The Trouble with Loving a Milkovich Part 4

Go Time

It's sometime in the morning when theres a knock on our door. "What the fuck?!" Collin yells, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Closest to the door, I reach my arm up and turn the handle.  "Yeah?" I call out to the hallway. "Svetlana's water broke!" Mandy yells. "Ahh, fuck," I groan, grabbing whatever pair of pants and shirt is nearest the bed. Giving them a whiff, I only half scrunch my nose up. "Could be worse," I shrug. "You coming?" I ask Collin, who has already rolled over and is half asleep- or atleast pretends to be. "Asshole," I grumble.
Svetlana and Mandy are already waiting for me at the car; Svetlana's face is contorted in pain. "You good?" I ask, cigarette hanging from lip, sleep still pulling for my eyelids to shut. Yelling at me in Russian, I ignore her and unlock the car. "Get in guys," I say, climbing in myself. In the car, its decided that we stop at the Gallaghers to find Mickey. Parking in front of their house, I unlock the doors so that Mandy can head inside. Svetlana is breathing heavily in the back; the edges of my mind are fuzzy and I kick myself for not doing a line before I left. Pulling my jacket tighter, i turn the heater up more just as Mandy angrily throws her body into the front seat. As she berates her brother for not caring, an idea comes to me. "Keep the car running, I'll give a try," I swing open my door and leap up the steps. Once inside, I'm greeted to too many sets of eyes to count, so I raise my two hands in mock surrender. Mickey sees me and start to say, "Look, I already fucking told-" Motioning with my hands, I cut him off. "Dude, don't even with me. I get it, I'm not here for that," I pause and look around the room, noting the younger ones in the audience. Turning back to Mickey, I stumble over my words. "You got anyyyyy, uhhhh.... shit, look, I was woken up, and uhhh.." I look around the room once more and suddenly I dont feel so good. "Oh fuck this, you got any drugs?" Ian's eyes widen and Lip shoots me an angry glance. "Yeah," Mickey rifles thru his pocket, finds whatever hes looking for, and places them in my palm. "Couple adderall, should wake you up." He peers back into his coffee cup and I flash him a peace sign. Taking me in, he says, "Hold up; you do realize that you're only wearing fishnets and t shirt, right?" Peering down, I laugh to myself. "Oh, oops," I shrug, bounding at the door. Before I leave, i tell him, "Thanks again, pops!" And give him a wink.

I drop Mandy and Svetlana off at the hospital and tell them I'm not feeling well. Once home, I open my bedroom door and jump on Collin. "Wake up, I got addy!" He bitches and moans under his breathe, but reluctantly turns to face me. He opens his mouth and I stick one of the pills in. Rubbing his leg, I remind him that his birthday is coming up. "We gotta do something," I say. Irritated, he peers at me from beneath an eyelid. "Why are you so fucking happy?" Chuckling, I rub his head. "I took mine about an hour ago; I'm fucking geeking!" Unamused, he rolls back over as I fumble with the buttons on his jeans. "No! God, dont give me head! You do this fucking thing where you grind your teeth and suck your fucking cheeks in and your mouth gets fucking dry-" I burst out laughing. "Okay! O-fucking-kay! I get it, christ!" Continuing to laugh, I set to cleaning up the room. It takes Collin half an hour before hes outta bed. "We gotta organize the store!" He declares. Exhilarated by the idea, I grab his face, kiss his cheek, and tell him, "You're fucking brilliant!" Together, we change, put on deodorant, and head out.

It's 3 am by the time we start to crash; Collin reorganized 4 aisles of booze, placing bottle in alphabetical order. I managed to balance the ledger twice and write up 3 months worth of orders. Sharing a cigarette, we sit slumped on the floor. "I feel like shit," Collin laments. Rubbing cheeks, I just take a drag from the cigarette. "Fucking A, man," I finally say. Collin suddenly let's out a groan. "Fuck!" He yells. Startled, I just stare at him. "Theres gonna be a baby in the house now," he continues, rubbing his eyes. Realizing what this entails, I let put an exasperated sigh. "Theres a couch here we can crash on," I muster a such comfort as i can, but its hard; my brain has run outta dopamine, chemical and otherwise, and I'm thrown down an apathetic spiral. "We can always crash at the Gallaghers, " he jokes, reaching for the smoke. Weakly, I snort. "That house has too many people as it is." Collin exhales, then asks me something that's been on his mind for awhile now. "What's up with that redhead and Mickey?" Pausing, I think before I answer. Finally, I confess what I've known for awhile now. "They're together."
"Together, together?"
"Yeah."
Theres a thoughtful pause. "I can see that," he finally says, laying his head back down. Another silence hangs between us before be says, "that little prick better not fuck Mickey over. I'll bust his fucking skull open." Heart swelling, I wrap Collin in my arms. "You're a good big brother. Now let's go to the couch and sleep this shit off. Grab a bottle of Jack."