Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Josie
It’s a shame his dick is so big. When he put on those tiny little shorts, it popped right through the bottom and just stared at me. Now I’ll have to let him wear normal shorts to the event this morning.
“I’ll have to come up with another punishment,” I say. “I won’t make you flash your cock to everyone under the sun, but you gotta pay for falling asleep while I was showering off the fear-sweats last night.”
He pulls off the shorts and trades them for a snug pair of boxer briefs. I love the way he fills them out.
“I have a better idea. Why don’t I get you off twice today to make up for falling asleep last night?”
I almost don’t hear him over the sound of me choking on my own drool. He’s so fucking sexy, from his salt-and-pepper hair to his stubble to that man bod that only guys over forty seem to have. He has a good mind as well. A good heart. Usually.
Stop falling in love with him, I scold myself.
“Can I cash in one of them right now?” I ask. The quicker I can get off, the less lovey I’ll feel. Yuck.
He grips his cock through his boxers and starts stroking. “I think we can manage that.”
“Can we?” I spread my legs and dip my fingers into my sleep shorts.
He takes a step closer. He’s already hard. “Yes, I think we can. But first, I want to know why you won’t kiss me.”
My vagina dries up, and I close my legs. “Not this again.”
“Can you blame my curiosity?” He keeps stroking his cock as if he thinks I’ll turn on again. The poor guy is about to learn what a sore subject this is.
I stand and go to the closet so I can begin dressing for the event—an event I really don’t want to go to ever since I developed this really weird alligator phobia.
I’m just trying to support King, who also wants to bail but can’t because of the whole Carter project.
But if he’s going to continue to press the kissing issue, he can kiss my support goodbye.
“Josie, I’m sorry,” he says, choosing the apologetic approach versus the defensive approach. Like I said, he’s smart. “It’s just driving me mad. I can’t help but wonder if it’s me who has halitosis.”
That pulls a smile out of me, and I shake my head with a sigh. “No, it’s not your breath. It’s . . .”
I shake my head again. It’s not easy to talk about. It’s so difficult, in fact, that I never mentioned it to any of the many therapists I saw. They knew enough, but I refused to lay out every dirty detail. For anyone. Ever. It’s been my secret.
But more than that, I’m too ashamed of my logic to tell anyone else. What if I pour my heart out to King and he thinks it’s stupid? Not that I need his approval, but I’d be lying to myself if I said I didn’t want it.
Maybe I should tell the girls first. I can treat it as a sort of test run. If it’s silly to them, I won’t tell King.
With a plan in place, I begin to dress. The orgasm will have to wait. For once in my life, I have more on my mind than sex, and that needs to change. Quickly.
The event doesn’t involve gators so much as gators just happen to exist here. We are at none other than Jim’s wildlife reserve, in a section that’s a bit too dry for the reptiles, and I’m glad for that. If I never see an alligator again, it will be too soon.
Thankfully, animals have nothing to do with this game.
We’re in a wide, grassy field. A few yards ahead of us, four oversized pots simmer over a fire. The pots are big enough for a human to get inside, and for good reason. We’re about to make a seafood boil with a very special ingredient.
Jim already explained the rules. Right now we’re just waiting for him to hand out our chef hats—a requirement, he says. Now I know the outfits are just part of the psychology to make the Carters feel like a team.
Once we have our hats, we’ll break into groups of four, band our arms and legs together, and start the most fucked-up multi-limbed race to ever be run. I call this a walking disaster with a side of what the fuck.
There are three different stations, and we have to work together at each to accomplish a step in our food prep.
At the first station, we’ll gather wood for the fire.
At the second, we have to haul seasoned shrimp, lobster, sausages, and vegetables to our pot using only our tied-together hands.
The final station will be the most fun, though.
That’s where we each grab a Cattle limb and start sawing more meat for the pot.
Four Cattle have been fastened to large wooden tables. A metal strap encircles their necks, wrists, ankles, and waists, holding them in place. Each recipe calls for two arms, two legs, the head, and one other organ.
“Jim better not expect us to eat any of it,” I whisper as I slip the hideous red chef hat onto my head.
“Chef isn’t here,” King says, “so I doubt we’ll be forced to eat it. Who’ve we been partnered with?”
We look around and find the other two red hats on Frankie and Maverick. They jog over, and we assess the other teams.
