Page 7 of The Triple Threat
Mom poked my shoulder, hard. “Eleanor Mary Maples, don’t be so disrespectful about your elders.”
She said the words, but I could see the smile which twitched at her red lips and her eyes sparkled with mischief. God, my mom was beautiful, no wonder Dad fell in love with her straight away. Of Native American extract, Mom had inherited the gorgeous dark hair, deep brown eyes and olive skin of her ancestors. She was tall and curvy, the muscular frame of her college running years long gone with the arrival of Carter and me. She also owned the dirtiest laugh I’d ever heard. Dad often said he kept himself in shape to make sure Mom didn’t go off him and run away with someone better looking, but I doubted that there was any chance of that. Apart from my dad being blond, handsome, tall and broad, he was also kind and sweet and when he wasn’t bickering with the love of his life, he treated her like a damn queen. She knew well enough that she’d found her king.
“I think the little blue pill must help,” Dad said and laughed loudly as he opened the car door.
“Henry,” Mom cried. “You can’t say that.” She scooted across the seat to follow him out of the car.
“He’s one of my best friends,” Dad replied as he opened my door. “Of course, I can. Come on, Ellie Belly, let’s go.”
I groaned. “Dad, I look a mess.”
He glanced over my outfit and he grimaced slightly as he noticed the chocolate ice cream stain, but then plastered a smile on his face. “You always look beautiful and besides it’s only Bronte and her folks. They’ve seen you looking a whole lot worse.”
He was right, they had, only six weeks ago Jim, Bronte’s dad, had had to come and pick us up from Stars & Stripes because Penny had refused to serve us any more drink because we were too drunk and too rowdy. It was the night that I’d slammed my ex’s head on the bar, and I’d needed bourbon, the problem was that while it was nectar going in, it was poison coming back out—all over the back seat of Jim’s car. The smell had also made Bronte sick to her stomach, and she puked too. To be fair to him he didn’t shout, but he did wake us both up at six the next morning with a bucket of hot water and two of the smallest cleaning cloths I ever did see.
With a sigh, I swung my legs out of the car and followed my parents up the drive toward the huge dark-grey front door. We didn’t even need to knock before it was swung open and we were faced with Bronte’s mom, Darcy, looking perky in her skin-tight jeans and tight denim shirt, that just about covered her latest present from Jim – her new boobs. Mom and I stared at them quite openly even though we’d both seen them before. They were pretty spectacular, and it would have been rude not to give them another look. Dad to his credit barely glanced at them as he brushed a kiss to Darcy’s cheek and pushed past her shouting something about catching the repeat of last night’s game before dinner started.
“Hi, Ellie,” Darcy said as she pulled me against her cushiony chest. “How are you, honey?”
“I’m good thanks, how are you?”
She let me go and gave me a sweet smile before she patted her blonde curls. “I’m great, loving life,” she said with a singsong in her voice.
For all she sounded happy, I knew from Bronte that Darcy was worried about her mom who had Alzheimer’s. She was declining pretty rapidly, so much so that Darcy had recently entered her into a nursing facility.
“Bronte home?” I asked, with half a hope that she wasn’t so I could hop back into my car and get back to feast on more chocolate ice cream and Netflix.
“In her room, honey. Now, Melinda,” she said as she turned to my mom, “how long do we think this latest lady of Jefferson’s will last?”
As the two women started to gossip, I walked down the long hall to Bronte’s room. The sound of Brett Young’s ‘In Case You Didn’t Know’ blasted through the closed door and almost burst my eardrums when I opened it and pushed inside. Bronte, seemingly oblivious to how loud it was, or maybe had already been turned deaf by it, was on her stomach as she looked at something on her laptop. She had her legs kicked up behind her and a pair of pink fluffy slippers hung off both her feet, precariously close to Roderick the family’s cat, curled up, asleep, on her pillow.
“Hey,” I shouted. “You want to turn it down a little.”
Bronte’s eyes shot to mine and she grinned, tapping quickly on her phone screen. The music immediately went quieter leaving a buzz in my ears.
“I didn’t know you were coming.”
“I wasn’t,” I groaned. “I dropped Mom and Dad off and they insisted I come in and see your parents even though our dads are watching last night’s game in the den and our mothers are gossiping about Jefferson’s new girlfriend. So, even though I only saw you yesterday for lunch, here I am.” I held up my hands and waved them around like some nerdy kid in Glee Club.
“I’m hiding in here because I don’t want to meet Jefferson’s new girlfriend.” She sighed and pouted like a six-year-old.
“Seriously you need to get over that.” I groaned with a grimace. “It’s too weird that you have a crush on him.”
“I’d just like to try the goods, that’s all. I think he looks like he’s packing and has a real good idea what to do with it.” Bronte’s smile was devilish. I’d seen that smile many times before, and things didn’t always end well when it appeared.
“And that my friend is what makes you not only weird but sick too. Anyway, what are you looking at?”
“Oh, just my internet dating profile. I have thirteen messages already and I only set it up this morning.”
“Why the hell do you have an internet dating profile. You have men from three counties wanting to take you out on a date. Actually,” I said, tilting my head to one side to study her, “you’ve already dated most of the men from three counties. Maybe you should try and find someone on the internet.”
Bronte narrowed her eyes and threw a small heart-shaped cushion at me. “Bitch. Now come and sit next to me. If you really want weird, read some of these messages.”
I plopped down beside her as she scooted over and leaned in to read where she was pointing at the screen.
“Oh my God,” I cried as I took a closer look. “That’s disgusting. ‘Can I lick your ass while I jerk off over your back’. Who the fuck writes that sort of shit?”
Bronte laughed and read, “Phil Ewin, apparently.”