Chapter Six #2
She picks up another box, unaware that I’m now leaning on the wall watching her. A body sidles up beside me, followed by another. And one more, because why don’t we all stand here watching the woman like total creepers?
“Is… is she putting our things away?” Caiden whispers with no small amount of awe.
“Looks like it,” Ryan answers quietly, a smile in his voice.
“I’ll tell him, Mom. It’s not like he’ll forget.
You make him set reminders every week,” Maddie mutters with a roll of her eyes, walking a box labeled “kitchen” to our open-plan kitchen, which is smaller than hers.
She nods along to whatever her mother says, pulling out pans and utensils.
And then she pulls something questionable from the box with a quirked eyebrow and a tiny smirk.
“Hey, Mom? What does it mean when a guy has utensils fit for a bachelorette party?”
There’s a pause, and I turn briefly to find Ryan’s cheeks growing pink while Caid starts grinning like an asshole. Rayne hasn’t taken his eyes off the blue-haired beauty, arms crossed over his chest and legs crossed while he leans on the doorframe.
“It’s a penis, Mom. A big wooden phallus.
A dick bottle opener, if you need specifics.
It has veins and everything.” There’s another pause before she nods.
“You’re so right. It takes a secure man to hold an impressive-sized wiener while opening a cold one with the boys.
I mean, this thing isn’t small, Mom. It’s bigger than my face. But what does it mean?”
“It means you really shouldn’t be looking through boxes that aren’t yours,” Ryan interjects, face-palming when Maddie puts the bottle opener to her crotch and turns toward us with a grin.
“Yeah, gotta go, Mom. I just figured out who the weed whacker belongs to, and I have questions. Yeah, I’ll see you then. Love you,” Maddie says quickly before ending the call and opening her mouth with an inhale.
Before a single thing leaves her mouth, Ryan holds a hand up and quickly rushes, “Need I remind you of your morning? You have no right questioning my utensils right now. I didn’t even buy that.
My parents bought it for me when they went to Greece and thought it would be funny to gift it to me on my birthday.
My sister has one similar. They think they’re funny like that. What’s your excuse?”
“My best friends are assholes,” she quickly retorts, shrugging and pretending to windmill with the wooden shaft.
“But it does sound like ‘doth protest too much, methinks,’ or whatever it was Shakespeare wrote. I’m not one to judge a man’s crotch-hammer utensil.
I’m judgmental about that godawful dog figurine, though.
It doesn’t even look like a dog. It looks like a deformed pig.
You should get your money back for that. ”
Covering my snort with a cough, I wipe my hand over my mouth and head over to the entry table to snatch my keys and phone.
Caiden doesn’t bother hiding it, his laughter trailing after me while I sit on the couch and shove my feet into my socks and boots.
When I’m done, I stand and find Ryan gaping at Madison.
One look at the new bulge in her sweats and the hands on her hips is enough to make me understand why.
Again, I find myself breaking out in peals of laughter, Caiden and, surprisingly, Rayne joining in with me.
This is proving to be the best morning ever, even with the early wake-up call from the woman gyrating with her makeshift fake penis packer.
“Bro, who even is this woman, and why have we only just met her?” Rayne asks under his breath, eyeing Maddie like he’s just seen a woman for the first time in his life.
“Beats me. She sure doesn’t act like a famous photographer and successful businesswoman, that’s for sure,” I answer, snickering when the wooden pecker falls out of Maddie’s pant leg.
Caiden chimes in, grinning from ear to ear while he watches the woman stuff the bottle opener back in her sweats and squint at Ryan.
“Is it premature to admit we’re four of the luckiest bastards ever?
Like, we just found ourselves living beneath not just a badass in the business world, but a seriously hot and stupidly funny chick who clearly bounces back from one of the most embarrassing things I’ve ever witnessed.
You guys know anyone who can get caught in a failed attempt to masturbate and still chase a man with a fake penis in her pants? ”
Sure enough, Maddie has taken it upon herself to start chasing Ryan with the obvious bulge, laughing when he tries to dodge her thrusts.
Even he’s finding it hard not to laugh when she yells, “Oh, come on! You’ll use it to open bottles, but when it’s coming at you in a woman’s pants, you run scared? Take it, Ryan! Take it like a man!”
“Because it’s meant for opening bottles! Stop trying to rub it on my leg, for fuck’s sake,” he yells back, laughing as he sidesteps the woman, shooting her looks of bemused horror when she gyrates her hips in his direction.
Seriously, best morning ever.
I shake my head in answer, knowing just how lucky we got.
Just as she’s about to rush by me in her attempt to catch Ryan with the dick, I hook my arm around her waist, almost clotheslining her in the process.
She’s light enough that I pick her straight up off the ground, her entire body going limp in my hold.
The wooden dick falls to the floor with a sharp clatter, loud enough to be heard over the laughter, and she pouts.
I’ll be damned if my entire body reacts to that protruding bottom lip, my mouth watering with the sudden thoughts that flood my mind.
“Put that away,” I tell her, my voice raspier than it had been before. Clearing my throat, I ask, “You’ve got somewhere to be, remember?”
With a sigh, she agrees without even mentioning my manhandling.
Like this is a daily occurrence. As if she already fits into our merry band of misfits, like she’s always belonged there.
If I didn’t find her so funny and completely enthralling, I’d worry about it.
As it is, she tears my attention away from my wandering thoughts by grumbling, “Yeah, yeah. Can’t chase fully grown men I just met with wooden woodies all day. You ready to go?”
I let her go slowly, making sure her feet are under her, and nod. “Yeah, let’s bounce.”
Maddie nods, throws her skates back over her shoulder, tucks her keys and phone in her back pocket, and heads to the door with me close behind. She turns to the others before exiting the apartment and says, “Despite my initial introduction, it was cool meeting you guys. Laters.”
And with that, she strides out of the apartment with a funny little salute and heads straight for the elevator.
Before I follow after her, I turn to the others and rumble, “We’re fucked.”