Swamp Happens: The Complete Swamp Bottom Series

by Cora Kenborn

  As the masses started chanting “BABS” over and over again, Addie decided it was time to intervene. I wasn’t even sure how they knew her name. We made it to the stage just as they were finished.

  People swarmed Babs with exclamations of how rad and boss she was as we tried to push through to the front door. She even stopped to sign some frat boy’s forehead. Most people would be mortified to have their grandmother tag along on their bachelorette party, but as always, Babs was the life of the party.

  We climbed back into the bus and settled in for wherever we were going next. According to Addie, Babs had a few tricks up her sleeve she wasn’t privy to. It was a tad disconcerting, but no one dared to question Babs when it came to having fun. She was the original party master.

  Kat passed out shots in the back while Babs stayed in the front directing the driver to only God knew where. Even Addie seemed to be relaxing since we’d piled into the party mobile. I guess there was something to be said about being contained.

  When I felt the bus come to a stop, I tried to see where we were, but I couldn’t make out anything through the heavily tinted windows.

  Babs stood at the top of the aisle and clapped her arthritic hands together. “I have surprise!”

  No three words had ever been more ominous in the history of the English language.

  “Hit it!” Babs called out, and Heather reached down and cranked the music.

  Ginuwine's Pony started to play, and the door to the bus flew open as true terror like I'd never known pressed down on my chest. However, it was quickly replaced by confusion and a cackle of laughter when Pope, Zep, Bam-Bam, and Duck climbed the stairs and started sauntering down the aisle toward us. Heather and Kat whooped, and I exchanged a shocked glance with my sister.

  “Eyes up here, gorgeous,” Pope said, hooking a finger under my chin and tilting my head back.

  I was hypnotized by the glittering blue eyes staring down at me…until he began to move. I tried to contain myself, but I couldn’t help but laugh as he gave me the most hilariously bad lap dance in the history of lap dances. I giggled and snuck a glance around the bus. Babs had pulled the poor driver out of his seat and was shamelessly grinding on him. Addie looked horrified as Zep tried to circumvent her large belly while he shook his ass in her face. Heather was getting ridiculously handsy with Duck, slipping dollar bills into his jeans and the pocket of the leather vest he wore over his bare chest.

  Wait, if Zep was with Addie, and Duck was with Heather, that only left...

  My eyes shot to where Kat was sitting to find a sight that made me want to wash my eyes out with bleach. Bam-Bam wasn’t giving her a lap dance like the other guys. Nope, he was relaxing on the bench seat, with Kat straddling his lap. She was rolling her hips, rubbing his closely cropped hair and...

  Oh my God, his hands are on her ass.

  Pope caught my line of sight and stopped cold. "Hands off Bam," he growled. As if they were connected by strings, Bam-Bam’s hands let go of Kat’s ass, and his arms spread wide in a “look, no hands” gesture.

  “Focus on your woman, Q, and I'll focus on mine,” Bam-Bam said, never taking his eyes off Kat. She giggled and lowered her forehead to his as she continued to grind on him.

  “Okay, I think we’ve had enough of that,” Pope declared, standing up to his full height. Reaching down, he switched the song and lowered the volume.

  Babs instructed the poor man she’d subjected to her gyrating to start driving, and we were off again. Addie looked relieved that Zep had stopped trying to seduce her with his half-assed twerking, and flung her feet onto his lap when he settled next to her.

  I watched as Heather pulled Duck into the bathroom and slammed the door, I just prayed to God we wouldn’t be able to hear what was going on in there. Reaching across Pope, I turned up the volume on the music a notch or two just to be sure.

  Pope continued to glare at Bam-Bam and Kat as they sat snuggled up, taking turns whispering in each other’s ears. The smile on Kat’s face wasn’t that of a drunk college girl flirting. She was genuinely laughing and having a good time. I’d need to have a word, or a hundred, with my cousin before things got any more complicated. I knew Bam-Bam. He wouldn’t bother with a girl as entwined in our lives as Kat if he wasn’t truly interested, which just meant that things were about to get messier.

