Living On A Dare (Cheap Thrills 2)

Glaring at her, Tabby crossed her arms over her chest. “It was that mascara you told was awesome. I got water on my face, and this,” she gestured at her eyes, “is what happens.”

She hadn’t seen the best bit. “You think that’s good; you want to get a bit closer.”

Moving until she was roughly two feet away from my sister, Rose frowned as she looked at Tab – and then she saw her eyes. Fortunately, once she calmed down, it turned out she had a mirror in her purse, so Tabby got to see exactly how bad the problem was. Her reaction was a scream that made me laugh so hard I had to hold on to Ellis’s arm and cross my legs to stop myself peeing. Giving me the bird, Tabby ran to the door presumably to go to my room, where she knew I had makeup remover. Just as she got there, Hogan came in with Liv on his hip, who started clapping when she saw her beloved auntie… that was until she saw her close up. I wish I’d been able to record the moment the smile dropped from her face and she let out a squeak wondering what the hell was up with her aunt’s face. “I’ll be back in a second, petal,” Tabby muttered, calling Liv the nickname her mom used to give her. Ever the resilient one, Liv waved at her, still looking confused, and then turned to the other occupants of the room, honing straight in on her favorite person. “’Lih!” she squealed, holding her hands out to him.

My daughter had said her first word at thirty-one weeks… and son of a bitch it was to do with Ellis. Did it smart that it wasn’t Mom or Momma? Absolutely, but the sting disappeared when I saw how excited she was, and then saw the emotion on his face he realized what she’d said. It might not have been his full name, or even something a stranger would recognize, but the rest of us knew she’d just said as much of his name as she could handle for her first word.

I would take that first word and put it in the same box as my mammaronis – it was precious, it was priceless, and it was fucking awesome.Chapter 12Ellis

“It’s just as well you weren’t in your house, Jose,” Mom said as she helped her make the meals for Liv. “What have the insurance company said? What about your job?”

Taking the pan that they’d mashed all the potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, and squash in over to the sink, she started cleaning it out while Jose spooned it out into the little sterilized plastic pots the meals were going into. Some already had tiny pasta stars in them with mushy chicken and carrots, and I made a mental note to try that when she wasn’t looking. I think it was the pasta stars that hooked me, adult pasta was so boring.

“Where did she get the stars?” Raoul whispered, standing beside me and watching the baby food production line they had going, too.

“That’s what I want to know,” DB agreed on the other side of me.

“It’s from an online store,” Jose said, not looking away from what she was doing. She had a mixture of beef and chicken in gravy to go on top of them, which didn’t look that bad even though she’d mashed it up in the machine. The trick was to increase the lumps and chunks in the food every month, so right now it was still pretty mushy because Liv was only just starting on the different tastes and textures, but I gave not one shit. My nose told me it smelled good, so my stomach wanted it… and the pasta stars. “They also come in Minions, vehicles, princesses, and hearts.”

Pulling out his phone, DB started searching for them, his eyebrows shooting up when he saw something on his screen. “Comes in boobies and penises, too!”

Shooting him a look over her shoulder and shaking her head, Mom turned back to what she was doing. “Tut, tut, Dave. You can’t give her aardvarks and breastices.”

Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to look at her as I looked at Rose and pulled a face. This had been a huge source of embarrassment growing up, Mom’s insistence on referring to body parts with names like that. “Aardvarks?” Raoul snorted. “Is that what you learned to go sissy with, Ellis?”

“I dunno, but now I really want to know what you called a lady garden,” Jose chuckled, shooting Rose a big grin.

“Don’t you do it,” Rose hissed at Mom, her hands clenched at her sides. “Do not…”

“A sugar cookie. Didn’t you ever have pretty names for your bits?” Mom replied, ignoring the growl from Rose.

Shoulders shaking, DB couldn’t hold back the honk that came out of him, so it was Raoul who responded. “No, ma’am, we just called it what it was – a vagina, a dick, or a penis.”