Blain

Polyester blends itch. That’s all I can say as I stand out on Lizzie’s stoop and wait for someone to answer the freaking door. I should have stuck with the silk boxers though because my nads are in no way down with the scratchy blend currently cradling them.

If this keeps up I’ll be scratching my balls like a flea infested mutt at the dinner table. I bet that will go over real well with mama Egan.

“God you look shit.” Gray laughs again, taking in my tough guy sweat suit in eye popping blue and white and the white vest beneath, showing my chest off nicely.

If I were trying to audition for a role in a Rocky movie that is.

I feel ridiculous and Gray hasn’t stop laughing since I walked out of my office wearing this shit. I should kick his ass but I’m too afraid the friction will make these rags catch fire and turn me into a ball of flame.

Gray rings the bell again and I hear muttering before the door is wrenched open and Tink is standing there, staring at me with eyes so big they bulge out.

She’s silent, not making a peep as her eyes start at my head and travel down, taking in the travesty that is her future husband in a slow glance that in no way feels complimentary.

And then she starts laughing and I start giving serious thought to just walking away right now before I start crying. Thanks Ian. Thanks. This is just what I needed. At least my balls and dick have shrivelled so I won’t have to keep worrying about causing a scene in these pants.

“What are you wearing?” she chortles, looking me over again before her and Gray both scream with laughter.

I get it okay. My hair is slicked and combed back. I look like a mobster for God sakes and not a stylish one. One of the poor street rats waiting for his break.

And my fucking balls are sweating like hell too, making me fear for the crotch of my pants and the puddle that will appear there.

“Shut up Tink,” I mutter, closing my eyes and taking a breath. “You gonna let us in?”

She sucks in her lips and I see her eye narrow before she smiles and reaches for the flowers in my hand.

“Oh those are lovely.”

Too bad they’re not for her, I think snidely, pulling them away with a huff.

“They’re for Lizzie.”

The light leaves her eyes and I see her mouth set stubbornly before she grab and twists my nipple and snatches the flowers.

“She’s not your girlfriend Blain, I am and I get flowers. Me. Your girlfriend.” She snarls, sniffing just like that mother of hers before turning and stomping away.

Gray laughs. The man is an asshole and I hear him pray for the same thing as we walk in and close the door.

“Mama! Blay and Gray are here. You better be nice and no more setting me up with Joseph, I told you Blay is my boyfriend now and I can’t be boning two men or I’d have to go to church more and you don’t want me at that church more than once a week mama! Those friends of yours would get an earful.”

Gray chokes at that, we both turn to look at Ian and he gives us a thumbs up.

“Told ya, boy, she’s her mother’s child. She doesn’t share well and she likes to laugh.”

 

Ginny

I haven’t laughed so much with mama in my life. Not once. Not ever. But laugh we did when she walked out of the kitchen to put food on the table and spotted Blay.

I can’t help it, I really can’t. He looks like a Harvard hoodlum trying to convince people that he listens to Tu Pac instead of Bon Jovi. And the chain!

Mam saw the big Catholic cross and I think her heart just about burst in her chest. Of course she’s still glaring at Blay on principle, this is my mama after all. But she’s got a softer look in her eye and even slapped Joseph’s hand when he tried to touch me, muttering about saving her daughter from whoredom and hell.

Apparently telling her that I am sexing means that I can’t be shotgunned into marrying for meat anymore. Unless Blay proves to be unsuitable, as she hissed when she passed me the gravy.

“Eat up, boy, those ridiculous pants will never fit right if you don’t.”

That starts me giggling again and I feel a pinch to my thigh before Blay snarls.

“Thanks, Lizzie. No bread tonight?” he taunts.

Ah, the man has become cocky after I basically told him in so many words that I’m his. Now all I have to do is the sex and I will know for sure if I can just give in.

I’m pretty sure I will, I mean I’m so smitten with Donny Brasco over here I’m a lost cause. The doorbell rings while mama is sneering at Blay and glaring daggers at papa and before I know it Mari, Ing and Rox are pulling up chairs and laughing themselves sick when they catch a load of my boyfriend.

