The Firework Exploded (The Holidays #3)(39)

My mother, Aunt Bobbie, Nicholas, and my father quickly move to lead the way as Fat Ralph grabs his case of beer and heads toward the house, most likely wanting to make sure they get there before him and he doesn’t start inhaling the food that started to be delivered today for the wedding.

“I can’t believe everything you said about him was true,” Alex whispers, still staring wide-eyed at Fat Ralph’s retreating back.

“And you didn’t believe me when I told you he was just like Cousin Eddie from the movie Christmas Vacation, but a thousand times worse,” Sam adds with a deep sigh.

Sam, Alex, and I watch Fat Ralph reach behind Aunt Bobbie and pinch her ass right before they make it to the kitchen door. In the blink of an eye, she turns, grabs his arm and yanks his entire body up and over her as she bends forward, the three of us wincing when his back slams into the ground.

“WOOOOOOHOOOOO I DIDN’T EVEN DROP MY BEER!” Fat Ralph shouts, holding his arm up above him that still holds the can.

“In case you were wondering, the FAM written next to his name in my address book didn’t mean family. It stood for Fucking Ass Motherf*cker,” Sam tells me with a sigh.

With a sympathetic pat on his back, I grab his hand and pull him toward the house to join everyone else. Now I’m definitely going to put Scheva to work when she gets here. If anyone needs a release and some sex a day early, it’s Sam. Let’s just hope Fat Ralph is staying somewhere other than my parents’ house tonight.





Chapter 15




Liquefying Labia

Sam




Have you ever had a feeling of doom? That feeling when one bad thing happens and you know, without a shadow of a doubt, that it’s only the beginning? You’re positive it’s a sign, telling you that everything that could possibly go wrong in your life, will quickly follow that one bad thing in a tidal wave of horrible shit that you can never un-see, resulting in nightmares for the rest of your life. That’s pretty much where I’m at right now, standing in Nicholas’s old bedroom at Reggie and Bev’s house, staring at myself in the mirror above the dresser, trying to pinpoint exactly what that first bad thing was.

Naturally, I want to blame my jack-ass of a foster brother for showing up yesterday afternoon, but then I’d have to blame Bev and Aunt Bobbie for inviting him. Then I’d have to blame Noel for being worried about my lack of family at the wedding and I can’t fault any of them for loving me and caring about me. Right now, I’ve settled on blaming my dick for all that has happened, mostly because he can’t talk back when I curse at him.

I have to say, I look damn fine and I’m kind of glad one of the bad things that happened over the last few weeks was Alex doing exactly what I warned him about—pissing off the seamstress at the tux shop so much that she’d cancel our order. Thankfully, my soon-to-be wife was still in Keep Calm mode when we got the call, she quickly wrote down everyone’s measurements, and her and Aunt Bobbie ran to the mall to get us all something to wear.

Running my hand down my tie, I unbutton the cuffs of my fitted white dress shirt and roll them up to my elbows before straightening the grey belt attached to my gray dress pants. Noel got myself, Reggie, Nicholas, and Alex the same outfits, with the exception of the ties. They’d be wearing ties the same color gray as the pants, and I got a scarlet red one. Honestly, not having to wear a tux, when the temperature has already reached ninety degrees before noon, is perfectly fine with me, but I’m still adding this to the list of bad shit I’ve been calculating in my head.

After having to sit through Ralph explain in detail to everyone why he gave me the name of Shit Sock, an unfortunate event that involved Ralph shitting in a pair of socks when we camped in the backyard one night when we were teenagers, and me sliding them on at four in the morning when I had to take a piss, I couldn’t wait for him to go the hell away. There’s a reason why we’ve only communicated via email for the last seventeen years.

Even with the retelling of the shit sock story for a second time for Scheva’s benefit when she showed up to the house, Noel still had that look in her eye that I’ve learned to look for in the last seven months. The one that can give me a boner in two-point-five seconds, even after the vibrating phone incident and even with Ralph going on and on about me putting on a pair of shit-filled socks, in between chugging an entire case of beer by himself and hitting on all the females in the room.

All through the night, including when we went outside to do a run-through of the ceremony, and after Ralph made Alex drive him to KFC to pick up chicken, Noel kept giving me that look. The one that said she was one second away from dragging me into an empty room and f*cking my brains out. The hope that she had decided to end our agreement a day early was the only thing that gave me a reason to live all night. Noel found every excuse she could to rub her body against mine, graze her fingertips over my upper thigh right by my dick, and gently run her fingers through my hair at the nape of my neck. When she leaned closer to me on the couch when no one was looking and nibbled on my earlobe, I shot up to my feet, grabbed her hand and told everyone we had a wedding errand to run.

Bev chose that moment to inform me that Ralph would be staying at my place, Ralph held up a chicken leg in his greasy fingers and pointed it at me with a cheer, and my dick wilted and died in my pants as Noel and I both slumped back to the couch with echoing sighs of frustration.