Chapter Fourteen
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Luc
Southern women are sledgehammers camouflaged as fluffy marshmallows.
I’m leaning against the doorjamb leading into Miss Bea’s ballroom. (Yes,ballroom.You read that correctly.) And Cash has moseyed over to stand next to me and…vent his spleen onto the floor, apparently.
“If I have to listen to one more debutante talk about vacationing in Cabo, or how fabulous her new gluten-free, kale smoothie diet is,” he grumbles, “my dick will invert, my testicles will retreat into my body, and my sperm will shrivel up and die.”
“Wow.” I grimace. “Thanks for the imagery.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Buck up, man. It’s only thirty or so of New Orleans’s most eligible bachelorettes along with a couple dozen of their mommas and grannies. Nothing a man who’s hiked the Hindu Kush, negotiated a prisoner swap with a Taliban warlord, and survived a suicide bomber can’t handle.”
“Oh, I can handle them. The question is, do I want to? And the answer is, abso-fucking-lutelynot.”
“Careful. That kinda language will get you kicked outta here quicker than a hiccup.”
He looks at me hopefully. “You promise?”
“Just hold your horses,” I tell him. “The tea’s been drunk. The cake’s been eaten. They’ve settled on the details of their Halloween ball and bachelor auction. It won’t be long before they wrap things up.”
“You’re kidding, right?” He looks at me incredulously. “You know the party’s only getting started once the business is finished and gossiping starts.”
“True.” I screw up my mouth. “Guess we better settle in, then.”
He crosses his arms and exchanges incredulous for mulish. “I’ll do it for you and Maggie. But see that blonde over there?”
He nods toward a woman standing beside one of the dozen round tables topped with autumn-leaf motif tablecloths and bearing evidence of the demolished tea service. Dirty china cups and plates are scattered everywhere. Handbags and purses of every shape and size hang from the backs of chairs as their owners flit around the room like colorful butterflies.
The woman Cash is pointing to is wearing a purple dress that’s so tight, if she were a man, I’d be able to see her religion.
I lift an eyebrow. “What about her?”
“She has the IQ of a squirrel that fell out of a tree onto its head.”
Biting the inside of my cheek, I struggle not to laugh. “And you accusemeof having a way with words?”
He waves me off. “For some reason, she thinks I’m interested in her. So if she corners me again, you have to come to my rescue.”
“I make no promises.”
He glares at me. “You’re a miserable sonofabitch, you know that?”
“Ah, ah, ha.” I wag my finger. “Language.”
He has an itch between his eyebrows. Apparently, the best way he can scratch it is with his middle finger.
Not that I don’t appreciate his desire to leave. I’ve heard, “Thank you for your service,” so often my ears are ringing. I’ve had my chest rubbed and my arms caressed. No less than six sets of phone numbers have been written on paper napkins or scraps of paper and shoved into my hand. And I’ve run out of excuses for why I can’t go out to lunch or dinner or drinks.
I feel like a side of beef at a butcher shop.
Still, Maggie invited us to come. So we’ll stay until the bitter end and—
I get distracted when Cash pats his chest to assure himself his flask is still safe and secure inside his breast pocket. He’s been doing that all afternoon, and I can tell by the pinched look around his eyes that he desperately wants to take a drink.
