by Nikki Ashton
“Really?” I cried and looked back to the road as Dad gave Mom’s left tit a squeeze. “Child on board.”
“Oh honey, don’t be a spoilsport.” Mom giggled, already tight from the two large glasses of wine she’d had while she’d waited for Dad to get ready after he got home late from work.
“I’m not, but I don’t really want to see Dad getting to second base, thank you very much.”
“Well I’m kinda hoping for a home run later,” Dad muttered, not particularly quietly.
Mom fluttered her eyelashes at him and snuggled closer to the big, broad, ex-cornerback who also happened to be her college sweetheart. According to Dad it was love at first sight when Mom walked into the gym wearing her tiny running shorts and tight tank. Mom however was only concerned with making the cross-country squad and didn’t give two hoots that Dad had the best burst of any cornerback in the college game. She finally gave in and went on a date with him after a whole week of him sending her a bouquet of flowers every day.
They’d been inseparable ever since and loved each other deeply. Although they liked to argue too, mainly because they were both bull-headed. Tonight’s kissing and petting in my car wasn’t unusual; they liked to make up and make out a hella lot.
Dad’s promising football career ended with an ACL injury in his last year at college. Mom had been the one who brought him back from the deep dark depths of depression. Apparently, she slapped him around the head with her sneaker as a last resort when he wouldn’t look away from the TV. Dad eventually got over the life changing disappointment and now ran his own insurance company, while Mom worked part-time in the town library. All in all I had a happy family life—well if you didn’t count Carter in that; he was the only fly in my bonhomie.
Thankfully, as Dad’s face disappeared into Mom’s neck, we pulled up outside the beautiful grey brick house. On a quiet tree-lined street, on the edge of Valley Park, which ran along almost the whole west side of town, Bronte and her folks had moved here over ten years before when they’d left the house next door to ours on the east side of town. Both Bronte and I had cried buckets even though we were going to see each other at school the very next week. Being a car ride away from each other seemed like the end of the world when we were fourteen years old.
“We’re here,” I announced, raising my voice to be heard over the giggling and kissing noises.
Mom extricated herself from Dad and pulled up the top of her dress to put her girls safely back inside.
“You not coming in to see Bronte, honey,” she asked as she leaned between the two front seats.
“Yeah come in and see her,” Dad added. “I bet Jim and Darcy would like to see you too.”
I looked down at the black yoga pants and baggy white tee which I wore and sighed. I wasn’t really dressed to visit with people, especially as I had a huge stain right over my left boob. I’d dropped my chocolate ice cream as I tried to eat while I lay on my back on the sofa and watched TV. My hair was also a messy bird’s nest on top of my head, and at least a day past needing a wash – okay I was a slob, but I was on day two of my three off duty days.
“Oh, come on,” Mom urged. “You’ll get to see Jefferson’s new lady-friend when they arrive.”
“Another new lady-friend?” I blew out my cheeks. “Geez that man has some stamina for his age.”
Mom poked my shoulder, hard. “Eleanor Mary Maples, don’t be so disrespectful about your elders.”
She said the words, but I could see the smile which twitched at her red lips and her eyes sparkled with mischief. God, my mom was beautiful, no wonder Dad fell in love with her straight away. Of Native American extract, Mom had inherited the gorgeous dark hair, deep brown eyes and olive skin of her ancestors. She was tall and curvy, the muscular frame of her college running years long gone with the arrival of Carter and me. She also owned the dirtiest laugh I’d ever heard. Dad often said he kept himself in shape to make sure Mom didn’t go off him and run away with someone better looking, but I doubted that there was any chance of that. Apart from my dad being blond, handsome, tall and broad, he was also kind and sweet and when he wasn’t bickering with the love of his life, he treated her like a damn queen. She knew well enough that she’d found her king.
“I think the little blue pill must help,” Dad said and laughed loudly as he opened the car door.
“Henry,” Mom cried. “You can’t say that.” She scooted across the seat to follow him out of the car.
