I just roll my eyes and head back toward my room to grab clothes before I head to the bathroom. If I were a good host, I’d check that Alder and Flint were okay first, but I know Mama will take care of them. She’ll have them unraveled quicker than thread on a spool. She has a gift for it. Well, that and showin’ visitors that it’s possible to gain twenty pounds in a mere hour when you’re in the Bell household. Her cookin’ is that good. It’s no wonder I’ve got extra junk in the trunk.
After pickin’ out clothes, I head right for the bathroom and close myself in. I turn to the mirror and have to stifle a scream at my reflection. It’s so much worse than I thought it could be. It’s like bein’ out for the night and feelin’ yourself, but then you get home and have mascara smudged under your eye and somethin’ stuck in your teeth. You’re all wonderin’ why no one pointed it out so you could fix it.
I don’t have mascara simply smudged under my eye though, I have it drug down half my face. My winged eyeliner just up and flew away at some point in the night, and I’m pretty sure I sweat off my flawless foundation application durin’ hour one ofOperation: clean up the bar you trashed.
Alder and Flint have been checkin’ me out and insinuatin’ shit all night, but one look at my reflection and I’m startin’ to question their taste. I mean really, I look like hell. What in the world is wrong with them?
I pull makeup wipes from the drawer and get to work degreasin’ myself. When that’s done, I start the shower and pull my waist-long hair out of the half bun, half mullet thing I’m rockin’, and comb through the mint green tresses. I peel myself out of my clubwear and step under the spray. I squeal loudly as the ice-cold water hits me, and I nearly slip, but I catch myself on the shower wall before I fall.
“Medley, you okay in there?” Alder asks, and a shiver runs up my spine at his deep voice.
I roll my eyes at his presence on the other side of the cheap door. My daddy likes to think I’m the Virgin Mary when it comes to sex, but my mama on the other hand would encourage me to hook up on the kitchen table so long as it got a ring on my finger and hope for a grandbaby in my belly soon to follow. I have no doubt she sent him back here in response to my squeal in hopes I’ll slip out of the shower and land at my own weddin’.
“I’m fine, Alder,” I call out. “Tell my mama, nice try.”
He chuckles softly, clearly pickin’ up on my mama’s game too.
“You sure you don’t need me to come in and check that everything is okay?” he questions, his tone just a hint lower and drippin’ with suggestion.
I clench my thighs together and look down to double check that the water dial is set on the coldest of cold.
Now all I can picture is that lavender skin steppin’ into the shower and me lickin’ water droplets off his tattooed arms as he checks to see if my vagina is okay with his cock. I try not to moan at that thought or at the image of the two of us wet and tangled around one another as I nibble on his full lips and whisper all the dirty things I want him to do to me.
“No, I’m good,” I squeak out, definitelynotpicturing him leanin’ against the door, hard as a rock in his pants, and just hopin’ I’ll invite him in.
Nope, I’m definitely not fantasizin’ right now that he doesn’t listen and storms in anyway so he can teach me all his delicious demon ways when it comes to pleasure. I bet he and Flint have some damn good tricks. I moan out loud.
“Don’t go playing without us, Medley,” Alder states evenly, his voice barely audible through the door, but I heard it, and I have to bite back another surprised squeal because I thought he’d walked away already.
I pull my hand away from my lower abdomen, not even aware that it was snakin’ down to give the ol’ clit a turn or two. This time, I do hear his footfall leadin’ away from the bathroom door, and I’m left reelin’ about what he said.
I suppose that officially answers my question about Alder’s interest too. But just what in the hell am I gonna do with the both of them? Those two are more than a handful.
But the thing is, as attracted as I am to the both of them, I may very well have to guard a gate to Hell forever with those two. Maybe it would be wise to guard my vagina too so I don’t go and make things a hell of a lot more complicated.
Then again...when hascomplicatedever really not been a part of my life? I pretty much thrive on it. But until things are worked out a bit more and we know if I am actually like this Delta chick and can help them, then I probably need to be smart about this. Which means I need to keep their yummy parts out of my yummy parts until we know what’s up once and for all.
I shampoo, rinse, condition, scrub, and shave like I’m a member of a NASCAR pit crew so I can finish quickly before Mama does anythin’ embarrassin’. I’m pullin’ on underwear, jean shorts, a bra, and a wife-beater tank top in no time. I quickly comb through my hair and leave it down to dry. Lotion is applied liberally on all my limbs and face, and then I’m headed back down the hallway toward the livin’ room in twenty minutes flat.
“She calls ’em nakey naps. Says she sleeps better in the nude after a cool shower. And she’s grumpier than a possum on Tuesday if she doesn’t get at least two a week,” I hear my mama declare. I pick up my pace.
“What are you tellin’ them?” I question as I rush down the hallway with a scoldin’ look on my face.
“I was just chattin’ with them about your likes and dislikes,” she announces innocently, like that’s not weird at all.
I shake my head at her and open my mouth to tell her to quit it when I spot a police car pull up outside. I watch curiously, but my heart leaps up into my chest when I see an officer go round to the back and help my daddy out of the car.
He’s holdin’ somethin’ to his head, and he looks rattled. I’m out the screen door in the blink of an eye and jumpin’ down the steps to get to him. Mama’s right behind me, and I hear her gasp as she takes in the ice pack he’s holdin’ to his head and his now rumpled clothes.
“What on earth happened?” she shouts from behind me, and then we both converge on my daddy and the two officers who accompanied him home.
“There was an incident at the Kum & Go on the corner, ma’am,” a tall officer informs us, shuttin’ the door to the back of the patrol car as Daddy wraps first Mama and then me up in a hug.
“It was the strangest thing. One minute, I was grabbin’ a drink, and the next, this man came up behind me and put me in a chokehold. He kept sayin’ he was takin’ me to the Ophidian and that I need to just hand over the key. I tried to get away, but he was damn strong. The clerk did his best to help me, but I got smacked in the head in the process.”
Mama and I both gasp in shock at what he’s sayin’, and the officers start to fill in the details about what happened after they arrived. I take my daddy in as I hear them talk about the person who attacked him and how he was either hopped up on drugs, mentally ill, or both.
“They tased him four times before he finally went down. I thought they might have to shoot the man,” Daddy confesses, and I’m completely horrified by what he’s sayin’. I look over to find Flint and Alder watchin’ us from the top of the porch stairs, and I can tell by the look on their faces that somethin’ is up.
