Poking The Bear
“Stop fidgeting, baby. You look perfect,” Lucas tells me.
Sitting by him in the front of the truck with the other guys in the back, I can’t help but to be nervous. It’s well into March now and all four of them just found out that they are getting picked up for their choice of school to play football, so Lucas’ family is throwing a small get together to celebrate. According to him, no one knows that I’m coming. So, not only am I unexpected, but I’m worried that I’m going to slip up with the guys and make everyone uncomfortable.
“Are you sure you want me to be here today?” I ask for the millionth time.
He grabs my hand and kisses the back of it, “Yes. It won’t be much of a celebration without all of the people we love around us.”
Which brings me to the other reason why I’d rather not be here, thinking about them leaving me hurts. The school that they’re going off to is a good six hours away and it makes my heart hurt to think about them being so far.
I feel a tap on my shoulder by the window, when I raise my eyes I find Teagan watching me in the side mirror of the truck, “What cha thinkin about?”
“Nothing,” I lie.
“Then why do you look like you’re about to cry?” he asks. “You don’t have to go if you really don’t want to.”
I shake my head, “It’s not that. I just had this flash forward to August when you guys are going to be six hours away.”
Lucas squeezes the hand that he’s still holding as Mav asks, “Have you applied to go anywhere for college yet?”
Throwing him a disbelieving look over my shoulder I say, “Why would I? Up until last month I didn’t think that I would have the money to go anywhere.”
His eyebrow quirks up, “And what have you been doing with your time since then?”
I look at him with a duh look on my face. You. Goose gets it by my facial expression without me having to say it and cracks up beside him. It takes the others a few seconds to catch up, but they’re laughing, too by the time that we pull into Lucas’ driveway.
Out of all their houses, I have to say that this one is my favorite. It’s two stories, and has the triangle shape on the second floor on all four sides. The massive front porch runs from one side of the house to the other. There’s a swing attached to the ceiling of the porch with a few pillows on the seat. It looks comfy and homey, just how my dream house would.
“Look,” Lucas says as we walk up the stairs, “I’m going to go ahead and apologize for anything that you’re about to be subjected to. My brothers have to no filters or boundaries.”
“Yeah, they’ll be keeping their hands to themselves today,” Teagan warns.
Lucas huffs under his breath as if saying ‘yeah right.’ Oh jeez, just like the white trash to start a fight at the barbeque. When he opens the door, the inside isn’t what gets my attention first. It’s the smell. Even without the smell of food coming from the kitchen, it has that homey smell to it.
“Dude, it’s about fucking time that you got here,” a male voice booms from the living room on the right.
Glancing in there, I see the backs of two heads sitting in front of a tv playing some shooting game. There’s a bigger guy sitting in a chair off to the side watching them, and another smaller guy sitting across from him with a book in his lap.
He looks up and catches my eye, “Umm, Leo, you’re going to have to watch your language today.”
“What the fuck are you talking about now, Lincoln?” he asks looking over to him.
Lincoln motions towards the door where we’re still standing, and all three of the other heads turn our way.
The game gets forgotten as Leo jumps over the back of the couch and the brother who was sitting beside him says, “Dude, mom will have your ass for doing that.”
Leo ignores him as he puffs out his chest and walks to us, “I didn’t know you were bringing company, little brother.”
“Hey,” Teagan complains, “What are we? Chopped liver?”
“You’re over here enough to be family,” one of Lucas’ brothers tells him as he offers me a hand, “Lathan. And you are, pretty lady?”
I shake his hand with more confidence than I feel, “Kendall.”
He smiles at me, and it’s so much like Lucas’, that I feel my nerves loosen up a little. Both he and Leo have buzzed hair on the sides with a little left on top. Pointing to the other brothers he says, “Logan, Lincoln, and Leo.”
Bloody hell. What are these boys drinking on the farm out here? Leo, Logan, and Lathan are all just as big as Lucas and my guys. Lincoln is the only one that is smaller than the rest, with almost feminine attributes. His curly dark hair is pushed back away from his face, completely opposite Logan, who has shaggy hair falling everywhere.
I take turns shaking all of their hands.
Leo is last, and he kisses the back of my hand as he watches Lucas. He must assume that I’m with him, and is just trying to get a rise out of him. I pull my hand back as soon as it’s polite to. No reason to start war just yet, because he doesn’t realize that he’s not just poking a bear, he’s waking a whole goddamn den of them.
“Are you thirsty or hungry? The food is still cooking, but we can scrounge something up. Come on,” Logan says putting my hand in the crook of his elbow and leading us to the kitchen.
