Ginny

I can’t stop smiling and I feel like a nerd as Blay putters around the kitchen cooking breakfast while I sit and watch and dream about the absolute joy that’s got me in its grip.

Let’s talk about the sex shall we? It was great. Good. Phenomenal and every other adjective I can possibly think of. Okay, so it hurt when he broke through my hymen and I had to grit my freaking teeth and pretend it didn’t when I saw the concern on his face. But after that it was really good.

I mean so good that right after he L bombed me, I attacked him again, rode him like I knew what I was doing and screamed the L bomb back at him like a harpy on crack.

I did it. I surrendered to Blain freaking George and instead of feeling like hell, I feel like I just got out of prison and had real meat for the first time in years.

In fact, I feel so great and not at all panicky that I’m starting to panic a little because I should be and I’m not. That doesn’t make sense I know but hear me out okay.

I had sex, for the first time ever and it was the soul bonding kind that people talk about but I never believed in. He made me so happy and complete that I said I freaking love you and I actually meant it.

I meant it, not like when I tell Abe and Davey I love them and then keep asking god to make it true, just kidding, sort of. I mean I love him. I want to be with him and I will even put up with mama’s wrath to keep him because sex aside, after that sweat suit last night, I know he loves me.

Papa was right, Blay loves me and if I walk away from this it won’t be because I don’t feel anything for him but because I’m a coward and that I can’t have.

Cowardice is only to evince sympathy when mama goes on a rampage.

Tink? You okay?” Blay asks, putting a plate and coffee cup in front of me before sitting down beside me.

“Yeah, just thinking.” I mumble, nibbling on a piece of bacon.

Blay stills and looks at me, deeper, as if he’s trying to read my mind and closes his eyes.

“You regret last night.”

“What! No. No I don’t I swear. I loved last night. Last night was great. Perfect. Everything and so much more.” I squeal desperately, hating the sadness in his eyes.

“You sure?”

“Yes. Positive. Not a doubt in my mind. I swear. I was uh, just wondering what to do now? Do we date? I have to warn you mama is not going to like that. She sees dating as one step away from prostitution,” I mutter.

Blay chuckles, apparently not at all concerned and starts eating after pointing out.

“Your mom’s okay enough to set you up with the mama’s boy.”

My lip curls, part amusement, part distaste-not because of Joseph, he’s sweet and kind-but because it’s humiliating to say what I have to. I’m twenty four years old, an adult already and despite mama’s apparently loose ways in her youth, she’s got some very strange rules where I am concerned.

Thank God she’s never discovered how many dates I’ve been on or how many guys I’ve kissed. She’s pin a scarlet letter to my chest and start wailing on the church steps.

“That was chaperoned. I’ve never been with him in a room by myself.” I admit, blushing.

His lips twitch and he gets that teasing gleam in his eyes, the one that makes my bottom lip pout.

“Well that’s probably for the best seeing as the boy would jizz his shorts if he so much as touched you the way he wants to. I can’t believe she sees you with him. Doesn’t she have any shame?”

“It’s hard for Satan to have shame, I told you and no, all she sees is that he’s a good provider, a church going boy and he’d never hurt me. That’s what she’s been after all along. I get it though. When I left school I had no goals. I had so little money at one time I paid rent to sleep on a couch in an apartment with four other girls. I wasn’t practical, I didn’t think about what I wanted in the future and she saw that as a sign that I need a husband with prospects.”

Blay chokes and shudders. “Prospects? He works at his father’s butchery and lives at home. What the fuck does he have to offer you but a life that is run by other people?”

Meat? Hairy kids? A mattress that I have to vacuum every day?

Not nice, Ginny. Be nice now or you’ll burn in hell.

“I get it, don’t get mad. You just need to understand is all. And you didn’t answer my question,” I point out.

“No dating. I fucking hate dating Tink and it’s wasted on us because I’m not ever letting you go. You get that right? Tell me you understand that this thing between us is love, more than love. Please. No. You know what, just don’t say anything because I don’t care. You’re mine and I am ours and I want smooth babies with you!”

He’s so worked up I know it’s bad form to show a hint of amusement but I can’t help it. I think I just may have found and fallen in love with the only man in the state that’s as perfect for me as my dad is for my crazy mama.

Blay is not at all pompous, unless you count his sneering at anything that’s not designer, million thread count touching his man packet. Oh, and he’s a coffee snob but otherwise, he just gets me and accepts it all.

“You’re setting yourself up for misery here, George. You don’t even know what having me entails.”

