Alcide In Wonderland

Chapter 21

The Best Of Educations

**

Sunday morning…

It wasn’t like Jack was moving around or anything to wake me up, but when my eyes opened at 5:30 I couldn’t get back to sleep.

If Sookie was rubbing off on me so much that I was going to stop sleeping, I’d kick her ass.

I nearly tripped over Hunter’s humongous ass trying to get to the shower… I forgot that he was on the mattress with Carm…

Never drink that much again…

Ever…

Shower then coffee and I figured I’d go outside for a smoke and enjoy the quiet instead of listening to a house full of snoring. The house sounded like a lumber mill and it was just pissing me off that I was the only one who couldn’t sleep.

It was still completely dark outside when I settled onto the top step…

Smokes, fresh cup of coffee and complete silence… it was just cool enough that the bugs weren’t even making any noise, or even they had enough sense to be sleeping.

I was working on cigarette number two and trying to put together the foggy pieces of last night when I heard the door open behind me. Had.

“It’s chilly out. You might want to grab something.” The little nightgown Sookie put her in might as well have been nothing. Not that I was complaining.

She came back wrapped in a quilt with a cup of coffee and settled on the step between my legs after kissing me good morning. “Hung over?”

“No. I got sick of being out of it so when we got back I got rid of it all and refilled with water.”

“Great minds think alike… Sook and I did the same thing. Marnie laughed like a funhouse clown. Then again, I was so out of it I was trying to lift the lid on the toilet tank.”

“Nice… What are you doing up?”

She shrugged. “Don’t know. I woke up to use the head about an hour ago. Couldn’t get back to sleep. Pissed about it too.”

“Yeah. Same here. I woke up for no good reason.”

“You out here square-rooting something to death or just escaping that wind tunnel?” I’m glad I wasn’t the only one that felt mocked by the snoring assholes inside.

“I was just enjoying the peace and quiet.”

“And then I ruined it, huh?”

“Yeah. Shut up.”

I was just joking around, but she smiled and licked her lips before she reached for a cigarette and snuggled back into me. She stayed quiet too… without squirming or anything. It wasn’t until then that I realized I’d never seen her be quiet for 5 minutes. She’d even been talking my ear off while we’d been dancing… the funny part was even as I was realizing that she was probably the talkingest bitch I’d ever met, it wasn’t bothering me.

Once she put her cigarette out, she finished off her coffee and sat back against me and stared into the yard… “Wanna fuck?”

I’d have been less surprised if she’d punched me. It was hard to keep from laughing loud enough to wake the cemetery. “Sure let’s just go kick our kids out of my room.”

She giggled and grabbed my hand to put it down the front of her nightgown. “I didn’t say anything about a bed.” She was serious?

“You’re nuts. You know that, right? We stand zero chance of not getting barged in on. There’s 10 variables in that house. Three of them are the reasons we’re sneaking around.” I was just as nuts as she was for entertaining the fucking idea.

She rolled her eyes. “Are you playing hard to get?”

“Yeah. You caught me. I’m just a tease.”

“Your man-card’s in jeopardy, pal. You’ve got your hand on the tit of a horny, double-jointed MILF and you’re trying to be cautious.” Sometimes, the shit that came out of her mouth… then again, Sookie was the same way… she told my boys that periods made women monsters for fuck sake…

“And what am I supposed to be doing?”

“By my calculations, we could have your pants off by now if you weren’t stalling… you could be half way to earning a few back scratches.” I shouldn’t have asked.

“That’s just mean… we really shouldn’t press our luck.”

“No. ‘Mean’ would be telling you that Hadley is still asleep. You’re busted, asshole.”

I yanked my hand out of her nightgown and shoved myself back on the porch and just stared at the back of her head while she laughed her fucking ass off… and then she turned around… It WAS Had! “I’m going to kick your ass for that! I just about had a damn heart attack!”

She was still laughing and started coming towards me. “I told you. That was ‘mean’.”

“Well then you were right. Happy?” Her laugh was more of a giggle, but she was still coming in my direction. “Nope. Stay away. I’m pissed at you.”

“Then let me make it up to you.”

“You can’t unless you have a healthy heart laying around.”

“Would it make you feel better to know that Eric made out with me for 20 minutes and didn’t know I wasn’t Sookie?”

“You’re kidding?”

“Yeah.” She started giggling again and sat on my legs so that I couldn’t get away from her.

“You know what!…”

She gave me a smart ass look. “What? Tell me what. Why don’t you go ahead and educate me.”

“That wasn’t funny.”

“Yes it was.”

“No…”

“You know it was. If Sookie did that to Eric, you’d piss your pants.”

I growled at her to try and cover that I was close to laughing from just picturing it. “So.”

“Don’t sulk.”

“I’ll do whatever I want.”

“Prove it.”

“What?”

“Prove you’ll do whatever you want. Let’s go for a little walk in the woods.” Evil or not, she was right, but…

“Had, the kids…”

She shut me up with a kiss and managed to stand up without taking her tongue out of my mouth. “Be right back.”

I watched her dart into the house and then sat there and waited. I knew damn good and well she was up to something… I hadn’t known her for a whole week and I knew her well enough to know she was always up to something.

When she came back, she had her cell phone in her hand and before I had the chance to ask what the fuck it was for, my pocket started vibrating.

She wiggled her eyebrows. “Go ahead and pick up. That’s our baby monitor… I’ll leave mine on the porch. If yours is on speaker then we’ll know if anyone starts looking for us.”

**

As soon as I let it show that my vote was swaying, she grabbed the quilt and started pulling my arms…

Somehow, with all of the chewing and kissing we managed to lay out a plan for if we got interrupted by the time we got to where she was leading us.

She barely paid any attention to how the blanket ended up before she turned around and started kissing me again, clawing at my shirt to get it off and going straight for my belt before my shirt hit the ground.

I was still worried about being caught but not enough to keep from pulling her gown off and starting to push her panties down… we couldn’t get out of our clothes fast enough and neither one of us had the patience to deal with my fucking boots.

I couldn’t bring myself to care, but Had growled and bent over and while she yanked on the laces, she chewed on my legs through my jeans. It didn’t tickle… all the way up to my fucking ears, it didn’t tickle and even though I knew some of what she was capable of, I’d have been just fine for her to bite my damn legs.

She was gnawing her way up, closer and closer to my dick… every bite made me harder…

When she dragged her teeth over the head, my eyes started to cross…

Over the shaft and wrapping her teeth around… everything fucking stopped for a second. Every. Fucking. Thing… and then her jaw started to vibrate and it rattled straight through me…

Like cumming without cumming…

She knew it too. It was so dark that I could barely see her when I looked at where the wicked chuckle was coming from. “You were scared I was going to bite you…”

It wasn’t until I tried to say anything that I realized my breathing was getting out of hand… “fuck… I was… do that again…”

She raked her teeth again… wrapped her mouth around… forced a long hot breath through my pants… and the only thing keeping me from falling over when her mouth pulsed around my dick was the two fistfuls of hair reminding me to lock my knees… all over… if she did it again, I’d have been done…

Had was already pulling my jeans down when I bent over pulling her mouth back to mine, making myself focus on a kiss to calm down…

I practically fell… caught myself on my hands and knees, but she wrapped her legs around me while I did my own chewing…

My turn…

As soon as I let go of her hair, she grabbed mine while I moved down… one inch at a time of perfect, smooth skin…

Hard nipples waiting for me…

And the way she moaned when I nibbled them might’ve spooked some of the birds but it made me want more…

Squirming and groaning, arching her back to me, but trying to get away while I worked my way down her stomach…

And the second my tongue touched the ring going through her clit, her thighs clamped down around my head so tight that I almost didn’t hear her squeal…

Fuck… she tasted so fucking good… I had to move her legs, put her feet on my shoulders. It didn’t keep her still, but at least I could breathe.

