“Deal with him,” I said seriously. “You promised.”
Her eyes moved to the side as she thought about it, and finally, she sighed and nodded. “I did, didn’t I.”
Then, before anyone could say anything else, she grabbed him by the ear and dragged him toward their house.
“Woman, let go of me.”
“We’re going to the doctor, won’t that be fun? You can sit in the front of the car and listen to whatever music you like. And, if you’re a good boy, the doctor will give you a sugar-free lollipop and a sticker like he did last time, but you’ve got to do as he says.”
“I’m not a kid, and I’m not sick. Lindee, for the love of God, let go of my ear.”
“Of course you’re not sick,” she said, using the same tone of voice on him that he’d just used on me. “The doctor’s going to have a look inside your head, and then he’s going to test your hearing. Maybe we should get him to check your prostate, too. You’re not acting like yourself, and your memory’s going. A full checkup will let us know what’s going on.”
It was hard to laugh when I was hanging over someone’s shoulder, but I managed it all the same, not even caring when it made me feel even more lightheaded than I’d been before.
“I don’t need my head and hearing examined, and my brain’s not up my ass,” Gramps yelled, digging his heels in, but she was determined. “I don’t want to go.”
Spoiler alert: he went, not that he had much choice in the matter.
Unfortunately, that still left me facing my current predicament, albeit upside down—Mark Montgomery, a group of pissed-off brothers, some pissed-off cousins now standing behind them, and two pissed-off families. Everyone was pissed, including me.
“Now, I think you owe us an explanation,” my brother, Cole, told Mark. “And it’d better be one that we want to hear.”
Gently lowering me to the ground, he spun me around once my feet were steady and anchored me to his front with both arms. With my head tipped back, I watched as he raised an eyebrow and looked back at Cole, unfazed.
“And what do you want to hear?”
“That you were lying. Maybe you even lost your mind for a moment. Who knows? Temporary insanity gets thrown around in courts all the time, why shouldn’t it happen today? Maybe it’s the heat or dehydration?”
Not even taking a second to think about it, he shook his head. “I’m sorry, I can’t do that. We got married four years ago in Vegas.”
Cole took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down.
And that’s when all hell broke loose.