Ezra and Kindra wear blue hats with Grim and Rose. Ice Pick and Blayne rock yellow hats with Eve and Gary. Cat, Bennett, Aven, and Quinn wear the green hats. The teams seem evenly divided, with pros and cons to each group.
I’m probably the biggest con for our team. I’m clumsy enough when I don’t have people tied to me.
Before we get started, I pull Frankie aside. We stroll just far enough away that King can’t hear us, though he eyes us like he’s trying to read my lips. Guess I won’t be bringing anything up after all.
“I wanted to run something by you and the girls, but I can’t really talk about it now. Could we chat after the event?”
Frankie smiles at me. “Of course. Once we kick ass, you and I can go take a victory lap and spill tea.”
“Ladies,” Maverick says. “Hate to bust up your super-secret meeting, but we need to get ready.”
“Might want to put me on the outside,” I say as we walk back to King. “I have the grace of a potato.”
Maverick raises his hand. “Same for me. I have a bad habit of bumping my big toe against any and everything.”
“Might not be a bad strategy to put Frankie between us,” King says to Maverick. “We can haul her around.”
“And me?” I ask.
King turns to me with a smirk. “I’ll just drag you.”
“Ever the gentleman.” I roll my eyes.
Jim, Gary, and Blayne go around the groups, helping everyone get fastened in place with colored bands. Jim helps those two once everyone else is connected.
I hope King isn’t grossed out by my sweaty leg touching his sweaty leg. I mean, I’m grossed out, but I hope he isn’t.
“I always wanted to do one of these races,” Frankie says. “When I was in the fourth grade, my mother took me to the city’s Father’s Day Picnic. She put me in a frilly dress with frilly socks, and I felt so foolish. But she said my father would be there.”
“Did he show up?” I ask.
Frankie takes a deep breath. “No. He didn’t. I sat and watched the other little girls in the three-legged race with their dads, and I tried not to cry.”
“Your mom sounds like a real bitch.” It isn’t my place to say, but I say it anyway. “She makes my life-giver sound like a saint. Your dad isn’t much better. I’m sorry he wasn’t around.”
“Yeah, that’s why she’s dead and he soon will be,” Maverick says with a laugh. “Frankie had enough of the bullshit.”
Frankie laughs too. “At least I get to have the race now, and King’s been like a father to me. This makes up for it.”
The starting pistol fires, startling all of us. Or maybe it just feels like we’re all startled because we’re hooked together. Either way, two of us try to run toward the woodpile while the other two fall down.
Maverick and I are the other two.
“On second thought, maybe we should have put the two of you on the inside,” King says. He grunts as he heaves me back to a standing position.
At least we aren’t the only clumsy assholes. Looking down the line, only Cat, Bennett, Aven, and Quinn have made any real ground. The rest of us are a jumbled mess of legs and arms.
“This is stupid, Jim!” Kindra shouts from beneath Ezra’s arm. “It’s like the shittiest game of Twister I’ve ever played.”
We get upright again, and Maverick takes the wheel. He assigns lefts and rights to each set of legs and the two on the outside. “I’ll give us a cadence. Just walk until we get there, okay?”
We nod, and he gets us going
“Left, right, left, right,” he says.
I fall immediately. “My bad! I forgot which one was my left.”
He starts again, and I get it right this time.
We hobble down the field until we reach the woodpile, and we’re not even last. Next to last, but not last!
Each of us grabs a log, which proves difficult when our hands are connected.
My arms are too short and my hands are too small, and Frankie is having the same problem.
“Just let us carry the logs. You two do your best to walk,” King says.
Being strong, independent women who don’t need a man, Frankie and I both hate this option, but we relent because we can’t risk falling further behind because of our pride. We focus on moving our legs to the rhythm of Maverick’s voice, and it carries us all the way to our pot.
We dump off the logs and hurry to the next station. Shrimp and lobster tails lie entombed in aromatic seasonings and slippery butter. Baby red potatoes, small ears of corn, and the most fragrant andouille sausage I’ve ever had the pleasure to smell surround the seafood.
The other seasonings and ingredients must already be in the broth. Now I almost wish we could eat it. It smells incredible.
“Are we really wasting all this food?” I ask as I eye a fat lobster tail. “Could we maybe make our seafood boil without the man meat?”
King snatches our arms as he leans forward and encircles the majority of the ingredients. Maverick cleans up the rest with his free arm, and we start toward the pot again.