  I placed a hand on Pope’s chest. “The more you act like it bothers you, the less likely she is to stop. Relax, she’s a grown woman, and Bam-Bam’s a good guy. He’s not going to hurt her.”

  Pope huffed and tore his eyes away from the fledgling couple. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

  Taking his hands in mine, I smiled. “She could do worse.”

  Hooking his arm around my shoulders, he pulled me in close. “Can we talk about something that doesn’t make me want to shoot someone?”

  Laughing, I turned toward the rest of our group. “So, who’s idea was it for you guys to moonlight as strippers?”

  In unison, the boys all gave the same answer, “Babs.”

  “Addie-no-fun said no strippers. I had to improvise,” Babs said, grinning as she produced a giant bottle of vodka from under her seat. “Who want shot?”

  67

  A Kink With Cuffs

  Adelaide

  Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana

  A few days before the wedding, Savannah and I piled into the truck and headed to Terrebonne to make last minute arrangements. After what felt like had been a dozen alterations, we’d picked up the final version of her wedding dress and were headed back to Babs’ house to drop her off and then rush back home to New Orleans before Zep left ten more texts on my phone requesting updates on every little twinge or pain.

  Admittedly, it’d been endearing at first. He’d thrown himself into his daddy-to-be role more than anything I’d ever seen him commit to. However, ever since he and Savannah made me go to the hospital, I couldn’t pee without him barging in asking if everything was okay.

  Cute, but I swear, I may kill him before the week’s out.

  As if on cue, my phone lit up, displaying his newest message.

  ZEP: Where are you? Are you still in Terrebonne? You’re not driving, are you? How do you feel? Addie, get your ass back home. You’re giving me a fucking ulcer.

  ME: xoxo

  Darkening the screen, I tossed my phone in my purse and sighed. I’d catch shit for such a smartass response, but lately, Zep had been reading my pregnancy bible like a “how-to drive Addie insane manual”. I’d even hidden my copy on top of the refrigerator behind a stack of old paperwork, and after losing his shit, his crazy ass went out and bought two more copies.

  “What is that, the seventh text in the last hour?” Savannah asked, fighting a smirk.

  “Ninth, but who’s counting.”

  “You know what shut man up?” Babs piped up from the back seat. “Tickle his pickle. Make all man grin like upside down gator.”

  Savannah and I simultaneously made gagging noises and glanced back at our grinning grandmother as she tucked her tongue into the inside of her cheek and fisted her hand beside the other side while pantomiming a blowjob. The whole thing would’ve been bad enough, but during the horrifying display, her teeth lost suction and shot out of her mouth, smacking Savannah in the back of the head.

  Babs took it all in stride, popping them back in while offering a knowing shrug. “Is important to take teeth out when mouth is full.”

  Blinking a few times at what had to be the most disturbing shit I’d ever witnessed from my grandmother, I slowly turned back around to notice Savannah weaving in and out of traffic so fast my head spun. “Sav, will you please slow down? I’d prefer not to have this baby in the floorboard of Daddy’s truck, thank you very much.”

  She just rolled her eyes and turned up the radio, wiggling her ass to the tune of some shit I didn’t recognize.

  I immediately switched the station, grinning when the newest Taylor Swift song filtered through the truck. A horrified look crossed Sa
vannah’s face as if someone had just ripped off her fingernails with a pair of pliers. Slapping my hand away, she returned the radio to the previous song and shot me a look as if daring me to touch it.

  “You should give Taylor a chance,” I chided.

  “You should have your head held underwater until the demon that makes you listen that shit exits your body.”

  Leaning over again, I stared at the speedometer and wrinkled my nose. “I thought I said to slow it down?”

  “Stop side-seat driving. Besides, I’m barely going over the speed limit.”

  “I’m pretty sure the speed limit in town isn’t sixty-four.”