“Don’t care.”

“Huh. Okay. Well if that’s the case you might as well start clearing a room for Jack and be prepared okay because the girls usually come over on Sundays to hide from church. Oh, and I sleep eat sometimes. It’s not a big deal but if you wake up one day beside a three hundred pound woman that smells like me, you have to accept it, you made that devils deal buddy.”

I’m in his lap and being kissed to death just as I finish that sentence, Blay’s happiness is real I can feel it seeping from his pours. I’m a people pleaser, inner snark and all but this is just the best moment of my life.

Blay, I get to make this man happy for the rest of his life. I get to let him laugh, because yes I know I’m strange and people are usually laughing at me all the time. I get to make him come. That one I really like since he usually only lets that happen after he’s made me come two or three times.

I get to wake up next to him every day and know that he’s happy just because I am here and I am his. I don’t know what most women feel, don’t really care much to tell you the truth, but in this moment as he does his best to suffocate me with tongue, I think I know what my purpose is.

To love Blain George.

 

Blain

“Ssshht! Shut your fat mouth, Rox. Darn it, I am not telling you that. No, he doesn’t like it when I tell you about his dick because you always make crude jokes about it and it’s a fantastic dick.”

I feel my shoulders shake violently as I repress my humour and pretend not to hear the hissed phone conversation going on right beneath my nose.

It’s been a grand total of four weeks since Tink gave me the biggest gift of my life and moved into my penthouse, bringing with her the world’s ugliest dog, seven of the ugliest puppies-I was swindled there and I know it!-and enough clothes to fill two closets.

My place, our place is a mess. Constantly. Tink is cute, sweet, funny and perfect in every way. Except when it comes to domestic cleanliness. I hired a service to come in five days a week because the woman just tears the place apart in mere minutes.

Clothes. I don’t even know how her clothes get everywhere, all the time. They just appear, as if possessed. In the living room. Over the couches, the dining room. I once found a pair of her racy pink thongs in the coffee pot.

She just shrugged when I pulled them out and held them up questioningly.

“Shut your pie hole! Really? And then?” she whispers, looking over at me innocently before crouching over her phone and listening with glee.

I keep my eyes trained to the sports channel and try to hold back a smirk because I already know what they’re gossiping about and it’s hilarious. Mari once she agreed to go on a date with Gray couldn’t back out. Lizzie made sure of that.

For some reason the old crone adores the ass and wouldn’t hear of Mari breaking his fool heart. Mari, being Mari who I now know is terrible, ate a three hundred dollar dinner, played with Gray’s balls beneath the table during dessert and then got up and walked away.

The last laugh was on her though if she thought Gray had enough shame to remain sitting there because he had a boner that one gossiping society maven described as obscene.

Nuhuh. He simply stood, grinned at them all when they gasped and told them Mari was too hot not to want. And then he chased after her. Too bad he wasn’t watching where he was going and got clipped by a cab.

I spent the night in the emergency room with him while they casted his leg. Mari spent the next week in Father O’Leary’s office when Gray called Lizzie and cried to her that Mari was bullying him and breaking his tender heart.

Now Mari hates him. And he loves her more.

It’s all-out war as far as the rest of us can tell. Gray sends her flowers, she has a case of horse shit delivered to his office. I don’t know where she gets horse shit in the city on a Friday afternoon but I have to give her props for inventiveness.

The latest scene took place when Gray showed up at Aunt Ro’s house, did what Gray does and charmed the woman, promising her at least ten grandbabies and a set of twins.

Mari was so pissed she broke into his car and stashed a rabid alley cat in his back seat. Gray is still bearing the scratches but swears the harder Mari fights the more he knows she loves him.

Fool.

“Okay, Ing, guys I have to go.” Tink sighs, licking her lips when I stretch and rub seductively at my hair free chest, turning her on like crazy.

She’s so into it I see her end the call while someone is still yelling something at her and she crawls over to me with a smile.

“Oh hello, smooth man, are you feeling lonely?” she purrs throatily, making my dick go pike hard in an instant.

It’s pathetic how conditioned I am already. More especially when she leans in to lick a swathe across my lips. I deepen the kiss and just get a hand into her pants, meeting some serious moisture against those full folds when my phone rings.

Tink being Tink, she dives for it and answers with a grin.

“Hello.”

I ignore the interruption and keep stroking her clit, enjoying her gasps and the soft moan she can’t keep in when she shoves me away and sits up straight.

“Oh no. No Gray, we’ll be right there.” She says grabbing me to pull me toward the elevator.

