Someone tapped on the bedroom door.
“Yeah?” I called from the closet.
Chica poked her head in. “Do you have another pair of shorts? Randy doesn’t have any with him.”
“Yeah. One second.”
I dug around in a drawer and found a pair. Not my favorite, they’ve hardly been worn. Chica had bought them for me in Bermuda. They’re bright yellow with big red and orange hibiscus on them. Not my style at all. The ones I was wearing were navy blue with a white stripe.
“He’ll look so good in these!”
“He can keep them.”
“You don’t like my gift?”
“Not really my style, sis.”
Pouting, she strutted out, slamming the door. I’m gonna hear about that till the end of time.
Moments later, Rowena came out of the bathroom. The suit looked just as good as I’d anticipated. Dare I say better? I’d had things under control, but that went out the window in a rush of lust.
“God, you’re beautiful,” I whispered. Taking her in my arms, I kissed her. “Do you know how much I want them all to go away, so I can ravish you?”
She rubbed her hips against mine. “Yeah, pretty good idea. But do you know how much I want that, too?”
“So much,” I growled against her throat.
The door popped open. Dionne stood in the doorway.
“Inappropes, brother.”
“My house. My bedroom. My girlfriend. I can be as inappropriate as I want.”
I could see her gearing up to rip into me. Dionne can be a mean drunk, and she’d had just enough to get surly. Rather than let it escalate, I asked her a question about her son, and let her go off about that for a few minutes. He’s seven, going on seventeen and thinks he knows everything.
“Not unlike the other male in this family.”
“If you mean me, I have to object.” I gathered towels and we headed out to the deck.
“Oh, no. You’re never Mr. Superior Know-It-All!”
“Whoa. I think you’re projecting a little here. I’ve never professed to know anything. I’ve got eight women constantly telling me I’m an idiot.”
“Oh, don’t start!” Dionne screeched.
“Me start?”
“What’s going on?” Mom demanded.
“Nothing,” I snarled, dropping the towels on a deck chair. “Excuse me.” I stormed into the kitchen. Perhaps I was overreacting, but I get this coming at me from every point of the compass. It’s a pretty logical reaction on my part.
Grabbing a beer, I guzzled most of it down before anyone interrupted me. The door opened and I sensed another presence. I thought it might be Rowena, but it was Randy. He grabbed a couple more beers, opened one for me, taking another for himself.
“Got out of the line of fire?”
“Yeah. She’s hot about something. Not sure what. That happen often?”
“With Dionne, yeah. The others, sometimes. She’s always been hot headed.” I sipped at my second beer. Shaking my head, I listened to see if things were calming down. Not enough, yet. We sat at the kitchen table and waited, talking quietly about guy stuff.
“So, you really went in and rescued those people?” Kind of out of the blue question.
“Yeah. Not alone. I had some help. But the others, they really don’t want press. No one saw them do their thing, but me, so we’re keeping that quiet—even from the police. As far as anyone knows, I went in with security officers.”
“Gotcha.” He nodded slowly. “Weren’t you scared? I mean, they had guns.”
“Yeah. I guess. But when I heard him hit Rowena, that was it. He hit Lucy earlier, when she was on the phone. If I’d been up there then, I’d have done the same thing. A man who hits a woman needs to be taken care of.”
“Tortured slowly,” Randy agreed.
“Yep. I did get the chance to hit him. Very satisfying.”
“Nice!”
We did a knuckle bump.
It seemed to be quieter outside. Mom came to the kitchen door.
“Suzie’s taking Dionne home with her. I’m gonna stay the night. Is that okay?”
“Yeah, sure, Mom. What’s up?”
“Man trouble. She and Steve…. Well, he’s moving out. She left Stevie with Suzie for the night. It’s bad.”
“The I need to kill him kind of bad?”
Mom pressed her lips in a disapproving line. “Not kill. But he could use a talking to.”
Which in Mom’s vocabulary means I get to pummel someone, if I take a notion. Considering I’ve never been best friends with Steve, it wouldn’t take much.
©2021 Dellani Oakes
Dellani Oakes 