laki
➸ Ginger ☆
Back in Little Memphis with my entire crew, card night took up several tables at the Iron Horse Bar. With our smaller group, we no longer need as much space, but the B&B won’t work. Hildy remains beyond patient with us, but she doesn’t approve of drinking and no way will she allow cigars.
That’s why we’re in the backroom at the Rusty Cage bar, drinking shots of tequila, smoking Cubans, and playing seven-card stud. Pepper remains at the B&B, watching Duffy so Cayenne can join us. Next week is my turn to babysit. Hopefully, we’ll be moved into the townhomes by then.
“The furniture will be delivered on Wednesday morning,” I say in between hands. “Who plans to be there to supervise?”
Bay lifts her hand. “Pepper and I have the furniture floor plans ready to go.”
“Are two people enough to manage all the furniture?” Cayenne asks.
“Yes. They’re only sending one truck at a time, and I assume two guys will carry crap in. They can only go so fast, so we’ll be able to keep an eye on them.”
“We should ask the Heretics to come by and use their muscles,” I suggest.
“Why?” Bay asks immediately.
“They’re our allies, and I want them emotionally invested in our happiness.”
“Didn’t letting Oz fuck you do enough of that?” Yarrow grumbles.
“No, that was more about ensnaring him into my woman’s trap of obsession and dominance.”
“What?” the younger woman asks.
“I was horny, and he fixed that for me.”
The girls laugh except for Yarrow who rolls her blue eyes.
“If you want us to have them snap to attention, we’ll make the call,” Bay says.
“I want us to become so tightly involved with the Heretics that their club gets a scary rep and we don’t have to worry about anyone coming around Rawlins to cause trouble.”
“That makes sense,” Cayenne says and deals our cards. “Little Memphis was a rough town, but Rawlins doesn’t have to be for our families.”
“Speaking of families,” Bay says, “Pepper and I narrowed down the list of donors to two.”
“What makes them special?” Yarrow asks, ignoring the cards while she rests her head on the table.
“They’re perfectly average,” Bay says. “We wanted Baby Bear qualities. Not too tall or short. Not too pale or dark. Not too smart or athletic.”
“Would you really want an average man if you were doing this the old-fashioned way? You know, drunk with a guy you barely knew,” I ask.
“Pepper and I noticed the people who have the cutest kids are average looking. Clearly, I can’t change how amazing I look, so the guy will need to level out my hotness.”
Smirking, I nod. “Makes sense.”
“Now that Oz had his hand up your pussy, working you like his dummy, will you have a kid soon?” Clove asks, and I suspect she just got a good hand.
“No,” I say and then add, “No, no, no.”
“Never know,” Bay mutters, and I suspect she just got a bad hand.
“Babies are weird looking and smelly, and I don’t like the way they’re always emitting gross stuff from one or more orifices.”
“Remember how odd Duffy looked when she was born,” Cayenne asks. “Those big dark eyes on her round, pale face freaked me out. There was no denying who her father was and how she inherited his creepy stalker eyes.”
“They’re not creepy anymore,” Clove points out.
“No, they aren’t. Thankfully, my genetics kicked in.”
“She used to barf a lot,” I point out. “So much barf out of such a small person. Yeah, babies are gross.”
“True or not, you’re still babysitting when we have Froggy,” Bay states.
“Of course. I love being an auntie. Oh, and what the hell is a froggy?”
“That’s what we’re naming the baby.”
I give Clove a horrified look, and she laughs. “Well, I think we need to cut off your tequila intake for the night.”
“Your name is Ginger,” Bay says, clearly serious about naming the baby. “Who decided that was a name? Why are Danny and Billy real names besides someone a long time ago deciding they were? So we’re naming the baby Frog and calling him Froggy.”
“How do you know it’ll be a boy?” Clove asks.
“Oh, it will,” I say, exhaling cigar smoke. “They’ve tempted the universe too much with their male hatred. I doubt they’ll ever have a need for pink booties, no matter how many babies they make between the two of them.”
“Froggy, it is,” Cayenne says and toasts to the not yet created baby. “So how will you decide between the donors?”
“Eeny, meeny, miny, moe ought to do it,” Bay explains. “One guy or another, we’ll have a baby.”
“And you’ll use the same guy for when Pepper wants a baby?”
We laugh at the idea of Pepper pregnant. Bay giggles long after the rest of us. I think she’s mostly just psyched to have a home and baby to go along with her love. I imagine her in a year, cuddled with Pepper and a baby in their townhouse. The dream feels so real that my mind flashes to a picture of Oz and me in my home with his kids playing nearby. The thought terrifies me, and I blink away such ideas.
Then as if beckoned by my fantasy about him, Oz appears at the double doors of the backroom, and my night gets a helluva lot sexier.