I hear Lathan tell Lucas behind me, “So rude, dude.” And I have to bite my tongue to keep from laughing.
We walk into the kitchen and I fall in love with the house all over again. Everything looks like it just stepped out of one of those country life magazines, from the light brown cabinets to the frosted looking counter tops. There’s a bar in the middle of the room with at least eight chairs around three sides of it. As Logan pulls me to the fridge, the rest of the guys take a seat around the bar. I grab a bottle of water before he tows me back to the counter.
Once we’re there, he won’t let me pull my hand free, “So, tell me Kendall, how is it that you come to know these four trouble makers?”
With all eyes on me, the nerves come back, and my hands get all clammy, “We met at a restaurant I used to work at a couple months ago.”
“What?!” Leo exclaims in fake surprise at Lucas, “You’ve known her for this long and are just now sharing?”
The others laugh, all except Mav. He can’t seem to pry his eyes away from my hand on Logan’s arm. When I try to pull away again, he just tightens his hold.
Lincoln sits on the counter off to the side of the bar and observes everything that’s going on. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that he has already discovered the dynamics of what we are. Definitely the smarter one out of Lucas’ older brothers, or at least the more cautious one.
I try to answer as many of their questions as I can as they fire them at me. Even Lucas is no help when he tries to tell them to shove off. That only makes it worse.
“Ok, I’ve heard all I need to hear,” Leo says standing up on my other side. “You have to ditch whichever one of these bozos you’re with and choose me instead.”
He throws his arm around my shoulder and presses a kiss to my temple.
“Stop fucking touching her,” Mav growls, apparently at his breaking point.
There’s a good fifteen seconds where no one in the room says anything, and a pin could be heard dropping.
Logan breaks the silence as he finally lets go of my arm, “Well, well, well, the good ole Mav. Didn’t know you’d be the first one to land a girl like this. Being all mean and shit all the time.”
My eyes go wide, but it must be a standing joke around here, because Mav just shrugs. I don’t know if I should correct them, so my eyes find Lucas’ and he winks at me. Ohhhh shit.
“Yeah about that,” Lucas says as all eyes turn to him, “She’s my girlfriend too.”
This silence is even better than the last, because it leaves three of the brother’s looking at Lucas like they don’t know whether to congratulate him or beat his ass for lying to them.
“And mine,” Goose chimes in.
Teagan simply raises his hand, laying claim to me with nothing more than a look.
Lathan bursts out laughing, “Come on man. Why do you guys always fuck with us like that? Haven’t we always been nice to you?”
“I hope that’s a rhetorical question,” Teagan teases.
Leo and Lathan laugh, but I feel Logan and Lincoln staring at me.
“What’s the truth pretty lady?” Logan asks turning all the attention back on us. “Are you with any of them?”
If the guys aren’t ashamed to tell them about us, then I’m damn sure not going to be, no matter how it makes us look. I meet his eyes as I confess, “They weren’t lying. I’m theirs.”
My guys are smiling at me, especially Lucas. Telling them the truth, I’m waiting on the shoe to drop, and people to start throwing accusations around. What I get is not what I expect.
“Mom!” Leo yells, “Lucas has a girlfriend!”
I see Lincoln out of the corner of my eye smile and shake his head as all of the brothers crack up, Lucas included.
“You don’t have to yell, Leonard,” a female voice says, walking around the corner. “I’m right here, and well aware that your brother has a girlfriend, even though I fail to see how that’s any of your business.”
“Buurrrn,” Logan says slapping him on the arm while the others crack up again.
She walks over and pulls me into an unexpected hug, “Sorry if my boys are pestering you. They seem to lose their manners around pretty girls. I’m Elaine. You can call me Lane or just mom like the rest of the crew here.”
I smile at her as I say, “Kendall. Nice to meet you.”
Walking around the kitchen and pulling things out of a couple of the cabinets, she says, “Nice to finally meet you too, honey. Lucas talks about you non-stop. It’s nice to be able to put a face with his Kendall.”
Her words make me smile, and I realize I must look like a fool standing in the middle of the kitchen grinning like the Cheshire cat. I can’t stop my face from going pink as I see all of the guys’ attention on us. Trying to distract myself as well as not to be rude, I ask if there’s anything I can do to help. She just turns me down, and says company doesn’t cook or clean, then smacks Leo and Lathan on the back of the head for being rude and not offering me one of their chairs.
Oh, I love this woman as much as I love her house and almost as much as I love her son.