She scared more birds when I pushed my fingers into her…

So wet…

Throbbing…

She lifted her hips, writhing against my mouth, clenching around my fingers until my dick hurt so much I thought I would die…

Until her body seized up… her body tensed until she’d lifted her whole body off of the ground…

Her heels dug into my back and her body twisted… she tightened down, squeezing around my fingers like a fist… growling into the blanket…

And then she went limp. She collapsed into the blanket like she weighed a ton and started laughing in her throat and grabbing for my arms to pull me up.

**

She had her mouth open like she wanted to say something, but she grabbed my lip between her teeth and started chewing over my chin… my throat… my shoulder…

She reached between us… grabbing my dick and stroking it…

Rubbing it over her clit, making herself twitch and lining us up…

She was still throbbing, clenching, trembling when I pushed in.

It was almost too much.

Her legs wrapped around me again, pulling me in as she moved with me, scratching across my back…

Until she pushed her head back, lifting her shoulders again…

Tightening down around my dick until it hurt to move and hurt not to…

I wasn’t ready.

I wasn’t done…

I might have actually said out loud, ‘oh no you don’t’… I wasn’t sure…

I pushed back to my knees and pulled out so that she wouldn’t take me with her and forced it out of her.

She rolled over to her side, calling me a ‘dirty playing fucker’ into the blanket when I rubbed her clit until she locked up again.

I didn’t give her the chance to catch her breath… she squeaked again when I grabbed her hips and pulled her up to her knees…

She rocked her hips and growled…

Sweating…

Grabbing…

Pulling…

Groaning into the blanket…

She was trembling so hard that I thought it was me…

I was already close when she tightened up again, clenching around my dick in throbs.

She was panting… “Don’t you dare stop this ti…!”

There wasn’t any way I could if I wanted to.

I was already cumming when I reached around her thigh to rub her clit again…

And when I did her body locked down. Every fucking muscle in her sexy fucking body went rigid except for the ones wringing my dick in pulses.

That time, when she went limp, so did I.

I crashed into the ground behind her like I’d been tackled.

**

I have no idea how long we were laying there before I wasn’t seeing stars anymore.

The only thing to make me wonder was that I was slapped on the hip. “Good game.”

I snorted, but I was trying to laugh even though I was still panting. “Tell that to the birds. I don’t think they’re impressed.”

“Bats.”

“Do what?”

“There’s no birds out here. It’s all bats that you heard. Let’s hope they can keep a secret… You have your legs back yet?”

“I think so.” No. No, I didn’t. I needed to stall so I wouldn’t look like a tard and fall over.

She giggled and rolled back enough to face me and give me a dirty look. “Good. I might need you to carry me.”

“What? You’re not pissed. Shut up.”

“My legs are jello and it’s your fault. I’m not pissed, but I might be bowlegged. How do we explain that?”

“Spooning with Laf?”

She laughed, “Won’t float.”

“I wasn’t about to risk getting caught for a quickie. Bite me.”

She smirked at me and leaned in to give me a kiss that was nearly impossible to pull away from without going back for seconds. “Maybe later.”

**

When we got back to the porch, Had grabbed our coffee cups and kept going… She sat down next to me, but not ‘too close’, wrapped in a blanket that wasn’t covered with grass stains, sweat and cum, with a cup of coffee for each of us and I handed her a cigarette…

She checked her phone and giggled at a text and whispered ‘it’s about damn time’.

“What’s that?”

She hummed as she answered the text. “Momma wants to know when I’ll be home.”

“And why is that funny enough to make you laugh?”

“Because Momma got lucky last night and wants to know how long she has before she pushes her booty call out the door.”

I chuckled ‘cougar’ and got elbowed for it.

“It’s not like that…” She stopped to look at her phone when she got chimed… and she had to cover her mouth before she laughed loud enough to scare the rest of the bats out of Bon Temps and shoved her phone at me.

I took the phone, almost afraid of what I’d see.

The thread…

‘When do you think you’ll be staggering home?’
‘Staying for a while. Enjoy the peace. Kiss Bravo for me.’
‘You’re grounded. Know it all little b****’

I handed the phone back to her. “Your mom and Bravo, huh?”

“Flirting for years. I had Daddy do some magic guilt-work to make sure she was home for the cookout. She wouldn’t leave me and Hunter. He couldn’t stay here because of transfers so they never started anything up. Bravo’s finally retiring. That’s all she needed to hear.”

“So… while fucking with Eric and Sookie, and Fran and Jason, you were working the Cougar and Bravo together while playing wingman for Alpha and Keisha.”

“Funny side note: I can’t actually juggle.”

I snorted at her, just because I was pretty fucking sure she hadn’t tried… and she got another text.

She smiled at her phone while she read it. “It’s from Bravo. ‘I’m surprised you noticed since you spent all day eyefucking the fresh meat. Don’t play. You’re next once we get Alpha out of the She-FED.”

“Lovely.”

She swayed and bumped me with her shoulder. “Oh, it’ll be fun. We were planning on running hot and cold on Sook and Eric anyway. If the Horsemen start pushing before we come out, then we can just franchise out… Maybe even do some hostile flirting.”

“Hostile flirting, huh?”

“Yeah… and I mean… since it’s the kids we’re worried about, if anyone catches us in something we can’t play off, we’ll just let them know mum’s the word…”

“Like Corbett…”

“I can’t think of anyone other than Quinn that would be a douche about it.”

“Pam. It still bothers the living shit out of me that she knows we kissed. With Keisha coming back from the bench, Alpha won’t be able to gag her for long. She’ll start in as soon as he cuts her loose.”

“Well then… I could arrange for a hunting accident. Me, Sookie, Momma, Kenny…”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s the same shit Corbett threatened Bill with the night Eric punched him.”

“I am a Stackhouse after all.”

“Yeah. About that… How is it that your name is Stackhouse Savoy instead of Della…”

She cut me off, “Eh. My father was a complete prick. A violent version of Sheila with all the personality and rational thought process to go with it. He disowned me when I was 11. It wasn’t the first time. He did it anytime a normal parent would ground a kid… but it was the last. I emancipated myself and changed my name.”

“At 11? How the hell did you manage that?”

“He was dipping into my trust fund. Courts tend to frown on that. Momma was separated from him so it was pretty easy. Gran and Grampa became my guardians ad litem…” She started to snicker. “Talk about pissed. He had to get a job. And his bookie put him in the hospital. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.” When the Stackhouses circled their wagons, it was just impressive… Not that I didn’t already know that.

“Don’t tell my boys… it’ll put ideas in their heads. Jack’s already calling his mother by name. She’s gonna shit porcupines the first time she hears that.”

“I’m sure. He’s talking to Hunter, you know… it’s probably a peer thing. Venting. I told Hunt not to give him any advice though, just to listen.”

“Jack shrugs it off when I try. You get any details?”

“No. Hunter’s a black sheep. Little prick actually respects privacy. Can you imagine?”

I chuckled at her. “No. I can’t imagine it. Not at all.”

“He promised to tell you if Jack said anything to worry about. He pays enough attention that if there’s anything more than bitterness, he’d catch it.” I didn’t doubt it at all. The kid was perceptive as hell.

“I’m just glad he’s talking to someone. I was starting to worry that he was mastering his bottling technique.”

“Does it help to know that Sookie isn’t worried about them at all? I asked how they were just because I didn’t want to irritate any fresh wounds… She compared your wife to Sheila minus housekeeping and said that the boys were just as relieved to be here as she was to live in Dallas.”

“When did they live in Dallas?”

“When they were little. Right after Momma left Howard for good and Daddy didn’t need to watch out for us. They spent a couple of years there.”

“What made him come back? Well, the Sheila thing…”

“She got therapy. She was better for a while. Stayed with the same shrink for a while, but all the help fell away and she went right back to being a twat again after about a year.” Fucking hell… All I could think about was that I’d have given Ame the chance to get help until I heard that.

