I sigh, irritated. Unbuckling my seat belt, I stand up. My dad and Duke step aside, letting me through. "I'm going to chat with the ladies."
My grandma, Rainbow, Mom, and Kerrigan play Scrabble at the dinette.
"Hey." I pull over a folding chair tucked between the couch and kitchen counter.
"You're not allowed to help anybody," Grandma informs me, finger pointed in my direction.
Leaning left to look at Kerrigan's letter board, I ask, "What if I helpeverybody?"
Grandma smirks. "We'll let you help us if you tell us why your husband walked into the hotel with six gallons of milk after we thought you two had gone upstairs."
My arms cross. "Absolutely not."
Grandma shrugs. "Then I guess you don't get to help."
She knows how hard this will be for me. I've been dominating Scrabble boards since I was a kid.
The game continues, and I help myself to an eyeful of everybody's letters.
Is my mom seriously going to place an 'e' at the end of that word? She could put her 'x' below the 'o' and get a triple word score.
On and on, almost as if they're playing like fools to annoy me.
"Fine," I bite out. "We had a sexual mishap." I rearrange the letters on Kerrigan's board, and she looks up at me in surprise. "I would have never put that together," she says.
"I'm aware," I deadpan.
Grandma lays down her word and asks, "What was this sexual mishap?"
"I am not telling."
Kerrigan nods sagely. "Did he come in your eye?"
Instantly the table falls silent. All eyes are on Kerrigan.
"No," I answer, horrified. "I think something might be very wrong with you."
Kerrigan lifts her hands in innocence. "I didn't say I know what it's like. But that would be a terrible sexual mishap." She flicks her hair over her shoulder. "I noticed the absence of moaning last night."
My gaze snags on Dom in the driver seat. The shower water had drowned out his moan.
From nowhere, Rainbow adds her two cents. "I suggest you make your vagina a more inviting space."
"There is nothing wrong with my vagina," I protest. The effect of the habanero is long gone, thankfully.
"There are crystals, specifically a carnelian," Rainbow presses, nodding eagerly. "You put them in?—"
I hold up a hand. "Thank you for the suggestion, but there will be no crystals entering my hoo-ha."
Mom laughs. "Cecily, please hand me the folder." She points to an open bookshelf lining the top of the kitchen cabinets.
I retrieve it and hand it over. "What are you doing?"
She flips it to the back, where a pen waits in a little sleeve. "We've been writing funny things down. Quotes and such. What you just said has to go in here."
It's similar to Dom's suggestion that I keep a note in my phone to record these memories. I've been doing it when I remember, typing snippets of our days.
"No way," I say in a rush, because writing down what I just said is too far. Nobody will want to read that later. "Absolutely not."