“Don’t even look at me. He fell into the eighties all by himself.” I mumble on a giggle, squealing when his hand tightens on my thigh and inches up.

Blay just smirks and keeps going till his hand is so close to my junk I feel her reaching out for him.

“What the hell happened to you? You trying to get a role on Jersey Shore?” Ing sputters, her eyes watering as she cackles and reaches for the potatoes.

Blay sneers and shoves meat into his mouth while Gray keeps staring at Mari as if she’s naked and just waiting for him. The man has no filter for those eyes and I see even mama waving at her brow when he slowly smiles and licks his lips.

“Stop looking at me, manslut, I told you I don’t like you.”

“Mari, baby, the kids will grow up hard if you don’t get into therapy for your lying issues.” Gray pouts, sighing insufferably while Mari’s eyes go saucer big.

Mama toots, no I mean she laughs so hard I hear her ass squeak and I am super thankful Gray’s closest to her. She likes fibre in her diet.

“You,” Mari says darkly. “Stop following me home.”

“Now, Mari, I’m just being a good friend. What with all those strange men you take home, you could end up in the FBI’s missing cases and we don’t want that. Mom’s already decorating my penthouse with a nursery and dad told his golfing buddies all about you.”

Mama chortles and Gray gets a terrified look in his eye before settling back on Mari with a smirk. The woman is fuming and as her friend I want to support her, but this is so funny and I can’t afford to go to a show.

I’m economical that way.

“You fuc-”

“Mari, dear, must I send Father O’Leary to you for a counselling session? We just had a big sermon last Sunday on the evils of premarital intercourse and Mrs. Talbot gave me a whole bunch of fliers about those harpies things that are spreading like wild fire. Your lady parts are sacred, Mari.”

“Hallelujah,” Gray mumbles, biting his lip when Mari chews into a piece of meat with a snarl.

“Herpes, mama. I think you’re talking about herpes and Mari doesn’t have it.” I giggle, choking when she eyes me and lifts a brow.

“But she could get them. I heard they’re like sores and you don’t even know a man has it until it’s too late.”

“Ewa! I do not have Herpes. And I don’t want to talk to Father O’Leary Aunt Lizzie. My life is my business.”

“Now, dear. I know you girls all want to be liberated or something but you know, a good girl saves herself for marriage, just like I did.”

I choke and spit water all over Blay at those words, my lungs burning when papa throws me a pleading look and smiles at mama who’s staring at him with narrowed eyes.

“Ginny.”

“Sorry. Swallowed wrong,” I gasp.

“There’s no such thing. Only one way to swallow and if you do it right it’s all gooood,” Ing says suggestively, making me groan on the breath I’m holding.

“Hush you! You think I don’t understand what you’re saying Ingram? I do.”

“Really, Lizzie?” Ing asks sweetly, her eyes sparkling.

“Shut it! Mari, Grayson is a good boy. You stop philandering and go on a date with this boy or I will call the Father and have a good talk to him about straying from the path. You remember the nuns?”

Mari pales and nods fearfully, her eyes huge. When she was nineteen her mam caught her with Harvey Winkle behind the shed. She had a fit and ran crying to mama who as we all know is a Nazi intent on torture. Mari spent two weeks at the soup kitchen helping the nuns peel vegetable and clean out the trash cans.

Mari is terrified of nuns after her brothers dressed up one Halloween when she was five and burst out of cupboard in habits, bloody knives held high and faces that she still swears were not theirs.

Mari never looked a nun in the eye again and she was the best behaved of us all during school hours.

“Fine. Fine. I’ll go. Jesus, Liz, just don’t call him. He makes me spend hours with them. With ma. Have you ever seen my mother around women of the cloth? She keeps asking them if they self-pleasure.”

The table erupts after that and we spend the time laughing so hard I don’t notice Blay’s clothes once until he drags me home with him and starts taking them off.