Cousins(2)

"Okay."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

Time passed longer than I ever anticipated that day and now that I'm older and wiser, it's obvious that sweet, old Miss Caroline figured that it was going to be a long morning for me. It was the first time that my mother had ever left me somewhere and then completely forgot about me. She usually came back within at least an hour.

This time she didn't.

I was still sitting outside Walmart three hours later, when the tears started to roll down my face and the realization hit me that my mother wasn't coming back for me. I knew then that I had a decision to make. Should I try and look for my mother? Should I try and make my way back home? Or should I go inside and ask that sweet old woman for help?

I ate the last of my M&Ms while I thought things through and was able to arrive at my first of many future big boy decisions. I was going to figure out my way back home, with the vacuum cleaner in tow, and hoped that my mother would remember her way back home too.

Almost five hours later she did.





I'm lining up the peanut version of my favorite candy side by side on my smoked glass coffee table, then eating only the yellow ones. Eating M&Ms to calm myself down is one of my go to rituals thanks to the kind woman I met many years ago. Making it yellow M&Ms is something I'm doing on the fly. Something that reminds me of the very person that has my insides all twisted in knots. Yellow is Elizabeth's favorite color.

And she's all I can think about.

Her mouth.

Her breasts.

Her laugh.

That spectacular ass.

I don't especially like that images of her are creeping around inside of my head, consuming my thoughts, but the fact remains that I brought all this shit on myself once I put my hands and mouth on her and especially my damn dick inside of her. I have no one to blame but my fucking self.

It's like a switch has been flipped on inside of me that I couldn't power off even if I wanted to. What I think I hate most about how I'm feeling is that it's all so new and foreign to me. This desire to always know where she's at, what she's doing, and how she's feeling is actually a big pain in my ass. That shit is for weak pussies. Not for men like me.

My old school counselor would probably say I’m having an issue, because I don’t know how to interpret and control unfamiliar emotional responses or some such nonsensical shit. She was right about one thing though. I do like control. I definitely like knowing exactly what I’m dealing with at all times. I don’t like surprises, and I don’t like chaos. And while I'm sure it's no big deal in many circles that I have hooked up with a family member who is only my cousin by marriage, in my world it's a big fucking deal.

It's messy.

None of my friends or family would ever understand this. In our world, she's still very much family. They'd probably come up with many creative names for what I am: perverted, distorted, warped, depraved, pathetic. I know this because I would probably think the same thing.

Problem is right now … I just don't give a fuck.

And the only reason why I've been holding back as much as I have with Elizabeth is because I know that she definitely does give a fuck.

I've swallowed four Extra-Strength Excedrin and drank at least three highballs of Jack Daniels over the last hour, but my head is still fucking pounding and my gut is still wickedly churning. Probably because over the last twenty-four hours the same questions have been running through my head, gnawing at me.

What is Elizabeth doing? Who is she talking to? Why hasn't she returned my texts or calls? Is she okay? Has that prick Ethan slick-talked himself in between her legs right now? Does Joseph have enough pull to be able to bail my ass out if I kill a motherfucker in the Bahamas?

I'm checking and cleaning the slide and barrel of my gun for the third time now, because it's one of my rituals, and also because I really want to figure out a seriously creative way to transport an unregistered gun across international waters and into Paradise Island.

I'm not fucking playing.

It's a good thing federal laws are in place to prevent me from actually acting on it. Of course no law will stop me from breaking Ethan's jaw. I am already pissed that Elizabeth left the country without even as much as a good-bye to me, but now that Jade told me that Elizabeth's ex-boyfriend could possibly be in the exact same place, I've moved into I want to kick someone's ass mode. I want to break some shit the fuck up.

I just have to be very careful about how I approach this. No one can know just how twisted up I am. I'm going to have to rein my crazy in, or it's going to look like I'm going ape-shit over my cousin, which I am, but that's besides the point.

"Earth to Roman." Jade speaks to me with the tone of a perturbed elementary school teacher as she taps me on the forehead. "I asked what the hell is wrong with you?"