“Thanks for the distinction. But I can’t exactly bitch you out, because I’m the same way. It’s ultimately why we get along.”
“Alright, let’s go get laid.” Eve fist-bumped her. “To the power of the V. And whiskey. And shitty tattoos.”
“To finishing first. And friendship. To the Brothers Ford.”
“Amen, sister.”
That was as warm and fuzzy as she and Eve were ever going to get. They were essentially guys with vaginas. But they had both come to terms with who they were years ago.
“I think this was our middle school fantasy, you know, to marry brothers,” Eve said with a laugh as she headed back down the hall.
Unfortunately, it was still a fantasy.
Shawn fought the urge to sigh.
“So I have to ask . . . is he kinky?” Eve said, looking both super curious and super horrified. “Does he have . . . contraptions?”
“I am not talking to you about that other than to say there are no contraptions.” Good Lord. She didn’t even want to consider what Eve was envisioning.
“So he’s kinky.” Her eyes sparkled and she gave a choking laugh. “Shawn, if only Stoney White had known you have a penchant for kink, he could have been all yours. In all his idiotic meathead glory.”
“Shut up, Eve,” was her opinion on that.
Eve just laughed harder.
• • •
“I can keep my clothes and stuff in the guest room,” Rhett said as he surveyed the space, or lack thereof, in Shawn’s bedroom. She wasn’t a housekeeper to his mother’s standards, that was for sure, and she had odd things propped in the corners of her bedroom, like a large stuffed gorilla and a hunting rifle, which didn’t contain bullets. He’d checked when she was in the bathroom.
“No, it’s okay. I can clear some space in the closet for you,” she said. Which she promptly did by shoving her clothes to the right until hangers were jammed out at awkward angles and her sweaters looked like they were choking one another. Then she ripped a black-and-white dress off the hanger and balled it up and tossed it on the floor of the closet. “I hate that dress. It makes my ass look big.”
“Somehow I doubt that,” he said wryly as he pulled clothes out of his box and hung them up in the three point five inches of space she’d given him. He was no neat freak himself, so he couldn’t say the chaos of her closet and bedroom bothered him. He just wasn’t sure he was ever going to find a clean shirt again.
“So I have a question for you.” It was something he hadn’t wanted to ask in the intimacy of bed, because he had a feeling it was going to embarrass her or make her laugh.
“Yeah? What?”
“Why do you have the face of a little boy with curly hair tattooed on your inner thigh?” He had to admit, it had given him a start the other night, but he had managed to ignore it. Now it was generating a lot of curiosity. He couldn’t figure out what crazy story was behind it, and he knew there had to be one.
Shawn made a face. “It’s not a little boy! It’s Justin Timberlake, back in the day when his hair looked like a chia pet.”
“Really? Okay, so why would you tattoo a portrait of him diving into your vagina? Any particular reason?”
“It was a bet, and no, I’m not going to tell you the full story. Let’s just say that Eve didn’t fare any better than I did.”
Rhett raised his eyebrows. He didn’t even want to consider what was between his sister-in-law’s thighs.
“I’ve thought about getting it removed but it’s expensive, time-consuming, and painful.”
“You could cover it with another tattoo. The right artist could make JT disappear.”
“Yeah.” She gave a noncommittal shrug. “It is kind of fun to see the reaction of the gyno when I get my Pap test, but I have gotten some negative reactions from former boyfriends. That’s probably why I keep it.”
Rhett laughed. “Why does that not surprise me?”
“Now that I think about it, you’re the first guy ever who didn’t stop and ask me about it.” She looked over at him, curious. “But you obviously saw it.”
It was his turn to shrug, pleased that she had made the distinction. It had been a conscious choice to ignore that silly tattoo in the heat of the moment. “It wasn’t worthy of my attention right then. The only thing worthy of my attention was you.”
“Oh.” She cleared her throat.
Rhett put his baseball bat and glove in the corner. He didn’t play much these days, but back in high school he’d loved cracking that bat against a ball. He didn’t want to part with the option that he could play a ball game for fun.
“What’s with the gorilla?” he asked, because as he studied it, he realized he and Shawn had gotten busy the other night with the big lug watching them. He wasn’t sure how he had missed it in the first place, but now that he’d noticed, he didn’t like it. The gorilla had a creepy smile, and Rhett had seen enough horror movies to dislike it.
“I won it for selling a crapload of Girl Scout cookies. I had to win it, you know, once I saw him in the prize brochure. He was calling my name.” Shawn bent over the dresser, yanking open a drawer and pulling out socks, which she dumped on the bed. “His name is Coconut.”
“He has a name?”
“Of course.”
“Can we, uh, turn him to the wall while we sleep? I don’t like the way he’s looking at me.” Rhett decided he didn’t want his baseball bat next to Coconut. He moved it next to the bed, where he could easily access it.
“Are you serious?” Shawn blew her hair out of her eyes as she finished emptying the drawer and closing it again. She then opened the one below it, stuffing the socks back into it, ignoring the fact that there wasn’t really any room for them. “Does the gorilla actually bother you?”
“Yes.” He wasn’t going to lie about it. “He’s f**king creepy. I don’t need him staring at me while I sleep.”
“He’s not real,” Shawn said with a grin, trying to shove the overstuffed drawer closed. It only made it halfway. “He’s a stuffed animal.”
“I know. That’s why he’s creepy. Why does anyone need to make something so realistic-looking as a stuffed toy? I don’t like it.” It was like some of the dolls his sisters had played with as kids. They were freakish in their attempt to look like real babies. It had disturbed him then, and it disturbed him now.