I gave the ultimatum. I would’ve made the fucking appointments myself. I’d have driven her to and from and watched to make sure she actually took any medication she’d been given. I’d have done it all and it would’ve been for nothing because Ame would’ve gone right back to the way she was before as soon as I trusted her to take care of herself… She’d have gone right back to fucking with the boys’ heads. She’d have gone right back to making me hate the sight of my own front door. She’d have started it all over again and I’d have let it snowball before hitting ‘replay’. Not because I still loved her, because that was dead and buried in a shallow grave somewhere between Bon Temps and New Orleans… because I didn’t want my kids to think I gave up.

**

I would’ve needed a carton of cigarettes, a swimming pool full of java and a kick in the dick to get through that mindfuck… OR a car coming up the driveway…

0730 and there was company. What the fuck… but thank God.

It was one of the limos from the night before, so while we waited, we tried to guess who it was… My guess was Fran, hers was Jason…

It was both of them…

As soon as they were out of the car, I started laughing at them… Jason’s t-shirt had fist sized stretches and pulls in it that made me check my shirt… Fran’s hair looked like she’d been an on-the-scene hurricane reporter, but Had pulled hers back when we got back… She’d ditched the shoes she’d been wearing… and his belt wasn’t buckled.

Had pointed at them and sang, “Walk of shame… Walk of shame.”

Jason laughed and tossed himself into her lap and rubbed his face on hers like a needy cat… because he’s retarded. “Ha-ha, my sex is on you!” Ha ha, fucking clown, guess what…

She punched him in the stomach and yelled at him about sloshing her coffee of all things so he finally got up.

“So, what… y’all just now coming up for air too?”

Had snorted. “You could say that. Laf’s dreaming about Supernatural again. I was spooned and called Jared.” I laughed, but Fran and Jason just nodded like it wasn’t a rare thing.

“Ain’t no shame. I been there… What about you?”

“I bunked with Jack last night. Every time he moved I had cuddle-rape flashbacks because of you.” He blew a kiss at me.

Had rolled her eyes at him. “So… are y’all here for more rubbers?” I had to bite my lip.

Jason shook his head and started up the stairs. “Nope just getting her suitcase. Fran’s staying with me.” Then he ducked inside.

That left Fran.

The poor thing.

Had grinned at her. “So I guess y’all didn’t do much talking, huh?”

She shook her head.

“So no wedding plans yet?”

“I’m thinking black for my dress, but other than that…”

“So no baby names either then.”

Fran’s mouth fell open… huge. I’d seen guys take bullets with less reaction. “How the fuck…?”

“What’s my name?”

Fran buried her face in her hands and screamed, “Fucking Stackhouses!”

“And Northmans apparently.”

“He told you?”

“No. He didn’t have to… you were still arguing with Jason here when I caught you. You passed up smoking, drank OJ instead of coffee and I could’ve lured you away from the house with a trail of glitter you’re so flighty… oh yeah… and that swing right there sees less action in a nor’easter than your moods did yesterday. Jas know yet?”

“Yeah.”

“Daddy?”

“Jas just told him.”

“Daddy’s happy all over himself?”

“Yeah. He was already talking about calling Bravo… are you pissed that I didn’t say something to you?”

“No. Since Daddy’s too excited to be a grandfather again, I’m gonna lay it out for you. I’m pissed that if you and Jas fuck up there’s going to be yet another Stackhouse who’s gonna blame himself for how shitty his parent’s marriage was… I’m gonna be the interferingest cunt you’ve ever met to make sure that doesn’t happen. Y’all either love each other or cut bait so you can be civil. Don’t you dare make that baby blame himself for what you don’t have the sense to end. Got it?” Damn. That bitch does not play around. I decided to ignore the lateral move that made Had’s opinion hit home… I’d barely managed to evade the last mindfuck.

“This isn’t like Daddy and Sheila, Had. I swear… I wouldn’t do that.”

“Good.”

“Are we alright?”

“We’re great. I’m already thinking about the nursery… Daddy know you’re eloping too?”

“Goddammit Had! Could you stop with the Sherlock shit!”

Had laughed at her. “I was just guessing you silly twat… Thanks for the intel. Where’ya goin’? Cancun?”

“Fuck you. Cancun wasn’t a guess.”

“What? The only other place would be Tahoe…” When she started singing ‘Having My Baby’, I just about lost it… Not only did she not waste any energy hiding that she was omnipotent, but she made a game of nose-rubbing.

“Fuck you… Tell Jas I’m waiting in the car…” She stomped over and slammed the door to her little hiding place.

Had giggled, “Congrats, Baby girl! Love you!”

A few seconds later the moon roof slid open a little. “I love you too, but I’m still not talking to you.”

**

We made fun of Fran and Jason for a few minutes and when the door opened behind us just a second later, I thought it was just Jason… but it was Hunter.

He was digging into his eyes with the heels of his hands. Barely awake.

“Fuuuuuckkkkk, mom. Between you and Jas, Gran’s gonna wake up. What’s all the yelling about?” He plopped down and leaned against her like a big baby. He shoved my pack of cigarettes away from her and grabbed her coffee… and downed it.

She flicked his ear. “You’re getting me a refill when you get your own… Fran and Jason are here to get her bag.”

He grunted and reached for my coffee, but I grabbed it… and got flipped off. “Where’s Fran then?”

“She’s pouting in the limo.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit. You said something, didn’t you?”

“Like what?” She actually managed to look innocent.

“You either bitched at her for eloping or you teased her about hiding that she’s pregnant.” The. Whole. Mother. Fucking. Family.

She laughed, “That’s MY boy. How’d you know?”

“Eloping was easy. Jas has enough of her sleepover shit at his place that she wouldn’t need her bag this early. The bun in her oven..? Well, she’s gained weight. She misted up when the boys played Good Riddance yesterday… and she didn’t play the drinking game while we played… Turning down Patron was the last nail in the coffin… did you rag on her?”

“Only a little. Just for thinking she could hide it around us.”

“She should know better, but you still didn’t have to claim another victim. Damn secret serial killer.” He tried for my coffee again, but I moved it in time and laughed at him.

“Boy! Go. Get. Your. Own.”

“I would but CMC Buzzkill is grumbling in the kitchen.”

“Be nice. He’s in a bad mood because Eric’s being a fuck.”

My turn. “Just to clarify, why do you think Eric’s being a fuck?”

She raised an eyebrow at me. “That poor guy asked like 20 questions while we cooked yesterday… Smom already knew the answer to most of them. Eric’s acting like he doesn’t want Jim in ‘the loop’. Are you going to defend your boy?”

“No. I was just comparing notes. He says his old man is a judgmental asshole.”

“Opinionated.”

“And rightfully bitter that his son doesn’t talk to him as a way to avoid hearing any opinion.”

Hunter added, “His whole family thinks they’ve been together for a while too…”

Hunter figured them out too? I wasn’t even going to ask if he’d been comparing notes with Had, that was still some funny shit. I know I sounded like an idiot laughing as loud as I was. I started getting up. “This’ll be fun. Hunter go get your gym bag and get dressed for a run.”

“Why?”

“Because, it’s my turn to handle Eric.”

I forgot to grab my coffee so he snatched it up, guzzled it then handed my empty cup to me and said he was ‘down with that’ on his way to Had’s car.

She grinned and waited for an explanation.

I was going to make her ask. “Can I help you?”

She narrowed her eyes. “What are you doing?”

“Forcing him to talk to his old man with a run. That bitch can recite the constitution on a treadmill. He won’t have breathing as an excuse.”

“You think he’s going to talk to his father with you and Hunter as witnesses?”

“No, but it’ll take peer pressure to get Sleep Disorder Ken out of bed this early… If falling back doesn’t work, we’ll ditch them.”

**

CMC was at the kitchen table with coffee and a smoke.

Had took our cups to refill them and make one for Hunter (like he needed a third cup) and I sat down. Making nice was the only way to get him interested. “You should’ve come outside. It was dead calm out there until Jas showed up.”

“I didn’t want to intrude.”

“Oh, we were just outside because we were the first ones up. We didn’t wake you up, did we?”

“No. After so many years on board, I sleep better with noise. I’m also up an hour before dawn no matter what.”

“Lifer, huh?. Up for colors?”

