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I was mid-swat to his arm when I sensed movement to my right. I barely got a chance to turn my head before the wind was knocked out of me as my cousin, Donnie, ran into me and squeezed me into a bearhug. My legs dangled and flew around under me as he shook me.
“Scoot! Man, I’ve missed you!” Donnie put me down and held me out by my shoulders as he looked me over. “You been eating? You’re looking a little thin, honey. Don’t worry. Maggie made her Better Than Sex pie and it’ll put some meat on those bones.”
My grin stretched wide as happiness bubbled out of me. Were my cousins humiliating and rough? Yes. Did I want them forcing me out of whatever shell I had up around the guys? No. Was I over the moon to see them as they showed up, one by one? Absolutely.
Smacking Donnie in the arm, I automatically reached up to rub the top of his head with my knuckles. “Don’t call me Scoot, Donnie! You know I don’t go by that anymore.”
He tossed me over his wide shoulder and spun me around. “Your daddy said you were shacking up with three rich fellas. Point me in their direction so I can tell them all about ole Scoot.”
31
***Kyrin***
“Shewasn’tmuchbiggerthan little Gracie over there and she was such a little spitfire already. The third day on the farm, she’d punched Donnie in the nose and told Matt that his momma couldn’t cook a can of beans if they fell in a pot. I mean, she was mean as a snake!” Johnny, one of Aggie’s many cousins, sat across from me at the table we’d set up on the lawn. He wasn’t even the most animated of the bunch and he had the whole table’s attention. We were all hanging onto his every word.
“To be fair, my momma couldn’t cook a can of beans. God rest her soul, she wasn’t blessed with the cooking gene.” Matt shook his head and then narrowed his eyes at his wife, Sadie. “Don’t you say anything, woman. I can see you thinking bad thoughts about my momma.”
Johnny waved them off and leaned into his story. “All us boys got together and we decided that we had to do something. We thought it was our God-given responsibility to correct that little girl’s attitude. It was Jenny’s idea that we used, though.”
Jenny covered her face with her hands and groaned. “I have never forgiven myself for that!”
“Jenny saw a book at school about worms and her teacher told her about how they can get inside people. Poor Jenny wouldn’t step foot in the dirt for months after that. When we heard about butt worms, though, we knew we were going to use it someday.” He held his belly as he laughed and enjoyed torturing his cousin, who wasn’t even aware of the story being told. “Donnie hung around Scoot’s house for days, waiting on her to go to the bathroom. We all started to believe that maybe girls didn’t poop.”
I looked across the yard at Aggie and grinned into my beer as she glanced over at our table and put her hands on her hips. She was suspicious of the raucous laughter, but she was tied up in a game of kickball with the kids and couldn’t get away.
“Anyway, shit happens, Donnie pretends that he went in after her and she didn’t flush. He runs out of the house, screaming about worms and shit. Boy put on a damn good show that day. He had tears in his eyes as he yelled about what he’d seen in the toilet.” Johnny laughed so hard that he wheezed and had to take a puff of his inhaler to continue. “We all pretend to panic and try to figure out who had worms. It was the great mystery of who shit before Donnie? Finally, Donnie points the finger at Scoot and she stood there with this slow-building horror on her face. By the time we got done talking about the worms in her body, she was willing to light herself on fire if it would’ve killed those worms.”
Matt stood up and swore. “Incoming. You’d better hurry, J.”
Johnny spotted Aggie coming our way and rushed out the end of his story. “We convinced her that to get rid of butt worms you had to scoot around on your ass for twenty-four hours.”
Aggie, kickball in hand, heard the end of what Johnny was saying and threw the ball at his head with impeccable precision. “You shut your mouth, Johnny!”
Johnny clutched his forehead while standing up and scurrying to get away from his little cousin. “She made it to hour seven before Uncle Mark found her and made her stop! And that’s how Scoot was born!”
My stomach hurt from laughing so hard and I couldn’t hide my amusement as Aggie’s head snapped in my direction. I held up my hands and tried earnestly to stop laughing. “Sorry, Scoot.”
She growled and changed directions, zeroing in on me instead of Johnny. She shoved at my chair, doing her best to tip me over. I’d had a few beers and wasn’t all that worried about her strength until I felt the world shift under me. Her look of pride was short lived as I wrapped my arms around her waist and took her down with me.
I didn’t think twice about rolling us over so I was on top of her, staring down at her with a wide smile stretching my lips. Her carefree smile as she looked back at me sent a bolt of awareness down my back and I leaned down to steal a kiss. She tasted like beer and pickles, a combination that should’ve been terrible, but I liked it.
Whistling and cheering from her family broke through my Aggie-induced fog. Lifting my lips from hers, I rolled to my side and sighed before tossing my arm over my eyes. I silently lectured myself about keeping my mouth to myself and staying in control, thinking that Aggie would be embarrassed at being caught kissing me.
Aggie pressed her lips to my ear and her breathy voice gave away her excitement. “If I thought there was a bathroom in this house that wasn’t being christened by my family right now, I’d drag you to it.”
I groaned. “That’s not fair, baby. I- Wait. What?”
She patted my chest and kissed the tip of my nose. “All freaks, every single one of them. Why do you think there are so many kids?”
“Scoot’s not being a lady, Uncle Mark!” Donnie’s loud voice filled the air a second before he grabbed Aggie and lifted her off me. “Keep it in your pants, rich boy!”
It had to be the energy around the rowdy bunch, but all my normal sense was replaced by true Texas macho-ness. “Rich boy? Who are you calling rich boy?”
Donnie spun around and grinned at me. “You, rich boy. You want to prove you’re more than that?”
Aggie smacked Donnie’s back and kicked her legs. “No! Don’t do it!”
“Honestly, I thought you’d never ask.” I found my beer and finished it. “So, what do we call you when I wipe the floor with you?”