“Tink.”

“We have to get to the hospital, your dad was in an accident!”

 

Ginny

The whole family turned out at the hospital when mama got wind of Mr. George’s ‘accident’. That’s mama for you. If you’re family, you’re family and that’s that.

So now I’m sitting on Blay’s lap while Mr. George is in surgery watching mama and Cece pointedly ignore each other while Gray tries to cop a feel of Mari and my brothers wrestle each other for the last candy bar Char got from the vending machine.

We’re all worried but at one point I had to excuse myself along with the girls and go to the bathroom to laugh because the accident turned out to be Mr. George falling down the stairs at his mistress’s house when he tried to run after her in cowboy boots and a very questionable pair of crotch-less underpants that the nurses returned to Cece at one point.

Her face got so red I knew she was trying to scowl through the botox and mama cackled so hard she had one of her fibre episodes. I can’t take that woman anywhere.

But I’m worried about Blay because though he always shrugs it off when I try to talk to him about his parents, I know he loves them in his own way and he’s worried.

He hasn’t made a peep all night. Not a word where before he would have been chuckling right along with everyone.

“Blay, talk to me please baby.” I murmur quietly, squeezing his hand again.

He just shakes his head and sighs, looking at nothing in particular before turning to me.

“I hate that he got hurt and could have died and that he couldn’t even let the woman he loves come with him to the hospital because of mom.”

Uh. This is not a good topic of conversation but I started it so I have to make some sort of reply. Darn it.

“Um, I mean that’s not great Blay but your mom is here and from the looks of her I don’t think your dad is going to be alone. She seemed really worried about him. She must care for him.”

“Please. She’s probably just pissed that everyone knows he has a mistress. Like she even cares about his health.”

He sounds so bitter and nothing like my Blay that it scares me. I don’t know how to deal with this Blay or how to respond in a way that will make it all better.

I love him, and I accept the good and the bad but it pisses me off that he dislikes his mother so much. My mama is the pits but I wouldn’t trade her for anyone in the world.

Well unless money is involved but I’d have to leave the country to keep it when the suckers finally realized what they’d done and try to return her.

“Blay, she’s your mom. She’s not perfect and maybe she deserves some of your anger but you can’t expect her to sit through something like this, worrying, with a woman who gets the better part of her husband. Your dad’s no angel either in this situation. If he was a better man and he really loved that woman he’d have divorced your mom a long time ago and married her.”

Blay stiffens beside me and turns his head to stare at me silently and I feel my stomach plummet. Hell, great, I went and insulted a man who could be dying and now my boyfriend is pissed at me.

Good going Ginny.

I’m not feeling all that great, in fact I’m about to apologize even though I really don’t want to when he finally sighs and pulls me close, kissing my hair as I put my head on his shoulder.

“You’re right Tink. Sorry. I just don’t understand them sometimes and it frustrates me. I love you so much that I could never do anything like that. I’d rather cut my nuts off than touch another woman and I could never do that to you, disrespect you that way. And yet they seem okay with it.”

“Well…I don’t know what to say to that Blay. I love you. I wouldn’t ever be okay with you straying because I’m selfish and I want you all for myself. Maybe, maybe they just can’t leave each other because they’re so used to being together. Mama once told me that she wouldn’t even know how to sleep without papa snoring loud enough to wake the dead beside her and papa said mama sleep farts and he’s so used to it if he doesn’t hear one he checks her for signs of life. You love, you get used to certain things and maybe things don’t always work out like a fairy tale, but in their own way, they rely on one another.”

He seems to accept that and smiles a little, kissing me again before settling down beside me.

“God I love you woman. You say the weirdest shit but it always makes me feel better. Now about those fucking rats you brought home…”

I gasp and slap his shoulder, mortally offended.

“They’re not rats and don’t you dare tell me to get rid of them, it would break Jack’s heart.”

He snorts and I see Gray chortling as well. According to them those are not dogs. They can’t be because they have no teeth at all and one of them is completely bald.

I think they’ve got character. They’re Jack through and through with some of their mother’s rounder features.

“Tink, I caught Jack carrying one into the bathroom yesterday. If I hadn’t followed he’d have succeeded in flushing that poor little rat. That dog is evil Tink. He keeps watching them with his milky eye and I saw him plotting.”

“He was not!”

“Yes.”

“No. Really. I asked him about his attitude and he told me he adores all his kids.” I argue.

That was an intense conversation. I had to ply him with kibble before he’d share his feeling. Seems Jack is starting to take after his daddy in the me man, no have feelings department.