He nodded. “God’s little joke… Poor Deb though… she wakes up with me, makes breakfast and then goes back to sleep for a little bit while I’m at the gym… You weren’t in long enough were you?”

“Nope. 6 years was just long enough to learn to sleep better in a car than a bed.”

“Just 6? You could’ve made it the full 20. The first 4 are the hardest.”

“I only joined for the GI Bill. I thought about staying in, but my mother was dating a prick that needed scaring off so I put in a few applications back home.”

Had was holding out my cup of coffee, but she pulled it back. “Scaring off your mother’s boyfriend? Tell me that you had a good reason.”

“Don’t play with my coffee.”

She threatened me… holding my cup over the sink and started to tilt the cup. “Waiting.”

“Ok! Ok… just put it down.”

She stopped tipping it. “Words. Now. I want them.”

“He was ‘planning to leave his wife’.”

A bead of black gold trickled down the side of the cup when Hadley answered Jason’s ‘bye y’all’ just in time for the door to slam… “How do you know it was bullshit?”

“It didn’t matter. Fact was, he was married and still living with his family. Even if he already planned to leave before they started dating… She felt guilty for being even just a small part of why.”

“How did you scare him off?”

“I’m cooperating. Hand my coffee over…” She thought about it for a minute, but she gave it to me. “…Thank you. I didn’t have to do much of anything. When I moved home…”

“Wait. Dallas home, or in with your mom home?”

“Both. She wouldn’t let me help with her bills if I got my own place. Anyway, he came over to the house one day when I was on the way to work. He started bitching about ‘slackers’ who wouldn’t move out… His son was like 40 and didn’t have a job and his daughter was raising her kids under his roof… he thought I couldn’t hear him call me a ‘momma’s boy’. I told him ‘Tell ya what, I’ll start leaving some cash behind when I fuck your wife’. The first thing he said was ‘That’s MY WIFE you’re talking about. Watch your mouth!’ I was in uniform and he was bowing up on me over a joke about the ‘bitch’ he was supposedly going to fire… Mom quit him quick and in a hurry once she realized she was just a mistress.”

There was a giggle behind me and I hadn’t even heard Smom come into the room in her cute little robe. It made her look like a yellow teddy bear. “Good mornin’. I ran into Hunter. He says you guys are goin’ for a run?”

“Yes ma’am… Staying here, I’ve been running since there aren’t any weights. Sookie’s been dogging me in the mornings.”

“I bet she runs circles around Eric too.”

“We wouldn’t know. Somebody sleeps in.”

CMC snorted. “Some shit never changes. I used to need dynamite to get his ass out of bed for school.”

Smom added, “I finally gave in and started letting him have coffee when he was about 13. I think I was hoping it would stunt his growth though.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Sounds about right. It’ll come up that I went with Sookie and he’ll look all kinds of butt hurt that he didn’t get to go, but… he’s sleeping through the invitations…” I turned to CMC. “…You wanna join us?”

In perfect time, Hunter came in and patted my shoulder and grabbed his coffee. “Sook’ll skin us alive if we don’t ask her. You do it.”

“Why me?” There was the tricky part… getting Sookie. She was the ringer. She could’ve had enough to drink that she wouldn’t be up to it. She could let Eric be her excuse to throw something at me if I went to pass along the invite. Hunter wouldn’t get anything thrown at him (not by Eric anyway). CMC had to be the one to ask. Sookie wouldn’t refuse him… forcing Eric to go along just so he wouldn’t look like a prick. And I’m pretty sure I was getting a set up from Hunter to line that up.

“Because you’ve already seen her naked. I’ll be scarred for life.”

“Just because I’ve seen her naked doesn’t mean that I want to see it again… or spooning involving Eric. Sorry.”

“Fine. We won’t invite her then, but I’m going to blame you.”

“Just go in there with your eyes covered.”

“I’m going to have to ask why you don’t do that. The noises alone could cause damage to delicate ears like mine…”

“Delicate ears, my ass. You just said fuck to your mom, kid. I’m not a retard… You…”

CMC finally gave up. “Would you two knock it off?” He stood up taking his last sip of coffee. “I’ll do it. Pussies.”

We swapped looks around the table while we listened to CMC go to their door and knock… a minute later he grumbled ‘don’t see why that was so damn hard’ on his way up the steps to get changed.

The three of us started laughing and I put my hand out to Hunter. “Hook and ladder?”

He slapped me five. “For the win, bitch. That was beautiful.”

“Damn right it was… I’m gonna go change…”

Smom caught my arm just when I turned around. “What are y’all up to?”

I gave her cheek a kiss. “No offense Smom, but your son and husband are pissing us off. They’re fine unless they’re in a room together. They need some time to talk.”

Her eyes lit up. Fucking adorable. “Ohhhh, God Bless…” She gave my shoulder a nudge. “Go on then. I’ll be prayin’ for ya.”

I could hear Eric bitching at his clothes when I went to change. I laughed at the pissy little bitch. He had no fucking clue he was about to get handled.

Had snarled and tried to pass me in the hall. I caught her wrist and whispered, “What’s that about?” We hadn’t been seeing each other long enough for that shit.

“I didn’t get invited.”

“But Princess, you’re gonna be busy.”

“Doing what?”

I dug the disk with the video fragging virus out of the pocket of my jeans, glad I thought to grab it when I grabbed my clothes. “Open his laptop. Slide the disc in when you see the log in screen, but don’t log in. It’ll autorun in the background and chime when everything’s gone. It should take about 5 minutes. Take the disk out and put her away. He’ll never know you touched it. Done.”

Her eyes hadn’t left the disk until I finished, but then she grabbed my ears and yanked me to her for a kiss. I was worried enough about getting busted that I couldn’t enjoy it. “I owe you big for this.”

“Nah, consider it payback for the pepper smear.” I pecked her cheek and left her standing there so we wouldn’t end up with any unwanted attention.

**

It took a while to make it seem subtle, but Hunter and I managed to put a decent gap between us and the rest of the party…

We were probably a mile in before Sookie caught on and fell back. She slowed down and fell in line with CMC and let them get a gain before she stopped and watched us until we caught up… She picked up like she hadn’t just been standing still. She made me start missing my 20s.

She gave me a dirty look. “I’m going to kick you in the nuts. He’s going to blame me.”

Before I had the chance to say anything, Hunter butted in. “Oh. Fuck. Off. Do you even realize you looked like a tampon running between those two festering twats?”

“I know something needed to be done, but like this… Eric’s not a morning per… Fuck, did you see the look I just got?” Eric’s bitch face might have bothered her, but I saw it enough to not really give a shit.

I shook my head. “He’s already expecting you to be handling him. Settle down.”

“I already was…”

Hunter grunted, “Tell ya what… we’ll own up in detail if Daddy thinks we’re out of line. I have my phone. We’ll duck into the trees and call him now…”

Sookie told him ‘fuck you’ so fast that it sounded like one word.

Hunter chuckled, “That’s what I thought.”

“Just because you’re right about them needing to mend fences doesn’t mean that this is the best way to do it. Eric and CMC have been operating from adjoining cells since before you were born, you know-it-all little shit. Same fucking iron wills with different ideas…”

I shook my head. “Look, you want to handle him slow, that’s fine, we’ll stand down after this… but they’re leaving town in a couple of days. Slow ain’t going to help this shit. San Diego and Bon Temps are only connected by phone lines. If he doesn’t get a push, that prick, my boy, your fiancé is going to go right back to using Smom as a fucking buffer. Oh yeah… and now you. You think that the field office in San Diego didn’t need a crim psych Master? LA, Seattle, Portland, Frisco… anywhere in between for that matter… Don’t think for a second that he picked New Orleans for the nightlife. He wanted to be in the east because he knew his folks were staying put. 2000 miles makes for one hell of a cushion, dontcha think?”

“Fuck you too.”

“Sorry.”

“No you’re not. You’re too busy being right to feel sorry…”

“What the fuck are you so worried about? He’s not going to stay pissed at you if they argue. He’ll just use the pissing match to justify avoiding his father except for Mother’s Day and Christmas.”

