Chapter 16 – Phoenix #2
I contain my sigh because I know what’s coming next. My father guffaws, barely able to get the words out. “Phoenix was wiping his hands with…” he pauses for maximum dramatic effect, “feminine hygiene wipes.”
The entire table erupts in laughter. At least the adults do. The little ones are busy coloring and playing tic-tac-toe on their kid menus.
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” I say good-naturedly. “I found them in Mom’s bathroom cabinet and asked what they were. She told me they were for women to clean themselves. So I thought, hey, why can’t I use them to clean my hands?”
Dad takes a sip of his sweet tea. “And then there was the time Phoenix and Helix used their mom’s tampons as darts for their Nerf guns. We had feminine products shooting all over the damn house. Apparently that was Phoenix’s idea.”
Cue more laughter. Until Jordie leans forward, forearms on the table. “When I was five, I took all my sister’s tampons, painted them red and green, and hung them on the Christmas tree.”
“No you didn’t!” Perri shrieks through a giggle. “What happened?”
Jordie rolls her eyes. “I did it on Christmas Eve. No one even noticed until we sat around the tree to open presents that evening. My dad saw them first and plucked one off the tree, staring at it for a long time. Then he realized what it was and chucked it across the room.”
All the grown-ups are howling, and Jordie gives me a soft smile of solidarity across the table. I return it, feeling my heart do a little stutter step.
Opal, obviously overhearing the story, begins serving the food, plopping down butcher paper with smoked meat in front of everyone. “Well, I think we’ve found your nickname, Miss McNamara. You’re now the Tampon Elf.”
Her eyes round, and my dad explains, “Opal gives everyone a nickname. Phoenix’s is Booger.”
Could this dinner get any more humiliating?
Jordie rolls her lips inward, doing her best to stifle a smile. Puffing out a sigh, I explain, “When I was a kid, we came here to eat, and I stuffed a piece of fried okra up my nose and told Mom I had a booger.”
Dad chuckles at the memory. “He stuffed it way up in there. We had to take him to the emergency room to get it out.”
I shrug. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
A few hours later, I’m in my bedroom, freshly showered and sitting against my black padded headboard, scrolling mindlessly on my phone when a text notification pops up from Jordie. I tap on it.
Jordie: Thanks so much for coming today and for dinner afterward. Your family is nice.
Me: They’re a pain in the ass, but I guess I’ll keep them.
Jordie: After hearing your dad’s stories, I can see where Reece gets her thuggish lifestyle. You’re paying for your raising, as my dad used to say.
Me: No lies detected. Thanks for stepping in with your own embarrassing story.
Jordie: I couldn’t tell if your dad’s stories bothered you or not, but I decided to take some of the heat off you.
Me: Appreciate it, but nah. Not a bit. I was just offended he didn’t include some of my best work. Tampon darts and Vagisil wipes? Complete amateur hour.
Jordie: Ooh, this I have to hear.
Me: Not sure I want to put it in text for you to screenshot and use as blackmail.
My phone rings almost instantly with a FaceTime request, and I almost sprain my finger accepting it.
Jordie’s face appears. She’d worn a little makeup today, but now her face is clean and fresh, her blonde hair down and slightly damp.
She’s fucking gorgeous, and I love how confident she is in her own skin.
Most of the women I know wouldn’t be caught dead without a full face of makeup.
“Just got out of the shower?” I ask, and great. That was completely inappropriate. Also, now I’m picturing Jordie in the shower. Naked. Wet. Soapy. Against the wall with my…
“Yep,” she says, interrupting my X-rated thoughts before they can get too far. “You too?”
I don’t miss how her eyes drop to my bare chest and eat me up. And I don’t miss how her little pink tongue darts out to wet her bottom lip.
Clearing the husk from my voice, I say, “Yeah. I got Reece to bed and then did a workout since I wasn’t able to get one in this morning. My daughter was being a pill.”
“I can tell you work out,” she says, and then her cheeks flush beneath her tan.
She’s a little flustered, and it’s goddamn sexy. I could let it go, but that just wouldn’t be me. “You checking me out, McNamara?” My grin is wicked, and I really shouldn’t be flirting like this.