“He’s one of my best friends,” Dad replied as he opened my door. “Of course, I can. Come on, Ellie Belly, let’s go.”
I groaned. “Dad, I look a mess.”
He glanced over my outfit and he grimaced slightly as he noticed the chocolate ice cream stain, but then plastered a smile on his face. “You always look beautiful and besides it’s only Bronte and her folks. They’ve seen you looking a whole lot worse.”
He was right they had, only six weeks ago Jim, Bronte’s dad, had had to come and pick us up from Stars & Stripes because Penny had refused to serve us any more drink because we were too drunk and too rowdy. It was the night that I’d slammed my ex’s head on the bar, and I’d needed bourbon, the problem was that while it was nectar going in, it was poison coming back out—all over the back seat of Jim’s car. The smell had also made Bronte sick to her stomach, and she puked too. To be fair to him he didn’t shout, but he did wake us both up at six the next morning with a bucket of hot water and two of the smallest cleaning cloths I ever did see.
With a sigh, I swung my legs out of the car and followed my parents up the drive toward the huge dark-grey front door. We didn’t even need to knock before it was swung open and we were faced with Bronte’s mom, Darcy, looking perky in her skin-tight jeans and tight denim shirt, that just about covered her latest present from Jim – her new boobs. Mom and I stared at them quite openly even though we’d both seen them before. They were pretty spectacular, and it would have been rude not to give them another look. Dad to his credit barely glanced at them as he brushed a kiss to Darcy’s cheek and pushed past her shouting something about catching the repeat of last night’s game before dinner started.
“Hi, Ellie,” Darcy said as she pulled me against her cushiony chest. “How are you, honey?”
“I’m good thanks, how are you?”
She let me go and gave me a sweet smile before she patted her blonde curls. “I’m great, loving life,” she said with a singsong in her voice.
For all she sounded happy, I knew from Bronte that Darcy was worried about her mom who had Alzheimer’s. She was declining pretty rapidly, so much so that Darcy had recently entered her into a nursing facility.
“Bronte home?” I asked, with half a hope that she wasn’t so I could hop back into my car and get back to feast on more chocolate ice cream and Netflix.
“In her room, honey. Now, Melinda,” she said as she turned to my mom, “how long do we think this latest lady of Jefferson’s will last?”
As the two women started to gossip, I walked down the long hall to Bronte’s room. The sound of Brett Young’s ‘In Case You Didn’t Know’ blasted through the closed door and almost burst my eardrums when I opened it and pushed inside. Bronte, seemingly oblivious to how loud it was, or maybe had already been turned deaf by it, was on her stomach as she looked at something on her laptop. She had her legs kicked up behind her and a pair of pink fluffy slippers hung off both her feet, precariously close to Roderick the family’s cat, curled up, asleep, on her pillow.
“Hey,” I shouted. “You want to turn it down a little.”
Bronte’s eyes shot to mine and she grinned, tapping quickly on her phone screen. The music immediately went quieter leaving a buzz in my ears.
“I didn’t know you were coming.”
“I wasn’t,” I groaned. “I dropped Mom and Dad off and they insisted I come in and see your parents even though our dads are watching last night’s game in the den and our mothers are gossiping about Jefferson’s new girlfriend. So, even t
hough I only saw you yesterday for lunch, here I am.” I held up my hands and waved them around like some nerdy kid in Glee Club.
“I’m hiding in here because I don’t want to meet Jefferson’s new girlfriend.” She sighed and pouted like a six-year-old.
“Seriously you need to get over that.” I groaned with a grimace. “It’s too weird that you have a crush on him.”
“I’d just like to try the goods, that’s all. I think he looks like he’s packing and has a real good idea what to do with it.” Bronte’s smile was devilish. I’d seen that smile many times before, and things didn’t always end well when it appeared.
“And that my friend is what makes you not only weird but sick too. Anyway, what are you looking at?”
“Oh, just my internet dating profile. I have thirteen messages already and I only set it up this morning.”