“I’m not worried about him being pissed at me. You know that wouldn’t last long.” Only as long as his next hard on anyway.

“Then what?”

“Just… just… I’d just rather go slow than be wrong… fuuuuuucck… Goddammit… distract me.”

I spent about half a second trying to figure out how before Hunter opened his mouth. “How many men does it take to change a light bulb?”

She looked at me and rolled her eyes. “How many?”

“None. Let her do the dishes in the dark.” What the fuck? I couldn’t think of a single woman who wouldn’t break a guy’s nose for that shit…

But Sookie… surprise, surprise… she laughed hard enough that it should’ve hurt. “I love it. I got one… Why did God give men dicks?… So they’d have at least one way to shut a woman up.”

I couldn’t help it… I laughed as much as I could without passing out.

When Hunter was done wheezing, he had another one. “What does a woman have in common with a rubber?… They both spend more time in your wallet than on your dick.”

When I laughed at that one, Eric shot one of his diemotherfuckerdie looks at me. He probably thought we were laughing at him.

Sookie whined, “Fuck… we’re so going to fight over this…” She actually moped for a second before she shook her head. “What do you tell a woman with a black eye?”

Playing along. Hunter and I both asked ‘what’?

“Nothing. You shouldn’t have to repeat yourself.” Fabulous. The girl telling sexist jokes… graduated to domestic abuse after actually being abused…

I felt much safer about the sexist humor all of a sudden… “How do you turn a fox into an elephant?”

She cut her eyes at me. “How?”

“Marry it.”

When she was done laughing, Hunter started a long, dirty limerick… Little Red Riding Hood… Sookie’d already heard it, but I hadn’t. And that’s how we spent the rest of the run… we watched the dualing Northmans talk and told dirty jokes… The raunchiest of them had been from Sookie.

**

I’d laughed and talked too much… my lungs felt like they were on fire when we stopped in the foyer. All 5 of us were trying to catch our breath and I almost had to use the wall to help hold myself up. When the tunnel vision started to back off, I noticed that Sookie wasn’t breathing nearly as hard as the rest of us… and then, that she’d barely broken a sweat. Bitch. I definitely missed my 20s.

I shoved her shoulder. “You’re cooking’s making me lazy… 8 miles doesn’t wind me like this.”

She slapped my ribs. “Of course it’s my cooking and not the 2 packs you smoked yesterday, right PUFF?”

If Hunter wasn’t there I would’ve pointed out that I’d had plenty of help smoking 2 packs, but I blew a raspberry, you know, the adult way to argue.

Smom hustled into the foyer to welcome everyone back. She might’ve been worried that she needed to call 9-1-1… with all the heavy breathing going on, it sounded like Oxygen Tank Day at the nursing home.

None of us had any clue how Eric and CMC’s talk had gone… The sweet little thing was probably more hung up on that than anything. While we huffed and puffed she asked Sookie where she could find a Catholic church so that she could get her fix. I was going to have fun telling Had that Eric slipped up… When Sookie mentioned confessing, his eyes nearly bugged out of their sockets. There was no fucking reason that if they’d have been together for a year that he wouldn’t know the Stackhouses are Catholic… Hunter caught that shit too. The little prick winked at me when Sookie started dragging me down the hall. I had to wait for more coffee because she volunteered us for the first showers… She was going to teach me how to make biscuits and gravy for breakfast.

She was already making me pay for handling Eric.

I got even more annoyed about my public cooking lesson when I noticed that Hadley had curled up in my bed. That shit just wasn’t fair. I wanted to go back to bed too…

**

I figured I’d been faster than Sookie, but she was coming out of her room at the same time I was coming out of the bathroom. She’d shaved time off of getting ready by pulling her hair back into a bun… There just wasn’t any way to church up a body like hers though… she still looked like a cheerleader. She stared at me for long enough that I was starting to get paranoid, but she was listening…

There were three voices in the kitchen. Not just Eric and Smom… CMC was talking too. I wasn’t going to gloat. I wasn’t done smiling before Sookie jumped up to kiss me.

“Don’t let it go to your head, but… thank you. Let’s just hope it sticks.” No shit.

She peeked into my room on our way by and stopped to raise an eyebrow. “I guess Lafayette was dreaming about Paddykins again?”

“Someone named Jared?”

“Same guy. You should watch a few episodes. It makes it funnier.”

“I bet.”

“Next time he’s over, me and the boys will play Carry On My Wayward Son. He’ll weep…” I was still laughing when she pulled me to the kitchen, sounding off, “Head watch turnover. General Quarters; condition 5. 10 minute rotation for the 5 ‘S’s.” Little drill sergeant.

Her GQ announcement actually earned her a grin from CMC though. “Sookie, how the hell do you know so much about the military? I’m still trying to figure out how you guessed I was an FC.”

“Well, I met Terry when I was 3. He was in the navy…”

Eric interrupted, “But he was a POW. How…”

“He piloted an A6 Intruder. He was shot down… Anyway, Remy was a jarhead, and with Bravo being in the Air Force, you pick it up… I guessed you were an FC when Eric rattled off the list of places you’ve been stationed. Dahlgren was the give-away… Since it’s the training center for FCs. I spent a couple of summers there with Bravo while he was at SpaceCOM…” She pulled a skillet out of the cabinet and put in on a burner set to 6 and handed me a couple pounds of sausage. “…Just break it apart and keep it moving like browning hamburger meat.”

“You say that like you think I’ve browned hamburger meat before.”

“No. I told you to break it apart and keep it moving like that so that if I tell you to brown hamburger meat, you’ll know what to do. I’m standing right here. I’ll tell you if you aren’t doing it right. Don’t overthink this part. You’re about to learn how to make a roux.”

“What the fuck is a roux?”

“The base to any good gumbo. When breakfast is done, you’ll be able to make your own gumbo by reading the recipe.”

“I doubt that.”

“Same techniques, different applications. What’s ‘eat’ in Latin?”

“Manducare.”

“Italian?” God damn it. I knew where she was going…

“Mangiare and before you ask, it’s ‘manger’ in French and ‘menjar’ in Catalan. Shut up and let me start screwing up breakfast.”

She poured a cup of coffee for me and patted my back before she pulled out one of her big mixing bowls and started dumping in flour without measuring anything. If she thought I wasn’t going to need to know how much she used, she was high. She caught me watching her and bumped my hip with hers. “If I told you how to make biscuits from scratch would it keep you from buying tubes you can just fling onto a pan?”

“See. You are pretty smart.”

She flipped me off and started zipping around the kitchen.

Eric jumped right back into the conversation like he’d been annoyed to wait. “You lived on Dahlgren!? When?”

“High school. During the summer. I stayed most of both summers. I’d study for my online classes, unfuck his house during the day while he was at work and then we’d make dinner together and swim in the river at night, golf on weekends.” I almost laughed at him. That would be why he was annoyed to wait… He’d been in the same zip code as Barbie, twice. Silly prick was probably thinking that they could’ve lived happily ever after if they met back then. Nevermind that they would’ve been 12 & 14 years old. Romeo and Juliet.

“Where on base?”

“His house was on Sampson. His kids were shits to him and would wreck his house while he was at work when they came to visit during the summers. That second summer I went, his daughter had gotten her tits in and she spent most of her time out of the house making rounds. She was almost never there and when she was, she was on the phone with her boy toys. She ended up marrying a local boy. She lives in Fred-Vegas with him. She’s still a bitch though.”

“She married a summer fling huh?”

“Shotgun wedding… One of her many suitors had a party foul and knocked her up. One of them asked her to marry him. Turns out the kid isn’t his… she says he was asking for it because he was too nice. Twat. You know how I am… and I don’t like being in the same room as Stan… Isabel is worse. It’s like they sweat evil. They got it from their mother.”

“Her last name isn’t Flood though.”

Sookie turned around and leaned against the counter. “No. They took the bitch’s maiden name after the divorce. Beaumont….” Then she was quiet for a minute. “EEEEWWWWW.”