“No, I’m just, um, making an observation.” She rolls a strand of blonde hair around her index finger. “Why don’t you tell me some of these stories?”
Scooting down in the bed, I get comfortable with my phone propped on my chest. “Most of them have to do with me embarrassing my mother. This one time, she was dropping me and Helix off at preschool, and I announced to the class that we were late because my mommy had diarrhea.”
“Oh my god,” she laughs. “Phoenix!”
“I know. She made Dad take us to preschool for an entire month because she said she couldn’t show her face there again.”
“Bless her heart.”
“And another time, I had my entire first-grade class, including my teacher, convinced that I had a little brother named Andrew, and my parents lost him when we went on a trip to Mexico.”
Her eyes go soft with sympathy. “You had another brother?”
“Hell no. I just made it up and told my teacher not to mention it because it would only upset my mom.”
“Phoenix Hale, you were a menace. Did your mom ever find out?”
I chuckle. “Oh yeah. During a parent-teacher meeting, my teacher pulled Mom aside and offered her some pamphlets for parents dealing with grief.” Shivering, I say, “The look of pure rage on my mother’s face still haunts me to this day.”
“Tell me more,” she says, settling into my tales like they are the best thing she’s ever heard.
“One time, Dad took us to a museum, I guess to try and infuse a little culture into our wild asses. There was this one nude statue that fascinated me.”
“A woman?” Jordie guesses dryly.
“Nope, a man. I couldn’t figure out why the hell he was just standing there with his junk hanging out. Especially since it wasn’t very impressive junk.”
A bark of laughter spurts from her mouth. “Let me guess. You made a very loud comment about the state of said junk?”
With a wicked grin, I shake my head. “Even better. I told Dad I had to go to the restroom, so he pointed me in that direction and said they would be waiting in the next room of the museum for me.” Rubbing my hand over my stubbly jaw, I say. “So I went into the restroom and took off my underwear.”
Jordie covers her eyes with one hand. “Oh my god. You didn’t.”
“Yep, I did. A security guard caught me trying to figure out how to put my little tighty whities on the statue.” She uncovers her eyes and chortles so hard her entire body shakes as I continue.
“Of course, his feet were immovable, so I was holding my underwear up over his manhood and running through ways to get them to stick there. Tape, glue, chewed bubblegum.”
She holds up one finger, pink splotches dotting her cheeks. “Can I get one clarification?”
“Of course. I want you to have the full picture.”
Jordie leans closer, and I can see a few freckles dotting her nose as her voice lowers to a conspiratorial whisper. “When you say you took off your underwear, did you put your pants back on, or were you standing there with your ass shining?”
“First of all, thank you for acknowledging I have a shiny ass. It does indeed have quite the lustrous sheen.” She rolls her eyes. “Second of all, what kind of uncouth brute do you think I am? Of course I put my pants back on while I was attempting to give this unfortunate man a bit of dignity.”
“So you’re completely offended by nudity?”
The smile that creeps across my face is pure mischief. “I didn’t say that. I enjoy nudity very much when it’s the right person who has disrobed.”
Hey, don’t blame me for throwing out innuendos. She started it.
“Noted,” she says, her voice sounding a little breathier than usual.
Am I picturing Jordie naked while her breathiness is for a completely different reason? You’re damn right I am. And so is my penis, which is now going rogue and thickening inside my navy-blue boxer briefs. I reach a hand down and press my palm against the length.
Jordie clears her throat and changes the subject. “You said Reece was being a pill this morning?”
My deep sigh is laced with amusement. “She decided to make breakfast for me while I was upstairs getting dressed.”
Her eyebrows rise slowly. “Don’t tell me she set the kitchen on fire.”
Chuckling, I shake my head. “No, she knows better than to use the stove or oven. Or the toaster,” I add dryly. “So she made me untoasted toast.”
“Soooo, just bread?”
“You got it. But she slathered it in butter and strawberry jam.”
“Did you eat it?”
“Of course I did,” I say, feigning offense. “And then I spent thirty minutes cleaning up the butter and jam that she managed to smear all over the kitchen. And herself. She required another bath before we could leave because she was all sticky and greasy.”
Jordie nibbles on her bottom lip. “I guess being a single parent is hard, huh?”
