“I heard the word stripper come from this side of the yard. There will be no stripper anywhere near my woman, for any reason. Y’all hear me?”, Cade stated sternly, a grill spatula in his hand, pointed at each of the women standing there around Kresley. He then took a muscled arm and scooped Birdie up off Kresley’s lap and deposited her on another chair. “Why are you tormenting your sister?”
“When does she NOT torment me?”, Kresley mumbled, rubbing her stomach.
“Wow, that hurts Kres. Like, a lot. Right in here”, Birdie stated with fake sadness, rubbing at her chest where her heart should be. The men snorted at that, for all of them knew Birdie and her reputation for being the biggest bad ass woman in their city.
“Hey, what’s a stripper?” Jaxson had quietly walked up and hearing the adult conversation around him, picked up on the topic. He looked at his mama, waiting for her to elaborate.
“Uhhhhhh, well, you see Jaxson, it’s…”, Grace said, her voice trailing off in the middle of the answer. She had no clue what to say, it seemed. Kresley snickered and turned to the men, silently requesting back up with a magician's assistant style showing of her hands.
“Well, Jax, the thing is, a stripper is something that only adults can know about. It’s a secret that kids aren’t supposed to hear. So you have to forget that you heard that word so don’t repeat it to anyone. Can I count on you to keep it a secret? Pinky swear?”, Boomer stated to Jaxson, looking over at Grace to see if she thought he did it right. She nodded and smiled warmly at him.
“Well, okay, if it’s a pinky swear. That’s pretty sewious. I mean, I’ve only given one pinky swear and that was with Aunt Francie. She asked me not to repeat that the guy at the gym tried to kiss her in the parking lot the other day when I was with her. And I did a pinky swear not to tell. Awww, man, I just told. I’m sorry Aunt Francie.”
All adult eyes cut to Francie, who was trying to ignore everyone. Kresley shifted her eyes to Ash, who looked like a volcanoe that was about to erupt. Oh my, this was fun.
"Francie, may I have a word with you for a moment?" Ash asked her, sounding polite, but his face seemed anything but that.
She cleared her throat twice, ignoring Ash's request, then turned to Jaxson and stated “It’s okay Jax. I know you didn’t mean to. We’ll work on the pinky swear stuff another day, okay? Come give me a hug.” She drew Jaxson to her and hugged him tight, then left to walk into Cade’s kitchen and away from everyone. Ash followed with heavy, purposeful steps.
“Well, that was a nice little bit of information to talk with her about later on. Francie’s keeping secrets. Interesting. Anyway, back to the stripper story.” Birdie grinned and looked around to see who would start up the story again. She told Jaxson to go inside and help Aunt Francie out for a few minutes, but also knew it would be a buffer to whatever was going on with her and Ash.
Making sure her son was nowhere around, Grace stated, “Well back to what we were talking about. We’re not planning any strippers for Kresley, Cade. So, relax Sasquatch. We were talking about the time I had a stripper at my birthday party a few years ago. We were all having a great time watching the guy, but Kresley refused to sit there because the stripper tried to show her his “hose” before the actual entertainment. Birdie sat on her and made her watch with us. But the pressure on her bladder was too much and she accidentally peed in her pants”. Grace was laughing so hard that she had to wipe tears from her eyes. Gertie, Birdie and the men all joined in laughing except for Cade, who tried very hard to keep stoic.
“Ahhh, baby. You peed your pants?”, Cade tried to say with a solemn, regretful face. But he couldn’t hold it and he started laughing as well, joining the other adults.
Kresley looked sad and forlorn at all of them and even was able to come up with a tear or two to form on her eyelashes. Cade was about to scoop her up in his arms to apologize and admonish her sisters and Grace for upsetting her. That’s when Kresley grabbed the water hose that had been laying in the grass near her chair, the spray nozzle screwed on tight. Cade remembered that he had left the water on at the edge of the house and the spray nozzle was in the off position, holding in the water. He had a flash of awareness, right before his beautiful fiancé began spraying every last one of them with cold water and enough pressure to rival a fire hydrant. Her first aim was at Cade’s crotch because, well, why not? Then water pounded at Birdie’s face. Even Boomer and the other men were a victim to the water weapon, but Kresley did try her best to avoid Captain Phillips as much as possible. Never piss off the boss if you can help it. There was much yelling, gasping and laughing going on. Finally, Gertie found the turn off valve and twisted it until Kresley’s water ran out.
Kresley noticed the water was off a second before she noticed the gleam in Cade’s eyes as he wiped water off his face and raked his dripping hair away from his forehead. She half screamed and tried to bolt from her chair to dodge him, but it was no use. She couldn’t