  “Speed limits are just a suggestion, not an absolute rule, Ads. Anyway, you’re just salty because you can’t stand for anyone else to drive but you.” Glancing down at my swollen stomach, she quirked her lips in that knowing smirk of hers, letting me know she was about to lay down some of her rationalized Savvy logic. “Since you’re about to push out an eighteen-pound kid, your gigantic belly can’t fit behind the wheel anymore, and you’re forced to defer to my expert defensive driving skills.”

  Expert defensive driving skills? If my memory served me correctly, when Savannah took her driver’s license test at sixteen, the instructor almost failed her for pulling an illegal U-turn in the middle of an intersection to, “holler at that fine-ass boy she’d met while being detained for stealing road signs.”

  “First of all, I could totally fit behind the wheel if I wanted to,” I huffed.

  Although, in reality, I probably couldn’t. Since Bam-Bam had somehow broken the seat adjuster, it was perpetually stuck in “face against the dashboard” position. If I tried to shove myself in the seat, I’d end up suspended between the backrest and the wheel, suspended in mid-air while Babs just stood outside the cab, laughing at my dumb ass.

  “Secondly,” I continued, “riding someone’s ass and then flipping them off while rolling down the window just to call them ‘joy-riding shit suckers’ is not defensive driving. It’s road rage.”

  “How are we even related?” she mused, shaking her head.

  I slumped down into the seat, sulking like a five-year-old. The control freak in me hated giving up command of the wheel, but Savannah was right, although I’d never admit it to her. During the last week, some fucked up Miracle-Gro shit was going on with Charlie, and I’d doubled in size, making it impossible to fit behind the wheel of a car or even through a normal doorway.

  I was starting to feel like I’d stumbled into some real-life version of the Twilight movie saga. As if I were growing some kind of superhuman immortal child who, instead of instead of me pushing out at delivery, would chew his way out already planning world domination.

  I felt as sexy as a water buffalo performing ballet on a tightrope, and that was putting it mildly. For fuck’s sake, Zep couldn’t even wrap his arms all the way around me anymore. The shithead thought it was funny to go so far as to make a joke about having a thing for fat bottom girls—once.

  It’s funny how fast a man can run after you make a fist and swing it toward his dick.

  We were less than three miles away from the winding dirt road that led to Babs’ house when I first caught sight of the flashing blue lights behind us. Savannah had finally slowed her speeding ass down, so I assumed he’d pull around us and go after the little speed demon sports car in front of us.

  Then he turned on the siren.

  Savannah shifted a bewildered stare into the rear-view mirror. “What the actual fuck?”

  “I don’t know,” I breathed, my heart pounding in my ears. “But you’d better pull over because I don’t think this guy is kidding, Sav.”

  Behind us, Babs dug frantically through her purse and tossed a rolled-up bag of weed in my lap. “Fuck a chicken. Here, put this in bra. No one going to search big, fat pregnant lady.”

  “Babs! I’m not going to hide your weed for you!”

  “Fine, I do it!” she yelled. Unbuckling her seatbelt, she gathered the bag off my lap, and in a moment that I’ll need therapy to forget, shoved her hand down my bra and tucked it under my boob.

  Savannah calmly pulled off the side of the road, and I sat completely speechless as a finger tapped on Savannah’s window, drawing everyone’s attention toward a uniformed officer peering into the truck cab. We all stared dumbfounded until he finally twirled his finger in a circle indicating for Savannah to roll down her window.

  A nervous smile plastered across my sister’s lips. “Is there a problem, officer?”

  Before he could open his mouth, Babs piped up from the backseat, her white head poking around Savannah’s headrest. “Doogie? That you?”

  The officer tilted his head to get a better look, recognition registering across his face. “Babs?”

  Jesus Christ. Was there anyone in this town my grandmother didn’t know by name?

  “You two know each other?” Savannah asked, glancing back and forth between them.

