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“What fricking jets? Do you see any fricking airports around here? Screw you and your fricking jets.”
“Just sit here and drink soda or water or milk or whatever they offer besides liquor. Don’t talk to anyone until you can stop threatening to kick everyone’s ass.”
“You’re not the boss of me.”
“I am, actually. Dad hired me for that job when you were born. My job description was never updated.”
Snorting, Tuesday laughs so hard she needs to rest her head on the bar top. I turn to Alexis, who smiles as if we’re just chilling. That’s the upside to dating a girl from the Toomey family. None of my people’s insane shit will faze her.
“She’s beautiful. Is that your wife?” Alexis asks.
I start to defend myself before realizing she’s obviously screwing with me. “My sister can’t hold her liquor. I mean, okay, yeah, she can handle the first five or six drinks. But after that, she gets weak and whiny.”
“I heard that,” Tuesday mumbles from under her hair as she still rests on the bar top.
Caressing Alexis’s lips, I murmur, “Let’s not allow her to ruin our date.”
Tuesday’s head pops up immediately. “Wait, you’re on a date? With who?”
“Whom,” Zelda corrects.
“Shut up, bitch.”
“I’ll carve your eyes out of your head.”
Tuesday proceeds to spit out a threat used on me many times, “I’ll rip your ovaries out through your nose.”
Alexis reaches over the bitching women’s pointing fingers and takes her cocktail.
“I love lemons,” she tells me as if my sister and her cousin aren’t currently threatening to shove large objects up each other’s asses. “It was my favorite snack as a kid. When I was twelve, these house kids set up a lemonade stand near the trailer park. When they were showing off for someone, I stole most of their lemons. True story.”
Grinning, I lean down and kiss her temple. She smells so good, and I wish we were alone. However, I might be rushing our relationship. Should I give her more space? Probably, but I can’t. We’ve already lost five years together.
“How old are you?”
“I just turned twenty-two,” she says.
Doing the math, um, yeah, maybe those missing years were a good thing. Hooking up with a seventeen-year-old would have led to many unsavory consequences. Her becoming a teenage mom, for one thing. Alexis’s Toomey half is extremely fertile.
I imagine the dramatic aftermath of me knocking her up by eighteen. My ma would constantly fake-faint. My aunties would suffer endless shame that they’d need to share with me. My pa would ask if I’d ever heard of birth control and then explain the birds and bees again and again...
“You weren’t ready for me five years ago,” I say over the din of obnoxious music and woo-hooing partygoers.
“And you weren’t ready for me, either,” Alexis says, smiling brightly. “I’m a biter.”
“Like in bed or just randomly throughout your day?”
“I don’t know about the sex thing, but I’ve bitten people who tried to take my lemons.”
“You’re a virgin?” Tuesday asks, having lost interest in telling Zelda to drop dead. “Your poor clean muff is about to be invaded by a petri dish.”
I fight the urge to shove my sister to the floor and stomp on her until she cries. No doubt, if we were younger, I’d do that shit so fast. But as adults, we have to find satisfaction through snarling glares.
“I want my first time to be exceptional,” Alexis says and sips her drink. “I’m glad West has experience. Now, he can do all the hard stuff and make me feel good.”
I smile at how my dream girl shuts down Tuesday’s troublemaking. Alexis gets that I’m bringing stellar skills to the bedroom. And those chicks from my past no longer matter. I’ve gotten my second chance with this bewitching redhead. My dream girl can make balloon animals and play the ukulele and a million other things that make her perfect.
That’s why I’m keeping Alexis Fontaine.
