“Maude,” she warned, walking up and tapping her on the shoulder. “I think you’re good now.”
Instead of listening, she just shook her head and sighed again.
“Um, Maude, can I go and get a coffee?” I asked.
“Sure, you can do that while I’m still like this. Maybe you could carry me? I have old legs.”
Tipping her head back to glare at the ceiling, Katy snapped, “Ok, fine. There’s an all-male stripper group coming to town next weekend. I’ll take you if you let go of him.”
Those were the magic words because she let go of me, gave me a pat on the chest and then turned around to hug her granddaughter, who looked now like she’d just swallowed acid. I could understand that feeling, because I kind of felt like I had, too.
“Male strippers?” I questioned, wondering why this was bugging me so much.
“Yes, dear,” Maude said over her shoulder as she made her way to the kitchen. “It’s at Sheeve’s next Saturday. A bit like Thunder Down Under, but apparently they’re hung like stallions.”
Following slowly behind her, Katy asked, “How do you know that?”
“Because I wouldn’t go to one where they weren’t, Katarianne,” she said simply, shrugging as she put a pod into the machine and hit the button. “Imagine the force field they make when they shake it about.”
Leaning on the counter, I scrubbed my hands over my face. “Jesus.”
This time when a face hit my chest, it was Katy’s and not Maude back for round two. That meant that I had zero issues putting my arms around her. In fact, she could stay like that for as long as she wanted.
Looking away from her cup and taking our positions in, Maude asked, “So, by the state of undress, I’m taking it you spent the night, Jarrod?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Mm hmm,” she hummed, and then looked at Katy. “Please tell me you were wearing some of those pretty panties I got you and not a pair of those god awful ones with the characters on them.”
Thinking back to Mario, I burst out laughing and told Maude. “No, they were definitely character ones.”
“Was it the blue spiky hedgehog?”
“Nope, they were the ones with Mario on them.”
Seeing that she was looking blankly at me, I winked with my thumb in the air like he was in the picture.
“Oh, Katy,” she said disappointedly. “And I bought you all of those pretty ones. How are you ever going to get Jarrod’s dragon in your dungeon if you wear that type of stuff?”
Turning her head, Katy hissed, “It’s Dungeons and Dragons, Maude. I keep telling you that.”
“Still sounds perverse,” she sniffed back, pulling her cup out and heading to the fridge. “Like when they put that little mushroom on it with ‘Eat Me’ above it.”
I couldn’t help it, I had to know. “Is that the little Mario mushroom?” When Katy nodded, I tilted my head to the side and asked, “Have you got those?”
Katy turned her head in the opposite direction to where Maude was to look anywhere but at either of us, but it was confirmed when Maude closed the door to the fridge loudly and said, “She’s got them in four colors.”
Lace was hot, but a Mario mushroom with ‘Eat Me’ above it? Abso-fuckin’-lutely.
Waiting until Maude had walked back past us to the living room, I leaned down and whispered, “You wear those, baby, and I’ll do whatever it says on them,” and pulled away from her to follow behind her grandmother. “I’m just going to get a t-shirt. I’ll be back in a second.”
Patting her lap, Maude winked, “I’ll keep your spot warm.”
For the second time in the space of thirty minutes, I burst out laughing hard enough to wake the dead.
Fuck peace and quiet. I wanted Crew life.ElevenKatyI’d been awake for the last twenty minutes, desperately needing the bathroom but too afraid to move. Why? Because apparently I’d fallen asleep on Jarrod again, except this time in my bed. At first when I’d woken up I’d been confused why my pillow was so hard, warm, and was breathing, but then it had all come back and I’d been frozen in place since, telling my bladder it could wait until hell had frozen over for it to get what it wanted. Moving meant possibly waking him up, which also meant that I could never blink again either so my eyes could make their peace with that, too.
Unfortunately, not being able to move gave me time to think, which gave me time to remember – some of it good, some of it embarrassing.
After he’d gotten dressed yesterday, Jarrod had come back over and spent the day with us. I’d been having issues getting the TV in my living room to attach to the internet, so he’d tinkered with it to see if it was a software issue or something. Alas, it looked like I needed a new TV if I wanted to watch Netflix downstairs. Fortunately, the one in my bedroom was newer so I could still watch it up there, but that was kind of a pain in the ass if you wanted to be in the living room.