The Firework Exploded (The Holidays #3)(10)

“No ice sculpture,” Noel states again, glaring at her mother.

“Come on, what’s the harm in a little carved block of ice? I bet Reggie could make a really nice swan holding a heart or something. I’ll supervise your dad and make sure no appendages are cut off,” I reassure her.

“There will be one appendage cut off if you’ve been dipping your stick in strawberry Yoplait. That ice sculpture will look like a crime scene, mark my words,” he whispers to me under his breath.

“See? Sam likes it. We want to make Sam happy, don’t we?” Bev asks Noel.

“You think my brother, Alex, and Aunt Bobbie will allow an ice sculpture to remain standing all night?” Noel asks casually, having no clue that I’m now imagining Reggie holding my bloody dick in his hand and beating a block of ice with it. “You don’t think one, or all of them, will start daring each other to pee on the thing to melt it faster? Or in the middle of cutting the cake we’ll look over to find one of them flailing all around with their tongue stuck to the swan’s ass, reenacting the flag pole scene from A Christmas Story?”

Now that she mentions it, I can guarantee that’s exactly what will happen.

“Right, so no ice sculpture,” I mutter in agreement with a nod of my head.

“Okay, that’s fine. Whatever you want, dear,” Bev tells me sweetly.

“I agree. Whatever makes you calm and happy, Sam,” Aunt Bobbie states.

“Now you got my hopes up and I want to carve an ice sculpture,” Reggie complains.

“It’s okay, honey, you can still practice on the ice when it gets here. Won’t that be nice?” Bev asks.

“What a great idea, Mom!” Noel concurs with a big smile. “It will all be nice and happy! Dad can still play with a chainsaw and ice, and Sam won’t have to worry about prying someone’s tongue off of a swan’s ass.”

“And I promise not to pee on the ice you practice with, everyone wins!” Aunt Bobbie announces.

“Are we in the Twilight Zone?” Reggie whispers close to my ear. “One of us is about to get stabbed. They are never this agreeable.”

I nod in confusion and a little bit fearful of the three women as they huddle together, giving each other hugs while aiming creepy smiles in our direction.

“This is what Bev used to do back in the day when Lucifer’s Waterfall was upon us every month,” he continues quietly. “She’d get me all docile and relaxed, and then BAM! She’d whittled a shiv out of a spatula and had it against my neck because I left the toilet seat up.”

“Oooooh, don’t do that. Or put the lid down. Apparently they don’t like that either,” I tell him.

“What are you, homeless? No one puts the entire lid down,” Reggie scolds, giving me another side-eye glare.

“Okay, I need to finish getting dinner ready,” Bev announces, walking across the room and dodging all the boxes before stopping in front of me to rub my arm. “No Mason jars, no chalkboards, no birdcages, and no ice sculpture for people to pee on. Whatever Mister Ed wants, Mister Ed gets.”

“Jesus H. Rocky Road, not that damn horse again,” Reggie grumbles with a shake of his head. “I thought we stopped obsessing about that horse years ago?”

“WE WILL STOP TALKING ABOUT MISTER ED WHEN MISTER ED CAN WIN A RACE!” Bev shrieks. “Mister Ed is in charge of carrying on our family name, Reggie.”

With that, she pushes between us and heads to the kitchen, while Noel, Aunt Bobbie, and Scheva busy themselves moving boxes against the walls so people can actually walk through the room without tripping.

“That’s my cue to go hide all the spatulas,” Reggie sighs as he turns and follows Bev into the kitchen, leaving me alone with the three remaining unstable women.

Maybe now isn’t the best time to talk to Noel about our problem. We still have a month of arguing with her mother about wedding arrangements to worry about, and now I have to figure out how to break it to Alex that Scheva got spooked because he got too serious. Maybe if I’m lucky, this little problem will just work itself out soon. It’s not like Noel is too worried about it, she knows it’s not going to last forever. She’s too stressed about the wedding to worry about something little like this. I’ll just make sure to do whatever I can to keep her calm and to keep giving her as many orgasms as I can to take her mind off of things.

Like Aunt Bobbie said, everyone wins.





Chapter 5




Two Girls, One Fist

Noel


As much as I didn’t want to, I tried to keep Sam at my parents’ house as long as possible. After dinner, we went over the guest list with my mother for the tenth time. It took all of the strength I had to remain calm and not scream at her that we didn’t even know two-hundred people and she needed to find a way to cross off at least a hundred and fifty of the names and addresses she’d scribbled on notebook paper. Just because she met someone one time and had a conversation with them in the check-out line of the grocery store, did not mean they needed to be invited to the wedding. She almost started crying when I told her June, the cashier at Macy’s, was the first to go from the list. I am not a calm person. I like to argue and with my family, arguing is what we do best. Every time my heart started beating faster with the need to scream my head off that Mr. Yoder, the Amish man who built their barn last summer, is not considered a close family or friend, I just had to take one look at Sam and remind myself to take a deep breath and not cause a scene.