Me: Appreciate it, but nah. Not a bit. I was just offended he didn’t include some of my best work. Tampon darts and Vagisil wipes? Complete amateur hour.
Jordie: Ooh, this I have to hear.
Me: Not sure I want to put it in text for you to screenshot and use as blackmail.
My phone rings almost instantly with a FaceTime request, and I almost sprain my finger accepting it. Jordie’s face appears. She’d worn a little makeup today, but now her face is clean and fresh, her blonde hair down and slightly damp. She’s fucking gorgeous, and I love how confident she is in her own skin. Most of the women I know wouldn’t be caught dead without a full face of makeup.
“Just got out of the shower?” I ask, and great. That was completely inappropriate. Also, now I’m picturing Jordie in the shower. Naked. Wet. Soapy. Against the wall with my…
“Yep,” she says, interrupting my X-rated thoughts before they can get too far. “You too?”
I don’t miss how her eyes drop to my bare chest and eat me up. And I don’t miss how her little pink tongue darts out to wet her bottom lip.
Clearing the husk from my voice, I say, “Yeah. I got Reece to bed and then did a workout since I wasn’t able to get one in this morning. My daughter was being a pill.”
“I can tell you work out,” she says, and then her cheeks flush beneath her tan.
She’s a little flustered, and it’s goddamn sexy. I could let it go, but that just wouldn’t be me. “You checking me out, McNamara?” My grin is wicked, and I really shouldn’t be flirting like this.
“No, I’m just, um, making an observation.” She rolls a strand ofblonde hair around her index finger. “Why don’t you tell me some of these stories?”
Scooting down in the bed, I get comfortable with my phone propped on my chest. “Most of them have to do with me embarrassing my mother. This one time, she was dropping me and Helix off at preschool, and I announced to the class that we were late because my mommy had diarrhea.”
“Oh my god,” she laughs. “Phoenix!”
“I know. She made Dad take us to preschool for an entire month because she said she couldn’t show her face there again.”
“Bless her heart.”
“And another time, I had my entire first-grade class, including my teacher, convinced that I had a little brother named Andrew, and my parents lost him when we went on a trip to Mexico.”
Her eyes go soft with sympathy. “You had another brother?”
“Hell no. I just made it up and told my teacher not to mention it because it would only upset my mom.”
“Phoenix Hale, you were a menace. Did your mom ever find out?”
I chuckle. “Oh yeah. During a parent-teacher meeting, my teacher pulled Mom aside and offered her some pamphlets for parents dealing with grief.” Shivering, I say, “The look of pure rage on my mother’s face still haunts me to this day.”
“Tell me more,” she says, settling into my tales like they are the best thing she’s ever heard.
“One time, Dad took us to a museum, I guess to try and infuse a little culture into our wild asses. There was this one nude statue that fascinated me.”
“A woman?” Jordie guesses dryly.
“Nope, a man. I couldn’t figure out why the hell he was just standing there with his junk hanging out. Especially since it wasn’t very impressive junk.”
A bark of laughter spurts from her mouth. “Let me guess. You made a very loud comment about the state of said junk?”
With a wicked grin, I shake my head. “Even better. I told Dad I had to go to the restroom, so he pointed me in that direction and said they would be waiting in the next room of the museum for me.”Rubbing my hand over my stubbly jaw, I say. “So I went into the restroom and took off my underwear.”
Jordie covers her eyes with one hand. “Oh my god. You didn’t.”
“Yep, I did. A security guard caught me trying to figure out how to put my little tighty whities on the statue.” She uncovers her eyes and chortles so hard her entire body shakes as I continue. “Of course, his feet were immovable, so I was holding my underwear up over his manhood and running through ways to get them to stick there. Tape, glue, chewed bubblegum.”
She holds up one finger, pink splotches dotting her cheeks. “Can I get one clarification?”
“Of course. I want you to have the full picture.”
