AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Jude wrapped his arms around me and swayed to Charlie and Paulie’s porn music. “You’re so beautiful, Poppy.”
I looked around the room and then glared at my big brother. “Johnny, I’m going to kill you. They’re not just drunk, are they?”
He winced and shook his head. “Charlie showed up at my house with the three of them and told me a very interesting story about something my little sister has been doing. We all started drinking to celebrate and Jenny dropped off some brownies for me but I was in the bathroom when she did and by the time I got back they were eating the brownies. Jenny thought they knew they were special brownies. They didn’t. Sorry I got your boyfriends stoned.”
My brain tried to run in ten different directions. “What did you say?”
“Pot brownies?”
I rolled my eyes. “You said boyfriends. Plural.”
Sam lifted his hands in the air and waved them back and forth. “Oh, yeah. We accidentally spilled the beans. Your brothers know that you’re our sister husband. I mean…we’re your husband wives. No…shit. What are we?”
Jude had swayed his way to the couch next to Sam and I watched as he playfully slapped at Sam’s hands like a cat. “Brother wives!”
“Brother husbands!” Cyrus half sat on top of Sam as he stumbled onto the couch. That created a slow and lethargic fight that made me feel like I was watching sleepy babies duke it out.
Johnny slapped his hand to his forehead as we both watched in horror as Charlie and Paulie joined the mass of bodies on my couch. “They were really strong brownies, PoJo. I’m really sorry.”
The sound of my couch cracking came two seconds before the middle of it dropped to the floor. I looked at Johnny and balled my hands into fists. “Johnny…”
“Look on the bright side, Poppy! The brothers all know about you and the three stooges. We all support you.” He jumped about a mile in the air when Jenny appeared next to him. “Shit, Jenny! You scared the hell out of me!”
Jenny took one look at me, one look at my couch, and shoved Johnny into action. “Get your idiot brothers and let’s go. Poppy’s two seconds from skinning you alive.”
I was. I really was.
“Oh, Poppy. There’s an older man standing in your yard, yelling about the neighborhood going to shit.” Jenny looked over her shoulder and winced. “He has a friend now.”
I hurried to the door and looked out to see Bad Mood Banner and one of his cranky friends standing in the corner of my yard, pumping their fists and chanting. I thought I’d seen and heard everything I could see and hear for one night until I realized what the old men were chanting.
“What do we want? Quiet hours! When do we want them? Now! What do we want? Poppy gone! When do we want it? Yesterday!”
I’d fallen down a rabbit hole. That was the only way that what was happening around me made any sense. That or I was having the world’s weirdest dream.
“Paulie, don’t pee there!” Johnny’s panicked shout was my tipping point.
I called Bogie, walked down my steps and across my yard, flipped Bad Mood Banner the bird, and then let myself and Bogie into Sam’s house with his spare key. I closed and locked the door behind me before going to his bed and crawling under the covers. The guys were home safe and that was what mattered.
The rest of that circus? I figured it’d still be there the next morning.
49
***Poppy***
Istretchedandyawned,feeling like I’d slept for a week. Sam’s bed was definitely better than mine. I heard Bogie’s feet dancing on the hardwood floors and figured that was what had woken me up. Just as I was about to get out of bed to feed him, though, I heard Sam talking.
“I already have a new couch on the way. I don’t exactly remember what I ordered, since I ordered it in the middle of the night when I woke up on the floor. I guess we’ll see what kind of taste drugged Sam has and go from there.”
“Oops.” Jude’s voice was hoarse as he spoke. “I just got an email from my finance guy, asking why the fuck I bought the same couch in four different colors at one in the morning.”
“Let me see the couch. Maybe yours is better than mine.” Sam was quiet for a second and then I heard all three of them groan like they’d just seen something disgusting.
“What was I thinking?” Jude sounded so disappointed in himself. “I’m going to kill Johnny. After I send him those couches.”
“Fuck.” It was Cyrus’s turn to exclaim apparently.
“Don’t tell me you bought her a couch too?” Sam groaned. “Anniversaries are going to be hard, I’m realizing.”