He started laughing and she gagged… it took a second, but… Ken did her god-sister back in high school. That shit was hilarious.

“You’ve been tested right!?”

The man-slut was still laughing. “Extensively.”

She turned back around to check on me and giggled, “I said break it apart, not liquefy it…”

Sookie and I both turned around when we heard a loud slap. Smom had slapped him for being so amused. “You dated her god sister?”

“I guess I did.”

CMC snorted, “Sookie, that kid isn’t blonde and abnormally tall is he?” I laughed. That would be some funny shit if Captain Trojan had a back seat souvenir…

But Sookie… She stopped what she was doing and stared at the wall… I swear, she looked like she was going to ruin breakfast. Green.

Maybe it wasn’t that funny… Even I was starting to wonder when Eric tried to get her attention… She didn’t say anything. She just stared for a while… it was long enough that I know Eric was fucking twitching by the time she turned around…

“Sookie?” She looked like she was going to cry. Ok. Definitely not funny.

The dirty look Eric got from his dad wasn’t a big shock, but Smom shooting daggers at him was new.

“Sookie, say something.”

She whispered, “He’s black.” That funny bitch! And the award for the best performance by a girlfriend in the genre of horror goes to… Sookie!

“What?”

“Gotcha.” She started laughing her ass off and CMC was so fucking amused, he put his hand out for a high five. Mother fucker actually had a sense of humor. Who knew?

Eric’s heart probably needed to be tested just about as much as mine did after Had’s little twin swap prank. “You bitch! I think I shit my pants a little!” I would’ve.

She pointed at him over her shoulder. “You still owe me.”

“How?”

“Because I don’t know anything about any of your other exes, now I have a wretched mental image of Isabel smiling like a doughnut for you… I need to see a picture of one of your other ‘hit it & forget it’s.”

He finally started laughing, and whacked her ass on his way back to get cleaned up.

I shook my head. “That was wrong. Beautiful… but… just wrong.”

“No… wrong would’ve been digging out a picture of a student that would give him a heart attack.”

CMC chuckled again. “It might have worked to give me heart attack too though…”

Hunter walked in at the tail end of the conversation fresh from his shower and made a bee line for the coffee pot. “Why are we having heart attacks?”

Sookie giggled again. “I had Eric convinced that Ferrell could be his. Turns out they were stationed in Dahlgren when Bravo was… He dated Iz before she was old meat.”

He gagged. “Ew. She’s… the devil…”

“She was just a bitchy teenager when he knew her. She was hot once.”

“But… Ewwwwww.” I couldn’t help but laugh. I mean, the kid could sound like a lawyer in an argument, but ‘ew’ was the best he could do.

I had to ask… “How bad is she?”

He bolted from the room and came back with his cell phone. He held it up and the brunette looked like she smelled shit, and I’m guessing she was supposedly smiling. It was a posed picture so it wasn’t like somebody snapped the picture of her while she was eating or talking… she just looked pissy. The worst part was that the red headed guy in the picture with her and three kids had his arm around a boy not much older than Jack and darker skinned than Laf… the poor kid stood out more than a little.

“That twat, she’s a piece of shit… you met Bravo… That guy’d give you the shirt off his back in the damn snow if you needed it. He paid for the wedding, and gave them a down payment on a house for their wedding present… Then she named the kid after one of her stepfathers. Bitch can’t figure out why I won’t friend her on facebook either.” That would explain Bravo’s preference for Stackhouses to his own kids.

Sookie snatched his phone from him and replaced it with a bag of grits since he was blocking her from getting to that side of the stove. “You hush. I don’t like them either, but you’re too young to be so jaded.”

“You just forgive her bullshit because she tried to ‘steal’ Bill from you.”

Smom gasped. “She didn’t!”

Sookie giggled and nodded. “They slept together at Thanksgiving a few years back while we were still married. Somehow it was my fault.”

“Your god sister…”

“My God Father’s daughter.”

Smom giggled. “She slept with your husband…”

“The asshole I married.”

“You didn’t care?”

“Truth be told… I was hoping that they’d get hooked on each other. No such luck. Poor Iz didn’t have a trust fund. After all, that’s the most important quality to look for in a girl, right?”

Hunter broke in with, “No. Tits. That’s the right answer… yeah.. I’m pretty sure… Is there going to be an essay?”

Smom looked like she was trying to ignore him, but it didn’t work out. CMC was even laughing at the little pervert. Hunter went to the fridge and pulled out a stick of butter, and asked how many pounds of sausage there were… Then he walked me through making the roux… Ok. That’s when I decided to feel like a retard. A child, fuck that he was an over grown one, A CHILD was showing me how to cook. Goddamn Stackhouses… born with a silver spoon in their mouths and spatulas in their hands. Assholes.

**

When Eric came back, it was his turn for show and tell, I guess. He handed his phone to Sookie… whatever it was, got a dirty look. “You still have a picture of an ex on your phone?”

Hunter snatched the phone from her and shared with me… “See. I was right.” The pic was of one of Eric’s former bobble-headed bimbos… Hunter was right about her tits. Eric yanked it out of my hand when I started laughing.

“No, but her number was still in there, so I texted her for a picture.” And she just sent it? She’d been curbed a while back… months…

Sookie giggled, “You’ve got good taste.”

He shrugged. “Eh…” The look on Sookie’s face was less than amused. “…What?”

“Eh?” He just nodded and silly me, I figured that he was about to ‘get it’. All it took was a text and the girl was sending him a topless picture of her in bed… Even Sookie could assume that there was more to it… even Sookie could assume that they were recent, or still meeting up until last week. They’d only been together for a fucking week… He could’ve been with that girl the day before they met for all she knew. I prepared to throw myself on the bomb, back him up when she flew off the handle… I should’ve known better. “…How lucky for me.”

They were still attached at the lips when my fist connected with his shoulder. I didn’t even think about it. My bitter streak bypassed my brain and went directly down my arm. He made it look like something was going on and she didn’t care… Meanwhile, I was divorcing a cunt who’d been accusing me of everything under the sun without a good reason for years. Yeah. Bitter was too boiled down of a term… I probably would’ve hit Ame if she’d been in the room though. So at least there’s that.

Eric knew why I hit him and that dick actually looked sympathetic. Sookie was more pissed than he was. “What the FUCK, Tex?”

“Just reminding him what fucking planet he’s on.” Lucky prick. Could there be one thing ‘wrong’ with Sookie? Just one. That would be great.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh nothing… ‘cept for you’d be hard pressed to find a bitch who wouldn’t jump on a guys shit for keeping a booty call’s number in their phone.”

She rolled her eyes at me and Eric sat his pretty ass down at the table like he was going to enjoy the show. “FUCK!… I forgot the rules. Remind me. Uhhh… I’m supposed to have a hissy fit because he forgot to delete a girl that rates so high as to get an ‘eh’? I might have gotten my hair up about a ‘Mmmm’ or an ‘Ooff’. She probably only scored a 1 out of 5 thumbs up on the S Scale.”

He cleared his throat and nodded. “One… Maybe two.”

Hunter hissed, “Surface and…?”

Eric grumbled that he should get back to him when he was older.

What the fuck was the… “S scale?”

Sookie giggled at me, “Surface, Space, Sex, Suck, Social…” Poor Smom turned beet red… But CMC couldn’t be more entertained. What a difference one talk did… “As a bonafide fucking five, why would I freak out about a one? How irrational are normal girls?”

“Very… Define the categories?”

“Surface: her curb appeal, is she a butterface? Butterass?… Space: clingy or independent…  Sex & Suck should explain itself… Social: can she be in a conversation and not constantly need to Google the big words. Can she hear a dirty joke and not take offense? Does she take it out on the guy when the waitress flirts with her date? How much fun she is, or how much fun she’ll let you have.”

