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“So then I decided we needed to go cow tipping,” Barbara-Claire says, and she stops to burp again.
“That’s why I smelled like cow shit. I had forgotten that part.” I scratch my head.
“Cows don’t tip, by the way. They get pretty mad if you try to tip them.” Junior cackles. “I never saw Evie run so fast!”
Evie lies down on the floor because she’s laughing so hard. She holds her stomach as she rocks with laughter.
“Then we went to paint Jacobson’s barn,” Evie says, holding up her finger.
“That was you two,” Junior says. He grins. “We were otherwise occupied.”
“You owe me for the Jeep cleaning, by the way,” I remind him.
He throws a meatball that fell off his pizza at me, so I eat it.
“That was so disgusting!” Evie cries. “And awesome in equal measure,” she adds almost reverently.
Suddenly, Evie sobers, and she stares into my eyes. “And I wanted Grady to kiss me so bad. He kept looking at my mouth like he wanted to, but he wouldn’t do it. So I wrote it on the building.” She covers her mouth. “Wow.”
“Yeah, wow,” I reply. I roll my eyes.
“Why wouldn’t you kiss me?” she suddenly asks.
I freeze. I haul in a deep breath, and I am just drunk enough to tell her. “Because if I ever get to kiss you, it’s going to be when we’re both in our right minds. I don’t want any regrets.”
She snorts. “My only regret is that you refused to kiss me.”
I grin at her. “The part I can’t figure out is how I ended up naked in Ms. Markie’s azalea bushes.” I look around the room.
Junior and Barbara-Claire both shrug.
“I know how that happened,” Evie says.
“Enlighten me,” I say as I drink the last of my beer.
“Junior dropped us off at Grandma’s, because you never drink and drive.”
“Because I’m a good boy,” I say. I wink at her.
“Yes, you are. Anyway…um, let me think. You went to go take a shower, but before you got in, you realized you’d left your extra change of clothes in the Jeep.” She grins. “So you tiptoed, wearing nothing but a towel, out to your truck. On the way there, though, the towel got snagged on Grandma’s prize rosebush. You know the one that looks almost purple in the right light?” She waits for me to nod. “Right. That one. You didn’t want to mess up the rosebush, so you left the towel there and dashed toward your Jeep. But then you stepped on something or other that stuck
the bottom of your foot. You sat down next to the azalea bushes to look at it, and I guess you were waiting for my help. But by that time, I was sound asleep.”
“Wait!” Barbara-Claire cries. “So if you were asleep, how do you know all this?”
Evie grins. “Grandma saw it all on the doorbell camera. Motion sensor. It sends you a picture alert of things that move in the yard. Usually, we only see deer or skunks. But that time, it was a naked man. That’s how Grandma knew you were out there. You weren’t there long. The sun was just coming up by the time we got home, and you had just laid down there in the bushes when she got the notification.”
“Oh, my God,” I groan as I swipe a hand down my face. “Ms. Markie has pictures of my dick.”
Evie laughs. “She won’t let me see them.” She laughs again loudly. “I keep asking and she keeps saying no.”
“Oh, my God,” I say again. I get to my feet, thoroughly humiliated but drunk enough not to care. “On that note, I’m going make like a tree and leaf.” I jerk a thumb toward the hallway. “Otherwise known as going to take a leak.”
I walk down the hallway, dragging my finger down the wall for balance. I still can’t believe I did something so incredibly stupid as to get naked and then streak outside Ms. Markie’s house.
I balance myself with one hand on the wall in front of me, finish what I need to do, and wash my hands, tossing some water onto my face at the same time. I open the cabinet and find fresh towels in there, so I pluck one out and wipe my face. I fold it and lay it on the counter.
When I come back out, Evie is lying on the living room floor on her back, staring up at the ceiling. But Barbara-Claire and Junior are gone. “Where did they go?” I ask.