“It’s not for the faint of heart, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world,” I tell her honestly.
“I really lucked out with Reece’s nanny.
I can go to work and not worry about her being taken care of because Lorraine is amazing.
And a lot of credit goes to my family for keeping me sane.
One of them keeps my kiddo on Tuesday nights while I…
” I stop myself and finish with, “Have a night to myself.”
Her eyes shine like aquamarine stones. “I hope this isn’t too personal to ask, but did her mother die?”
I do my best to keep the coldness from my voice. “No, she chose not to be in Reece’s life because of her career.”
Jordie goes silent, and her eyes shift to the side for a long moment before she admits, “Same with my mom.” Her gaze comes back to me, swimming with something I can’t define. “She came back earlier this year.”
“Oh,” I say in surprise. “Is that a good thing?”
Her eyes drop for the briefest of seconds. “Sure.” But she doesn’t sound so sure.
“When was the last time you saw her before she came back?”
With a bob of her shoulders, she says, “I don’t remember ever seeing her. I was a baby when she left.”
“Reece’s mom never even looked at her,” I say quietly. “She left the country without saying a word to me. I mean, I knew she was going to leave, but I guess I at least expected her to say goodbye or good luck or fuck off. Anything.”
“God, I’m sorry, Phoenix. So she told you during the pregnancy that she changed her mind?”
My smile holds absolutely no humor. “She told me on our wedding day that she was pregnant, didn’t want the baby, and was going to give it up for adoption so we could move to Japan for her new job opportunity.”
Jordie’s neck cranes forward, her lips parting. “You’re shitting me.”
“I assure you, I’m not. I obviously opted out of her plan and made one of my own. With just me and Reecie.”
“I know this sounds weird to say, but I’m proud of you, Phoenix. That couldn’t have been an easy decision.”
“I’m not gonna lie. It hurt, but the decision was made in my mind as soon as she told me she was pregnant.”
Her lips twist to the side. “I’m not sure which is worse. A mother seeing her baby and deciding she’s not worth staying for, or a mother who never wanted her in the first place.”
The pain radiates from her pretty face, and I feel the need to reach into the phone and hug her. “I don’t ever want you to think you weren’t worth staying for, Jordie. Some people are just selfish, and that has nothing to do with the people they’re leaving behind.”
She nods and sniffles a little. “I know. My mom is here now, and it’s been nice getting to know her.”
“Are your brothers and sister glad she’s back?”
Jordie hesitates before admitting, “I haven’t told them. She asked me not to because there was apparently some bad blood when she left.”
“I imagine.” My mind sifts through the information I know about her family. “Juliette and Bubba would have been teenagers then, right?”
“Yes, and they never talk about her. I asked Bubba recently if he ever heard from her, and all he said was, ‘Hell no, and I don’t care if I ever hear from that bitch again.’ So I let it drop, and I’m just kinda keeping those two sides of my life separate for now.”
Something about that doesn’t sit right with me. Her older brother is a beast of a hockey player, but I’ve never heard of that kind of hostility from him off the ice.
“Just be careful, okay?” I caution gently. “Sometimes when someone gets famous, relatives can come out of the woodwork looking for a payday. I don’t want anyone to take advantage of you.”
Jordie chews on her bottom lip and bobs her head up and down.
“I am helping her out with her rent because her fiancé is going through some job trouble.” My jaw tightens, and she quickly adds, “But I’m not being dumb about it.
I send the rent directly to her apartment complex, and she never asks me to give her money other than that. ”
I try not to let it bother me since it’s none of my damn business, but I don’t like a grown-ass woman showing up and asking her long-forgotten daughter for financial help at the start of her new career.
When Jordie covers her mouth to stifle a yawn, I bury the red flags and say, “I’ll let you get some sleep.” I find that I’m reluctant to do so. She’s so easy to talk to. In fact, I’ve never told anyone else about what happened with Beatrice, other than my family, of course.
“Yeah,” she replies, sounding as reluctant as I feel. “I have practice in the morning and then again in the afternoon. What are you doing tomorrow?”
“Taking Reece to the children’s museum.”
A wide smile splits her face, revealing pretty white teeth. “Try to keep your underwear on, Hale.”
My smile matches hers.
“No promises, McNamara.”