"Wanna bet?"
GOOD THING I didn't take the bet.
I would have lost.
My face was still flushed from the rapid fire trio of orgasms he'd treated me to in the shower when I walked in to the kitchen to find Dolly and Conway on stools at the island, the once pristine countertop covered in what looked like flour and egg yolks and God only knew what else. I drew up short and blurted out, "What the hell is going on here?"
"We're making pancakes." Dolly had something-I was choosing to believe batter-smeared over one cheek and what might have been egg in her hair. She wiggled on her stool, turning to her brother for support. "Special pancakes, right, Conway?"
Conway nodded, his normally placid face set in stern lines. He pointed at one of the small canisters sitting between them on the counter and then held up two fingers separated by a half inch of air. I might not have known what he meant but Dolly apparently did, reaching for the container and popping open the lid with the sort of one-handed efficiency some cooks spent their entire careers trying to achieve. She gave the batter a few quick whisks before glancing at him again. When he nodded, she turned to me and said, "Okay, we're finished. You have to cook them."
"Oh, do I?" Resigning myself to whatever monstrosity they'd concocted, I crossed the room, pulling the large cast iron skillet out of the under-the-counter cabinet and setting it on the stove. "Tell me, if you did the prep work and I'm doing the cooking, who has to do the cleaning?"
"Tammy." They both answered at the same time, pausing for a moment before erupting in to big belly laughs which brought a reluctant smile to my face. Dolly continued, "I have to take another bath."
"Having seen you eat, you should probably wait until after you finish breakfast-no point in taking two baths before the day gets good and started." Walking over to the island, I wiggled between them, frowning as I studied the batter. It had been years since I'd made pancakes from scratch but it looked, for lack of a better word, normal. "Do I want to know what the two of you put in here?"
"Awesomeness." Conway enunciated the word carefully, his eyes big as he nodded solemnly. "All the awesomeness."
"Okay, then." I kissed the top of his head before doing the same to Dolly, taking the bowl and moving to the fridge, opening the shiny new appliance I'd blown way too much money on and pulling out a stick of butter. "One of you go make sure your sister is up and let her know she's on cleanup duty. The other one needs to go check on Kitty."
They clambered out as Abraham strolled in, a pair of pajama pants low on his hips. He drew up short, sweeping his gaze over the destruction before saying, "How did they manage to do so much damage in such a short amount of time?"
"To be fair, I think most of it was Dolly." I dropped a pat of butter in the skillet, smiling when it sizzled and started to melt. "Although Conway was the one doing the directing, so to speak, so I guess he deserves a fair share of the blame, too."
"Not to be rude but do either of them know how to cook?"
I laughed as I poured the batter in the pan. "We're going to find out, aren't we?"
IT TURNED OUT the kids did know how to cook-or at least how to prep. Tammy had grumbled about having to clean up, something I couldn't blame her for considering how much of a mess the other two had made, but she didn't complain about the food. If I hadn't had to remind him we were on a schedule, Abraham would have gone back for thirds.
So when the five of us rolled up to church-Kitty having bowed out, claiming exhaustion from the day before and I was inclined to believe her after one look at the circles under her eyes-we were all in relatively good moods.
I should have known the Baptists would take care of bursting that little bubble.
If I was being fair-which I didn't want to be because who were they to judge?-we did make something of a spectacle. As I'd suspected, there was egg in Dolly's hair, which meant it had to be washed and since it would have been the height of impropriety to go to church with wet hair, I'd had to blow dry it, something which should have been easy but the wiggly nature of my niece had turned in to a major chore. The result was a somewhat frizzy mass of waves she'd refused to let me attempt to control with a braid or bobby pins or anything, saying she looked like a poodle and she loved poodles and that-as far as she was concerned-was that.
Then there was Conway, who'd decided he was in the mood to wear one of the dresses we'd bought in Savannah. I didn't care, honestly-at least not until he'd insisted on making sure it matched my dress and that both of those matched his doll's dress. When Abraham had pointed out we should be thankful he wasn't as picky about shoes, it had taken every ounce of patience I had left to not punch him in his dick.
Mostly because I really, really liked his dick.
Tammy, surprisingly, had simply sat in the living room and read her Bible without any comments about hurrying up or being late or how inappropriate either of her siblings looked. She'd frowned some at my dress, which was odd considering it covered everything from my knees to my throat, including my arms, but since we were pressed for time I didn't ask what her problem was. I had no doubt she'd tell me at some point, probably in a withering, lecturing tone.
Still, it was a clear, sunny, not too hot day, and Abraham had let the kids listen to Taylor Swift all the way to church. It was hard to be in a bad mood when you had three kids sing-yelling at the top of their lungs and it was even harder when the quintessential pierced and tattooed bad boy joined in, singing about the beauty of being twenty-two. So we might have looked odd and out of place but we were happy.
It lasted about ten minutes in to the service.
That was how long it took for people to start turning and staring at us, all of them trying to be subtle and all of them failing miserably. At first I tried to ignore them, more for Tammy's sake than my own. I might not have given two fucks about causing a scene but my oldest niece would no doubt melt in to the floor in embarrassment so I bit my tongue. Even when one or two of the older women clucked their tongues and shook their heads, I kept quiet, even though I was sure there were tread marks on my tongue.
But when someone I vaguely recognized as being a year or two ahead of me in high school nudged the woman sitting next to her, both of them glancing at Conway and giggling, I couldn't hold back any longer.
"I'm sorry, is there something I can do for you?" I hadn't planned on being quite so loud but the pianist chose that moment to play the last note in the hymn she'd been torturing for the last five minutes so my voice seemed to boom through the suddenly quiet room. Even as Abraham rested one hand on my knee, squeezing in warning, I said, "Because if you're wondering where I bought my dress, I should warn you it really wouldn't be the most flattering style for either of you."
One of the women had the decency to flush and look away while the other, the one I couldn't quite place, lifted her chin and said, "Oh, we were wondering where your nephew got his."
"Again, I don't think the style would suit you and I'm sure the color wouldn't." I cocked my head and narrowed my eyes, pursing my lips as I pretended to study her, doing my best to make sure my gaze was as insulting as possible. "No, I don't think you have the skin tone for pastels."
"Well." She broke off, straightening her spine and attempting to look down her nose at me, managing to look constipated more than anything else. "He doesn't have the body type for dresses."
"He has a body, doesn't he? That mean he has the right type." I waited until she broke eye contact, dropping her gaze to her lap, before shifting in my seat, raising my voice to address the entire congregation. "Any of you have a problem, you can come say something to me directly. In the meantime, I'd suggest listening to the sermon and trying to find some of that Christian spirit you're so proud of showing off."
Apparently taking that as his cue, Pastor Neal hurried over to the pulpit, opening his Bible and starting to drone on about the Sermon on the Mount. Next to me, Tammy sighed, her rigid frame relaxing the tiniest bit. Leaning over, she pressed her mouth to my ear and whispered, "Thank you for not causing a scene, Aunt Jeannie."
I nodded, settling Conway in my lap while Abraham did the same with Dolly. For the next thirty minutes, I met each and every sneaked look in our direction with a hard glare, not one of them making eye contact for longer than a few seconds. When the sermon ended and Pastor Neal dismissed us all with a prayer, I stood, propping Conway on my hip and turning to Abraham. "So what are-."