“Why the hell do you have an internet dating profile. You have men from three counties wanting to take you out on a date. Actually,” I said, tilting my head to one side to study her, “you’ve already dated most of the men from three counties. Maybe you should try and find someone on the internet.”
Bronte narrowed her eyes and threw a small heart-shaped cushion at me. “Bitch. Now come and sit next to me. If you really want weird, read some of these messages.”
I plopped down beside her as she scooted over and leaned in to read where she was pointing at the screen.
“Oh my God,” I cried as I took a closer look. “That’s disgusting. ‘Can I lick your ass while I jerk off over your back’. Who the fuck writes that sort of shit?”
Bronte laughed and read, “Phil Ewin, apparently.”
Laughing at the name, I looked at the next one “‘I would smash the shit out of you, can I have your number?’ Yep, he’s a keeper alright. What picture did you put on here? Please tell me not your real one.”
“Oh God no.” She laughed. “It was the one of my mom when she was seventeen and had just won Miss Congeniality at the Galveston Beauty Pageant.”
“Bronte!”
“What? She won’t know and I’m closing the account down in a week.”
“Why a week?” I asked as my eyes went back to the screen.
“Because that’s when the new season of Outlander starts so I’ll be bored until then. What?” she asked when I shook my head. “Jamie is fucking hot.”
“He reminds me of Carter.”
Bronte shuddered. “Ugh, now who’s being sick and weird.”
I tsked and went back to reading her messages, smacking down the lid on the laptop when they hit an all-time low with the guy who wanted to slap her ass with pizza dough.
Hunter
When we pulled up at the Jackson’s house, the first thing I saw was Ellie’s shit colored car. It was parked badly, almost a foot from the curb and with the front end stuck out; pretty much how she always parked it. With a sigh, I pulled up behind it and turned to Pop.
“So, have a great night.”
“Gee, thanks sweetie,” Jojo his new girlfriend chirped from the back seat. “We’ll see you later.”
“You are still okay to pick us up?” Pop asked.
I nodded and cleared my throat as two arms came around his neck and long, red nails scratched through his beard.
“I’m so excited to meet your friends, Jeff.”
I frowned.
“Jeff?” I mouthed silently to Pop who gave me a tight smile before he reached into the footwell for the booze he’d brought along. As the two bottles of JD clinked in the bag, Jojo giggled.
“I think it’s going to be a good night. You sure the girls will like what I bought with me though?” she asked and held up a box of wine.
Pop had said that she was classy, but in the forty-five minutes I’d known her there wasn’t an awful lot of class evident. To start with—and I didn’t want to be judgey—but I’d never seen a catsuit quite like it outside of an 80’s Cher video, and once she’d tottered down her path in her leopard print shoes, she’d kissed the life out of my pop, in the middle of her street, with tongues. Finally, there was the box of wine which had ‘Multiple not to be sold separately’ stamped across it. I knew this because she had pretty much pushed it in my face to ask what I thought of it, and that was before Pop had even introduced us.
“You not coming in to say hello?” Pop asked.
I looked at Ellie’s car and shook my head. I could do without her and Bronte’s snark for one night. It’d been a long day, one of the bull calves had got caught in the barb-wire fence and cut itself badly. I’d had to call Carter in to come and dress the wound to make sure it didn’t become infected and we lost money.
“I’m gonna go home to check on the calf and then watch some T.V. Call me when you’re ready for a ride back.”
“Okay, son, and I promise it won’t be late.”
“You could stay at mine, Jeff. I could ask my neighbor Brian to come get us. It would save Hunter the journey,” Jojo said with a grin.
I held my breath and waited to hear if Pop said yes. If, he did it would mean he really liked her. I knew that because he never ever stayed over at a woman’s house and had only ever let one woman stay over at ours—Wailing Wendy—and even then, they’d slept in our spare room. He didn’t seem to want to have anyone in Mom’s bed just yet.