There was so many fucking things wrong with that, that I didn’t know where the fuck to start. Seriously. I mean, I was surprised when Sookie wasn’t offended by 1 to 10 scales when I slipped and mentioned it. My own mother whopped me for calling a girl a 6 in high school and called it sexist… What was worse was that I was catching myself juggling apples and oranges again… Ame- Butterlegs (even though she wasn’t overweight, her calves were thick as hell). Clingy wasn’t as fitting as warden; even when we first started dating, she wanted to know where the fuck I was at all times. She couldn’t give a blow job to save her life and she could’ve been dead for all the energy she put into fucking… Social? There wasn’t enough time in the day… Does the S Scale go into the negatives?

And then… now there was Had… or, since I was thinking about curb appeal, I could’ve called her Angel Urbino. I don’t think anyone would argue that an underwear model didn’t have curb appeal, so wasn’t worth mentioning. She had it in spades. Clingy wasn’t an issue, yet… but I had the feeling it wouldn’t be. Even if she was clingy, someone else would probably have to tell me because I liked being around her. She’d given me the best fucking blow job I’d ever had, so I guess that was another point… and if I spent any time at all thinking about our little walk in the woods, I’d get hard again… And she was a social fucking butterfly…

Apples and Oranges…

Apples and fucking oranges and a huge case of culture shock on my part.

“Why are sex and suck two different categories and fun seems lumped in with social?”

Sookie smiled at me. She was having too much fun. “Because you can’t take her anywhere and have fun with her if she’s going to embarrass you around your friends… Sex and Suck are two very independent acts… and equally important… there’s a lot of ways to fuck them up.”

Poor Smom. She was already so embarrassed and there was a horny tween in the room, but I had to ask. “How?”

“Just laying there for starters… pushing too hard, too fast… being a prude… being timid about going down… employing only one body part… a girl can fuck up a great blow job by not giving attention to anything else… a guy is more likely to fuck up a great roll by not getting his hands wet…. This could take a while. Do you want to take notes, or was that enough?” Hunter was snickering his little ass off, but Eric’s giggle-fest was starting to piss me off.

“Ok, and why doesn’t the one to ten scale work?”

“Couple ‘a reasons… a guy could say a girl is a 7 because she’s hot and gives great head, but she’s about as much fun as a dish rag and needs batteries to get off. The ‘S scale’ is better because a thumbs down implies that she is lacking in certain areas… And for a guy to ‘wingman’ for you from a distance, flashing a 3 or 4 is a little more discrete than searching for a place to put a beer to flash a 6 through 10.” Un. Fucking. Real

“You think like a guy.” More like a guy hanging out with other guys who was pretty sure there weren’t any women around to beat his ass for talking shit.

“Uh huh. Thank you.” She was smiling bigger than she was in her pageant pictures. She took that shit as a compliment.

Now, I heard the throat clear from the doorway to the kitchen, I had a feeling I was in for it… if it wasn’t for the way Had described herself as a  ‘horny, double-jointed MILF’ I might’ve thought she’d try to knock Sookie down a peg… But I was learning… I knew better. “Alc needed the S Scale laid out? What rock has he been under?”

Sookie snorted. “Marriage. It’s not the scale as much as he’s almost appalled that I’m not shitting my pants over one of Eric’s exes sending a picture to him.”

Sookie didn’t say that it was asked for. She didn’t say that Eric showed it to her. She was vague… Anything could’ve been read into it… Had just giggled.

“You too?” Not surprised other than they were the first women I’d ever met who wouldn’t be freaking out, irritated, chomping at the bit… something. Anything.

She shrugged and walked over to stand next to Sookie. “Blame daddy. He raised us to be the type of girls our men wouldn’t want to leave at home.”

Sookie added, “We could throw darts, play chess, box, bait our own hook…”

Then Had… and I was sure they did that shit on purpose. “We actually watched the games we cheered at, play poker and work for what we want instead of waiting for someone to gift it to us.”

Sookie’s turn… “That movie… As Good As It Gets… ‘How do you write women so well?”

Had nodded and rolled her eyes. “I think of a man, and take away reason and accountability.”

Those two tomboys went back and forth with quote after quote of some of the most sexist shit I’d ever heard, and they were 110% serious.

Eric started laughing again while the two of them started dishing out breakfast, “Who’d have figured misogyny could be so sexy?”

Had started, “It’s not hatred for women…”

Sookie finished for her,“…It’s intolerance to the stereotypical lack of reasoning bitches display. Big difference.” Huge fucking difference… again, culture shock. Big time.

CMC finally said something, and I felt like I’d been let off the hook a little. “So your dad is why you don’t think women belong in the military?”

Sookie snorted, “No. Watching Remy PT alongside girls our size and finding out they’re in the same unit decided that for me. My retarded father actually thinks that women can do anything they want… Until I suggest kicking him in the balls.” At least there was a basis for that. I didn’t suffer from any delusions that someone their size could drag someone my size to cover if shit got hairy. Dead weight doesn’t want to move.

But still… “Do either of you have any female friends or did you run them off?”

The way Had smiled at me, scared the hell out of me. Like… like a bird who landed in a gator pit. “We ran them off. I sit on the loading dock at the store and eat lunch with my guys. We play craps, bitch about the Saints and tell dirty jokes while we eat pizzas or grinders. We have a shit load more fun than the girls who sit in the break room with a Lean Cuisine and talk about litter boxes and Dancing With The Stars. Who’d you rather hang out with?”

“That’s different. I’m a guy.”

“Why does it have to be? Comedy or Drama?” No emo for me, thanks.

“Comedy.”

“Football game or recreational shopping?” No contest.

“Game.”

“Fucking or fighting?” Was that an invite?

“Fucking.”

“Right… Laughing, relaxing and having sex are rational preferences to making yourself upset, pissing away money and causing conflict. And yet…” Fuck. No wonder Hunter’s such a smart ass. He got it from his mother. I’d been thinking he spent too much time with Jason.

I probably cringed. “Silly bitches prefer the latter?”

She patted my shoulder and when she turned back around to make another plate of food, her hip rubbed over my dick. “Good boy.” She did that shit on purpose.

Eric mumbled with a mouth full of food. “You two need to stand down. It’s too early for reverse feminism. You may very well have ruined his train of thought for the whole day.”

They both said, “Yes sir.” And then winked at me.

Somehow… I’d ended up secretly seeing a man trapped in a fabulous body.

**

We were just settling in to eat when the boys woke up. I was surprised with all of the talking and company and traffic that they’d slept so late.

Hunter jumped up and took his plate to the counter and patted my shoulder. He started dishing out food for Jack and Carm, leaving his empty seat for Jack… Carm didn’t have to wait to get invited to sit in Smom’s lap.

Hunter didn’t seem to mind sitting on the counter to eat one fucking bit… He might’ve had a mouth on him, but he was a really good kid…

Jack was halfway through his second plate when he asked Sookie why she was dressed like she was going to work on a Sunday.

“Because I’m taking Smom to church.”

“You go to church?”

“Not as often as I should.”

“Daddy’s catholic.”

“We are too.”

“Is Eric going?”

“I think he’s going to use work as an excuse to not go this week. Things piled up last night.”

Carm looked at me. “You have to work too?”

“Yeah. Just paperwork though.”

“Oh… I kinda wanted to go…” He’d never mentioned it before… Ame and I had more than a few fights about it… She was even pissed that I wanted them baptized.

Sookie grinned at me from across the table. “Did you guys go to church in New Orleans?”

“No… Mommy said that organized re, re, re…”

I finished for him. “Organized religion is a con apparently.” I watched Smom bite the inside of her mouth. Had snarled, but kept her thoughts to herself… It went over like a turd in a punch bowl.

Sookie cleared her throat. “Well, I’d say she’s outvoted. Since your Daddy’s going to be working would you like to go?”

The boys lit up. They hit me with ‘please, please, please’ like I needed to be swayed. I was just glad I’d bought them some nicer clothes when I went shopping in NOLA. I’d been thinking about picture day and not knowing when it would be, but this was much better.

“That’s fine. If y’all like it, I’ll go with you next week as long as nothing comes up with work.” I could use a good confession… or 10.

