“I’d be swallowing that stuff with a bourbon chaser if I were a woman. Damn.”
“It’s about to get worse,” she said. “Dad can’t keep a secret to save his life.”
“How much worse?”
Clover’s phone started to buzz again. All at once she was receiving a phone call and text messages from both Kelly and her mother with another text message coming in five seconds later from her sister-in-law.
“It’s kind of insulting, isn’t it?” she asked, holding up her phone. The first text message read, Boyfriend??? Oh, my God, it’s about damn time. Finally! I’m so happy! Tell me everything. I can’t believe we get to meet a boyfriend.
Clover shook
her head. “It’s the ‘a’ there that really hurts. We get to meet ‘a’ boyfriend, not ‘your’ boyfriend. As if it’s such a huge shock I’d have a boyfriend at all. Thanks, sis. Just the self-esteem boost I needed.”
Erick grimaced as he read the text.
“Pass the Xanax.”
“And the bourbon,” she said as Erick pulled her into his arms. “And to think, I was so happy this morning. Now I have to spend the rest of the day trying to calm down my entire family before they start planning our wedding for us.”
“Or.”
“Or?”
Erick took the phone out of her hand.
“I will teach you one of Ruthie’s secrets for keeping her parents out of her life. It’s a very simple secret and you will benefit from it greatly.”
“What are you doing with my phone?”
“I am...” Erick pushed the button on the top. “Turning it off. Now no one can call you or text you. Or they can but you can’t see the messages until you turn the phone back on again in say...twenty-four hours?”
“That’s brilliant. Why did I never think of that?”
“Because you are a kind and thoughtful daughter who would never ignore your parents’ phone calls. Unlike Ruthie, who once threw her phone into the Zigzag River after her mother called her one too many times that week.”
“You know, the Zigzag isn’t that far from here. You’ll pass right over it on the way to Welches, won’t you?” Clover entertained a brief and lovely vision of Erick throwing her phone out of his truck window and into the white-capped river as he drove over the bridge.
“Lost Lake is closer. But I don’t think you need to do something that drastic. You just need to put this phone up here...” He put the phone on top of her kitchen cabinet where she wouldn’t be able to reach it without a stepladder. “Out of sight, out of mind. No Xanax necessary.”
“I feel better already. Want some breakfast?”
“I do want to eat. Definitely.”
“You sit. I’ll get the waffles out of the toaster.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean I wanted to eat breakfast,” he said.
“Then what—”
Erick wrapped an arm around her waist and lifted her off her feet.
“Erick...” she said. “What the hell are you—”
“Kitchen-table sex,” he said. “You need it.”
“I need it?”
“Well...don’t you?” he asked. “I would if I were you. Correct me if I’m wrong, but after that phone call and that text message, I’m pretty sure you need your pussy eaten.”