“No honey,” he replied, clearing his throat. “We have an early start in the morning, and I couldn’t impose on your friend.”
Jojo didn’t seem worried by it but gave his beard one last scratch before she flung open the truck door and jumped out.
I turned back to check she’d got out okay and caught sight of a red bra and a huge amount of cleavage as she leaned in to retrieve her box of wine.
Anxious that I’d let my eyes linger too long on my pop’s girlfriend’s assets, I quickly shot my gaze back to Ellie’s poop colored car.
“Please come in,” Pop growled from beside me. “I’m nervous.”
I turned to him and frowned. “They’re your oldest friends, why the hell are you nervous?”
He glanced out of the side window to where Jojo was inching her catsuit from the crack of her ass and heaved out a sigh.
“Ten minutes.” I groaned. “And then I’m going home.”
Pop grinned and clutched my shoulder to give it a squeeze. “Thanks, son, appreciate it.”
Thirty minutes later and I was still shooting shit with Pop, Jim and Henry while the ladies hung around in the kitchen to keep watch on Darcy’s starter.
“You don’t think the Cowboys will get to the Superbowl final this year?” Jim asked me incredulously. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
I nodded and took a swig of the coke which Darcy had given to me, because I was driving, and because she still thought I was twelve. “Their defense is shit.”
“Yeah, but they have one of the best wide receivers in the NFL,” Henry added.
“Hunter is right.” Pop slapped between my shoulder blades. “It ain’t their year.”
When the three men continued to argue, I decided that was my cue to head out and I slipped from the room. I was almost to the kitchen, when I bumped into Ellie who was leaving one of the rooms off the hall.
“Hey,” I said and gave her a nod. “You visiting with Bronte?”
“Yes.” She sighed. “But she drives me crazy.”
Ellie whirled her index fingers around by her ears and crossed her eyes. I couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of her.
“What’s she done now?” I asked.
“Internet dating,” Ellie huffed out and leaned with her back against the wall, her palms flat against it underneath her ass. “She’s about to message some weirdo who wants to wear her underwear while he pinches her nipples.”
My eyes bugged out and I almost choked on fresh air. “Say what?”
“I know.” Ellie let her head drop back and she let out a strangled groan. “Ugh, she needs help.”
“She’s not going to meet up with him?” I asked, concerned that Bront
e was about to land herself in hot water.
“No, I don’t think so. She just knows it pisses me off when she does crazy things and thinks it’s totally hilarious. God, if it’s not your d—” She stopped speaking and slapped a hand over her mouth, her wide, horrified eyes watched me.
I laughed and poked a finger against her shoulder. “I know all about Bronte being hot for my pop, Ellie.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, I do. I caught her rifling through our laundry hamper at my birthday party. She was looking for a tee that smelled of him and was going to take it home.”
Ellie’s face dropped. “Shit, it’s worse than I thought. It’s so much worse.”
She looked real troubled about what I’d said and I wondered if maybe I should have kept quiet. To be honest though, I thought it was pretty funny that a girl a couple of years younger than me was crushing on Pops. If nothing else, it proved how damn hot he was, and I liked to think that I looked like him.
“Ellie,” I soothed and took a step closer to her. “It’s all good. It’s just a crush.”
Ellie’s eyes snapped to mine. “She stole his clothes, Hunter, just so she could smell him. It’s not all good.”
I rumbled a low laugh as Ellie began to pace up and down the hallway. After I’d watched her do three passes, I decided to pull her to a stop.
“Hey.” I grabbed her hand and wheeled her around to face me. “Cool it, it’s not like Pop is going to return any feelings she has, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
She stared at me and I could almost hear her brain whirling. “I know that, but it does mean that she’ll do everything in her power to either a, forget him, or b, which is so much worse, make him jealous.”
“And?”
“And,” she said, tugging her hand from mine. “That means she’ll be irresponsible, indiscreet and downright idiotic. You have no idea what she’ll come up with. The damn internet dating is only the start of it.”