her to get it while not tearing the damn paper.
Whatever, she was totally getting her phone. It’d already been over fifteen minutes of waiting in the little claustrophobia-inducing exam room with only the table, the rolling stool, a chair, a teeny tiny sink, and some of the terrifying speculums to keep her company.
Her phone continued to ring.
Maybe this was her contact withRolling Stone? She’d been working to pitch a feature article and going with the assumption that she still had a band to pitch.
Phone still ringing, she gnawed at her bottom lip. She didn’t want to be rude and take a call when the doctor came in.
As a general rule, she didn’t keep her phone in hand during a doctor visit, because she’d get totally caught up in work, and then she’d take a call, and then she either had to be rude to the doctor and finish the call, or be rude to the caller and cut them off. Or even worse—pause reading an interesting article mid-sentence.
Except the clock ticked slowly on, edging toward twenty minutes past her appointment time, and she knew everything the brochures had to say about endometriosis and uterine fibroids.
The only other brochures were about conception via IVF, and one titledAll About Your Pregnant Body.
Those brochures were definitely unnecessary, since she was never having kids. There was no way she could handle a baby and still keep up her clubbing and work routines.
Her phone stopped ringing.
Good. Phew. Okay. She could just sit here a little longer.
It rang again.
Screw it. She’d risk ripping the paper and being rude forRolling Stone. Carefully, she stood. Good. No tearing.
But… notRolling Stone.
“Mom, hey. Everything okay?” she asked. Because while they talked all the time, usually Mom didn’t call right back—unless maybe something was super wrong.
There’d probably been a car accident. Or a boating accident. Though they didn’t own a boat, so that probably wasn’t it. Still… she gripped the phone and tried to shake off boating accident vibes.