  Babs grinned at the officer, giving him an exaggerated wink that did nothing for my anxiety. “Doogie is deputy sheriff. I see him when I visit Sheriff Tucker.”

  At the mention of Sheriff Tucker’s name, Savannah shot me an immediate “I told you so” look.

  “What is problem?” Babs asked, pointing to the clock on the radio. “Happy hour start soon. Wrap this up, hot stuff.”

  A blush crept up Deputy Doogie’s neck as he stuttered through his apology. “I’m sorry, Babs, but y’all are driving around with expired tags on this truck, and I don’t mean just a month or two. Your tags are four months overdue.”

  I reached across the cab and smacked Savannah. “You told me you took care of that!”

  “Oops?”

  “Savannah…” I groaned, palming my face.

  “I just need your license and registration, and I’ll have y’all on your way as soon as I can,” he promised.

  Wisely keeping her mouth shut, Savannah sifted through the glove box for the appropriate information and handed them over. Nodding to all three of us, he made his way back to his squad car where I assumed he’d call in her information and write up her citation. Normally, I’d give my sister a stern lecture about the importance of driver responsibility and abiding the law, but one look at her face and I shut my mouth. Just days before her wedding, and the jitters were already causing lines to form around her eyes. Now, she’d have to deal with explaining to Pope why one of his brothers in blue issued her a moving violation for something she couldn’t give two shits about. The last thing she needed was me adding to what was her already thinly stretched nerves.

  “Don’t say it, Addie.” Her fingers curled around the steering wheel as her jaw ticked with annoyance.

  “Say what?”

  “How much of a screw up I am.”

  “You’re not a screw up, Sav. Maybe he’ll give you a pass since Babs seems to be freakishly friendly with the entire law enforcement of Terrebonne Parish.”

  She didn’t respond, only flashed me a smile that told me that although she didn’t buy any of the shit I was trying to sell her, she appreciated it nonetheless.

  Five minutes later, Deputy Doogie sauntered back to the truck and stood next to the window with an entirely different look on his face. His lips were thinned while his brows drew together, causing a deep line to crease down the center. “Miss Dubois, I’m going to need you to step out of the truck.”

  Savannah’s face paled. “Excuse me?”

  “Step out of the car, and place your hands on the vehicle, Miss Dubois,” he repeated, hardening his tone.

  I had no idea what the hell was happening, but the seriousness in his voice had my pulse racing so hard I thought I might pass out. “Just do it,” I whispered under my breath.

  With shaking hands, Savannah nervously unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the door, slowly sliding out of the cab until she landed unsteadily on the pavement below. She pressed her palms against the top of the truck before glancing over her shoulder. “What’s this about, depu
ty?”

  Before any of us could react, he pulled a pair of handcuffs from his utility belt and clasped his hands around her wrists. Pulling her hands behind her, he snapped the cuffs in place and locked her arms behind her back. “I ran your license, Miss Dubois. There’s a bench warrant out for your arrest.”

  “For what?”

  “Does five-thousand-dollars worth of unpaid destruction of property fines ring a bell?”

  “Oh shit.”

  The shock of seeing my sister in handcuffs finally wearing off, I shoved my head through the open window. “Oh shit? What does ‘oh shit’ mean, Savannah? What the hell did you do?”

  Ignoring me, she shook her head in protest, her argumentative side taking over. “But I never got any notices. How can there be a warrant when I was never notified of my offenses?”

  That’s when Babs decided to pipe up again, digging in her massive old lady purse as if she were mining for gold. “Oh, wait,” she exclaimed, producing a handful of opened envelopes and waving them in the air like a game show prize. “This what you mean?”

  “Babs,” I said slowly, drawing out her name in order not to lose my shit. “Are all of those official notices from the sheriff’s department?”

  “Yes. In excitement of move to big city, baby clam, and getting banned from casino, I forget to send.”

  Getting us thrown out of a major hotel in Vegas was one thing. Causing my sister to get hauled away to jail in handcuffs was a whole new level of Babs’ fuckery.