Mari sucks her teeth at my statement and rolls her eyes, letting me know how she feels about my dog whisperer status. She doesn’t believe that Jack talks to me and good for her. I’d sure hate for her to know how my little precious feels about her. He’s got big opinions that one and apparently Mari needs a strong hand. Huh.

“Mrs. George?”

I look up just as a doctor walks in and Cece practically flies at the woman, her face a picture of concern. You know if she was capable of expression.

“How is he?”

“Doing just fine. He broke his hip when he fell, that’s why we took him directly to surgery and he had a bit of a problem coming out of the anaesthesia but he’s awake now and asking for you.”

“Why?” Blay barks bitterly, his lips twisting. “Don’t you have a party to get to?”

I see everyone stiffen, even mama who cringes a little, and Cece just turns to look at her son, that perfect face slack. Her eyes though, goodness they break my heart. She looks defeated and a little broken as her son glares at her disdainfully.

“You probably won’t believe me but I love your father very much Blain.” She says softly.

“Oh really. That’s why you’re not bothered with him screwing other women?”

Cece stiffens and I see mama go over to throw an arm over her shoulder, soothing her quietly.

“This is not-”

“Fuck this.” He growls, turning away.

“Blain! Don’t talk to your mother that way young man or I will box your ears.” Mama yells. “She’s had a trying time and needs your support. Now apologize immediately.

Blay laughs humourlessly and bares his teeth, glaring at Cece as I bite my lips and shake my head at mama.

“Yeah? Like she supported me? Like when she forgot my birthday? Or when I sat on the soccer field waiting for three hours after the game she never showed for? How about the time I called her on mother’s day and she told her assistant to thank me for my sentiments but that she was busy.”

Okay, now see, I didn’t know he was so messed up about this stuff and now I feel bad about making fun of his mom. I mean just look at her. If she was capable of tears I think she’d be crying right now. As it is she looks terrible as her face blanches.

And that’s when she says something that shocks me so much I can only gasp.

“I loved you your whole life but your father and his mistress made it very clear to me that while you were to publically be my son, I could not actively participate in your life. They wanted you to grow up to be self-sufficient and not rely on anyone for a thing. I tried at first. I used to sneak into your room at night and read to you and I was at every single soccer game, I just hid in the trees because she would go and if she saw me he would have left me and taken you with him. I did what I could until it became so hard I had to pull away or risk going back to drinking.”

Oh well…

“What?”

“I couldn’t have kids so your father and I approached a surrogate. She was supposed to have a baby using your father’s sperm and then you would be mine. I always wanted a child, I just couldn’t have one. I was happy at first. I really loved your father and I was certain that once we had you, he’d love me back. But he fell for her,” she says, her eyes misting as a sad smile crosses her face.

“I guess it was something about a woman bearing your child, or whatever. He wouldn’t leave her alone and she, she was just so happy to have a rich man on her line she didn’t care that she was ruining my marriage. I didn’t think anything of it at first until after we brought you home and I saw the birth certificate. Your father put her name on it as well as his own. Legally I had no leg to stand on and I knew it so I just…I accepted what he offered me though it broke my heart.”

Oh shit.

“Mom?” Blay asks and I wrench my eyes away from her to see his face go paper white.

He sways a little and just stares at her, as shocked as we all are when she smiles and shrugs.

“I, I need to go see him. I just, I’m so sorry I said anything but I am Goddamn sick and tired of you thinking so poorly of me all the time. I, I am to blame I know, but he’s not innocent either Blain. He’s not a bad man but he isn’t easy to love either. I guess that makes me a fool.”

“Tell me,” he whispers, falling into the seat behind him.

I sit too and grab his hand. I don’t know what else to do and it’s hurting me. So much. Everyone else is dead quiet, and I feel their discomfort all around us before Cece shakes her head and walks out, leaving him stunned and hurt.

“Blay.”

“Don’t say anything. Please. Just don’t. Char?”

Charlotte and Ed both shake their heads as Gray comes over to pull him up and hug him.

“If they knew anything they’d have told you, Blay. Come on, cuz, let’s go get a drink. Tink, I think you should go home with your family for now okay,” he says gently.

“But-”

“I’ve got him Tink.”

“Blay. Please don’t go. We can go home and talk. Please talk to me.” I beg.

He looks at me and I see nothing in his eyes. No love. Nothing.

I accept only because Blay doesn’t give me a choice in the matter, just turns and walks out, leaving me behind and feeling totally rejected.