And you know I’m in my yee-hawckey era
ffs take a break from those and come join me on the dark side
Going on DND now, come back with spicy cowboys or hockey men byeeeee
One seriously panty-melting—er, tankini bottom melting—mafioso spice scene later, my favorite boys and girl are back to me, sitting or sprawled out on the towels all around, inhaling drinks and snacks during a break from the water.
Chance gives me a soft kiss on the lips, slipping his hand to the back of my head to hold me to him as he does before he joins them. He looks around the beach, arm resting on his propped-up knee, contemplating.
“I think we should bring the dog next time.”
I roll my eyes at him. “You and that da—dang dog. You’d bring him to pickleball with you if the courts or your friends allowed it.”
Yeah, he’s started playing pickleball with some of his old frat brothers in recent weeks. I guess I’m not the only one who realized they missed seeing some friends from time to time.
Chance’s eyes soften and he gives me puppy dog eyes with a matching pout.
“I miss him. He’s home alone, he probably misses us too,” he says, looking all pathetic. Then he looks behind him at all the kids. “Don’t you guys miss Sir Wags? Wouldn’t this be an even better day if he were here with us?”
He gets another eye roll at riling up the kids and using them against me, getting them to whine in unison.
Thediscussion, if you could call it that, comes to an abrupt and chaotic halt when something small and black dive-bombs Preston.
Before I can think, I’m up and swinging my flip flops at it. Brad is swinging his fists, totally useless by the way, and at my first scream, Chance dove and covered Lea with his body. Ford and Preston are just watching the rest of us like we’re free entertainment.
It’s some sort of asshole wasp on some vendetta against my youngest son, and it’s about to meet the fucking chancla.
I brandish not one but both flip flops at it, waving and flapping them to get the thing away from my kid, and then I run after it, off of our towels into the hot sand where I get the chance to smoosh it between the soles of both shoes mid-flight. It falls to the sand and jerks around there, continuing to buzz, and before I can think better of it, my foot stomps down on top of it, squishing it into nanoparticles that Ford could probably tell me the name of if I cared to ask. Except—fuck—one of those pieces, the only one I can name, the fucking stinger, goes straight into my heel with the motion.
“Fuuuuu—” I start to scream, and Chance’s eyes find mine in a heartbeat, leaping up to grab me before I fall over, hopping on one leg.
“Hey, hey,” he tells me, and it’s not lost on me that he’s using his Dr. Daddy voice on me. A more mature one than he used on our daughter not long ago, but he’s coming to my rescue in exactly the same way.
Chance lowers me to the ground, and pulls my foot into his lap.
“Brad, grab one of the cups from the bag and go bring back some seawater for me. Run, buddy, make it fast.”
His fingers are pressing, prodding, poking, and this motherfuckerburnslike a son of a—gobble gobble. That’s what.
My lip is clamped so hard between my teeth I think it might split soon, and my face is squinted in the worst pain I’ve felt since…actually, probably since labor. Motherfuck, how can something so tiny hurt so big?
Brad brings the water back and Chance uses it to pour on the wound. He tells me there’s no stinger in there, just some venom, and he soothes the area with the saltwater. That burns too, but also helps somehow? Maybe it’s just all in my head, but I swear it’s helping.
He, disgustingly, brings my heel to his mouth and licks at the spot where it got me, using his saliva like we’re fucking barbarians in a cave somewhere without access to modern medicine a short car ride away. I protest, but he doesn’t falter, suckling at the point of entry, like he’s siphoning the venom out or something.
My head drops back, my weight resting on my elbows, as I realize that even now, with what a bitch I’ve been to this man lately, he will do whatever the fuck it takes to keep me comfortable and happy. Even lick my fucking foot on a public beach if it will help.
I don’t know if there’s science behind it, or if it was just a mind trick, but I think the sting starts to go away after a minute or two, and eventually he lets me have my foot back when he sees signs of the pain dissipating.
He takes a few swigs of seawater, gargles with it, then spits it out a few feet away, straight into the sand. The kids watch on, laughing at his exaggerated face of repulsion at what he had to do for me. The disgusting lengths he went to to help get me out of pain.
If that’s not a microcosm of marriage, I don’t know what is. Shit happens. You put one another first, dignity be damned. You do what it takes to make the other one happy, and you do it out of love, not some heavy obligation or duty. Just because you know that without thecarefor one another, there is no foundation for anything to be built on top of. That if one of you isn’t doing well, neither of you is doing well. And my appreciation for him is at a new recent high.
He just winks at me when I murmur my thanks.
I start to laugh as I recall what happened. How badly I failed. I shake my head, still chuckling as I imagine my father’s reaction if he were to hear this story. I can’t bring myself to tell him. A Latina mother who failed to use her chancla effectively as a weapon? A travesty.
In my defense, it’s not like I was raised with a Hispanic mother. My mom’s mostly Irish, gorgeous dark hair and creamy skin, killer complexion. Her family came over I think maybe four generations ago? My dad’s family came from Mexico just two generations ago, and myabueladefinitely has the power of the chancla in her.