While we were clearing the dishes, I had to pull in more than a few goofy smiles… Some were for sentimental reasons… My mom would be happy as hell that the kids ate a big Sunday breakfast at a full table and were excited to head out to church. Some of my reasons were just evil… Ame’s asshole would pucker so tight she’d be waterproof if she knew the kids were going to church.

**

Since I’d only bought them one pair of slacks, one dress shirt and one tie each, there wasn’t any confusion for them about what to wear. And the little turds didn’t bother asking me to help with their ties either…

As soon as they got that far, they left to find Sookie.

I was almost to the foyer when I inventoried bodies. I was almost panicking when I realized that the boys were about to walk in on Eric and Sookie… alone.

It turned out to only be half of an oh-shit-moment.

Sookie was on Eric’s lap, but it was more G-rated than I’d given them credit for.

They didn’t have to ask. Sookie reached out and started with tying Carm’s tie and smiled up at me. “D’you have plans later? Smom, Marnie and I are going into Shreveport for some shopping. I can bring them back after church if you have plans.”

“No. I was planning on watching football and dealing with IDs for most of the day since we have a few hundred to deal with from last night and we haven’t even touched the boxes Pam brought back.”

Carm stepped back so that Sookie could get to Jack’s tie. “Cool. I just told Eric that y’all should kill the leftovers for lunch and I’ll be home to make dinner.”

“Don’t buy them anything.” They had more than enough stashed to buy a couple of birthdays worth of stuff.

Sookie giggled ‘yes sir’ because the boys were trying to kill me with a pretty impressive pair of ‘eat shit’ looks.

“Don’t look at me like that. You’ve got more than $800 in the damn cuss bank. You can spend your own money if see anything you want.”

Carm bitched, “Dats New York money! We’re saving up. Spending it now does adainst de cuss bank.” I had to force a straight face. When he was pissed, his letters slipped… it was cute.

Sookie laughed at him. “You both make a fair point… I bet Laf and Had will write him a solid recommendation for Law School.”

Do what!? “Had went to law school?”

The boys took off, griping and planning on taking $100 with each of them and leaving the rest so they wouldn’t be tempted to spend more. Huh. Funny that their mother never thought of that.

Sookie looked around the corner like she was about to spill state secrets. “International and Corporate from Georgetown while they were at Quantico and then when Remy stationed to Little Creek she got bored and went to ODU for Art History and Interior Design because it was a more portable field than Law.”

No fucking way. The whole mother fucking family…

Eric must’ve had a V8 because I was lost. “Hon, how did she manage law school with a baby?” Good. That was on my list… a design degree would’ve been hard enough to do with a baby to take care of… Law?

“Momma went with them to help take care of Hunter. Daddy ran the dealerships for her. It was his turn anyway.”

“Turn?”

“Yeah, Daddy bowed out for a couple of years to get away from Sheila, so Momma tended to the landscaping company for him.”

“So business, law and government for the grandkids… You never told me what your Dad’s degree is in.” At least I knew that Linda had been a teacher before she took over the dealerships.

“Which one?”

“Your whole fucking family really likes their blue collar costumes, huh? Alright hit me. What degrees do Dad have?”

She stuck her tongue out at him for being pissy. “He did the engineering degree while he and Unc were at Auburn. Then when Jas and I were little, he got sick of Sheila and gave himself that time out so he wouldn’t kill her. We lived in Dallas for 3 years while he went to school as his excuse. Philosophy…  That’s why Jason’s Spanish is so good. Our nanny there had two boys his age and their English wasn’t very good yet. Jas worked out a trade. He taught them ‘American’ and they taught him ‘Puerto Rican’. Daddy’d have enlisted but he didn’t want to leave us with Sheila.”

“Ok. What else is on the list?” Doctor, lawyer and rocket scientist, of course. Damn family.

“It was the Easter after Jas and I left for school that Gran found her first lump. They did the mastectomy and everything seemed fine, but while everyone was worrying about it, Daddy and Gran had one of ‘those’ talks. She said that the only regrets she had were not getting to go to college or travel much. So Daddy enrolled both of them at Loyola and bought a house down there. They both got a Degree in Classical Studies and we celebrated their graduation with a summer in Italy. When the doctor told her that the cancer had come back, she smiled at told him she was fine with that. She’d done everything she ever wanted and then some.”

I actually wanted to cry… I hadn’t had any kind of warning. My mom didn’t want to worry me when she’d been diagnosed with heart problems… Between Dallas and NOLA, it was easy for her to hide it and she didn’t make it through her only heart attack…  I’d kill to have had the chance to help her with a bucket list…

Since Eric was still interviewing her, I focused on that instead. I’d already done my wallowing about not knowing.

“What about Grampa? Harvard? Yale?”

“He didn’t even finish high school. Grampa joined the Army at 16 so that he could be home to marry her after she was out of school. They got married a month after graduation and Linda was born 10 months later. They never spent a penny of their inheritances. It’s how they started the bank, but it just sat there collecting dust.”

He shook his head. “You’re all hiding in this piss ant town in nowhere, Louisiana.”

“Hey! Bon Temps is great.”

“Just because you’re all here.” He had that right.

She giggled. “Besides… I told you we’re lucky to have found something that makes us happy. What’s that old George Carlin joke about losing things?… He follows it with a quick bit about finding them. How you stop looking when you find what you’re looking for… because it would be stupid to keep looking for something you already found.”

“Again. You’re being too deep. George Carlin was a social satirist. What made him so funny was the way he made fun of stupid shit that everyone can relate to… Fuck you.” I leaned back against the sink and lit up. Those two started wrestling about Sookie being right all the time. That by itself was funny, but since she looked like she was winning- in heels and a dress no less, I wanted popcorn.

They looked like idiots. They managed to knock over the chair and every time he tried to pin her, she wriggled loose. God help us if she ever needed to be held down.

It didn’t take much time for everyone in the damn house to check out the racket coming from the two clowns’ ‘fight’. When Hunter rolled his eyes and went back to whatever he’d been doing, Had hopped up on the counter and lit up…

When the tards realized there were witnesses to their little fit, Sookie quit. “What? You’ve never seen a couple fight before? Get outta here!…” She was still laughing when she told everybody that she was leaving without them if they weren’t in the car in two minutes.

**

As soon as we were alone in the kitchen, Had stretched over and ran her tongue up the side of my neck to my ear… and she did it so slow that every part of my fucking body got the chance to be jealous.

Chills.

“What are you doing today? Hanging out here? Going to church?” Law library?

“I’m going to use Hunter’s wrecked bedroom as an excuse to go home, draw a hot bath and enjoy some peace and quiet. Wanna wash my back?”

“Yes. Bitch.”

She giggled right into my fucking ear… chills again. “I’m not a bitch. My bathroom has a window and a lock on the door.”

“Fine. Give me a little while. Eric’s not going to take the news of me quitting to be your towel boy well.”

She bit my shoulder when she laughed and finally sat back once she was sure she ruined me for the day. “I’ve got housework to do and dry cleaning to drop off. Normal Sunday routine. You’ve got that sea of IDs to catalog?”

“Yeah. I’m not sure how much I’m going to get done though. Someone wore me out before the sun was up and then took a little nap in my bed.”

“Jealous?”

“Absolutely. Jack got to snuggle with you and I get to have the Ken doll drive me like a Longhorn to take care of shit.”

“You’re pouting.”

“So. I’m allowed. It’s Sunday and you know damn good and well my boss is fucking off somewhere and doing jackshit…”

“Actually, your boss is Momma’s new plaything. She’s pissed that Momma went over and woke her up vacuuming the bedroom then put her to work.”

“You’re kidding. Pam? Housework?”

She pulled her phone out and futzed with it and then held it up… Pam was snarling, but she was bent over a bathtub with a scrub brush in her hand.

I laughed, “Christmas came early!”

“I’m glad you like it. I was worried about if it would fit.”

“Like a glove. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome… Now give me a kiss before there’s witnesses. I’m heading out.”

The kiss was easy. Keeping my hands to myself so that I wasn’t caught with a hard on and my hands on her tits… that was tough.

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