she whispered, “And paybacks are a bitch, my friend. Remember the shit you gave me when J.B. and I got together?”
"Of course, they are, and yes, I do," I sighed, hugging one of my dearest friends and her big pregnant tummy right back while smiling at my grinning Mate.
Letting go as Max stepped back, I helped my very preggers friend back to her seat as Tank once again started to explain. "Okay, so, I was on the second floor installing a new ceiling fan in the bedroom that used to be Auntie Mabel's sewing room when I swear to y'all it sounded like bombs were going off in the Parlor."
(For those of you who happen to not have been lucky enough to live in the South, a Parlor is that room at the front of the house where all the best furniture, the antiques, and all the good shit handed down from generation to generation sits and collects dust until company comes. It's the room the kids are forbidden to ever enter, and all the animals in the house – wild, tamed, two-footed, and four - know they'll be skinned alive if they step foot into. At my home, it was called Momma's Parlor, and I never went in there unless I was summoned, and then I put my hands in my pockets and walked really slow.)
Going right back to my man because, well, I wanted to and I could, and he was my Mate, I wrapped my arm around his waist, feeling loved and adored when he put his arm around my shoulders and held me close. Sticking my tongue out at each and every one of my friends as they looked on with goofy grins on their faces, I ended with a wink and a crinkle of my nose. I knew that they all knew I was just playing. Even Zelda, who was nodding and smiling as she ate Edna's homemade guacamole like it was going out of style. I loved them. They loved me. All was gonna be right with the world, just as soon as we figured out how to get it that way.
Thank goodness, Tank hadn't realized that we were all being goofy, or maybe he did and was just being nice. Either way, he was still talking when I tuned back in.
"Off the ladder and down the stairs, I made it to the landing on the grand staircase. (That's the one in the front of the house that's got all the fancy carvings in the banister.) Without a single warning, every blasted picture still hanging on the wall started flying right at my head." Blowing out a breath, his hand starting to rub up and down my arm in a lazy pattern, my hunka-hunka-prehistoric hotness kept going, his voice getting deeper and his heart beating a little faster.
“Ducking and weaving, trying not to get beaned with those big, old, heavy picture frames, I made it to the first floor and into the Parlor when the French doors, the front door, and all the windows started opening and closing over and over again. Slamming so hard, I was sure the glass was gonna shatter, and the stained glass Uncle Clyde made would break into pieces and there was nothin' I could do but stand there and wait for the glass to start flyin'."
"Were the pictures still whippin' around?"
"Hell, yeah, they were, Sis," he immediately answered Jenn's question. "And that wasn't all. Shit was getting crazier by the second. Flames shot out of the fireplace, the water started pouring out of the faucet in that old wash table that's not even hooked to anything, and a voice that sounded like the second coming of Papa Legba boomed, ‘You have opened the door to Hell. Unleashed an Evil not meant for this world. You will be punished. Your sins are known. Beware all who enter here’.” Looking down as I looked up, Tank breathed, “So, I did it. I left.”
Shaking his head, his chuckles more strained than funny, he wiped his free hand across his forehead. "Now, y'all know I don't scare easy. I've been in some sticky situations. Bombs on one side, bullets on the other, and the enemy all around…" Holding up the index finger of his free hand, his eyes opening wide, my Mate looked around the room as he slowly nodded. "But I knew how to handle that shit. What happened out there at the house…" Shaking his head and blowing out yet