“I guess,” I shrugged. “But Elijah was bigger.”
Again, we went through the finger measurements in the air, finally stopping on one that was accurate for Elijah.
“Lord have mercy,” she whispered, looking at her fingers with appreciation this time. “I love my husband fiercely, but just to say, I’m damn glad he’s in proportion.”
Yeah, that would be a crying shame. At six foot six inches tall, if Elijah’s penis had been tiny, that would have been an injustice to humanity.
Which led me to a depressing thought that I’d been trying to smother. “Do you think some other lucky bitch is experiencing his perfect, pierced pecker? No, wait,” I cried, holding my hand up. “Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.”
I was in the process of jumping onto the ground, not caring about the pain when she grabbed my hand and stopped me. “No way in hell. I heard what he was like when Shonelle—” she stopped when she saw my expression. “What he looked like that night, and my husband said he looked like he betrayed you just by having a past. A man who feels like that about a woman doesn’t hop from her bed to the next. At least, not if he’s a real man, and Elijah strikes me as one of those.”
Her words gave me hope, even though I was still hurt over how he’d handled it, so when we went back out to the bar and Jackson informed me that he was going to be looking after me and not to give him any lip about it, I didn’t argue. And then he told me that Elijah had texted him before he left to ask him to look in on me, and I almost melted like the lava wax from last night.
If his brother was going to do that, then I had to mean something to Elijah, right? Yeah, he could be doing it for the rest of his family or just because he was a great guy, but I preferred my first answer.
Plus, after hearing about the postcards from Orson, I knew I wouldn’t sleep well if it was just me, so I went with it.
Something I regretted later on.
Five hours later…
The room outside the hole was freaking massive, and this time there was a turkey on the table making my mouth water.
Poking my head out, I looked around for the bloody blue cat, knowing he was going to skate in on ice or torment me somehow. But then my stomach rumbled, and wafts of the scent of the cooked turkey hit me full-on, and I knew I was going to make a run to get some.
A glance behind me at my little matchbox bed showed my table was set up for my feast, and the thimble I’d painted black to look like one of the table decorations was under my arm to act as both a costume and a way to carry the food back. Nothing was holding me back.
Running as fast as I could, I got to the couch and crawled under it until I reached the other side. Then it was a short sprint toward the table, where the decorative Thanksgiving cloth touched the ground for me to pull myself up.
Just as I got to the top, something clattered to the ground behind me, and I had to dive into the flower and gourd centerpiece to stick my hat on. Scanning the room as discreetly as I could, I almost fell over when Betty White walked past me with a plate, followed by the other Golden Girls.
Loading up their plates, they carried them over to a door that led to the lanai—something I didn’t even realize we had, and I’d been living here for eighty years.
As soon as the room was clear, I was on the food, loading my hat up with a pea, some potato, and a ton of turkey. I’d have to come back later for pumpkin pie and dessert.
Turning around to scale my way back down the tablecloth, I came face to face with Tom, but this time his face looked like Orson Riley’s. Suddenly he was straightening up to his full height, and the fact I was a tiny, vulnerable mouse became very, very clear.
“Welcome back, Sadie, love. This time you’re not getting away…”
Sitting up straight in bed, I screamed my arse off. It was like all of the pressure inside of me just burst and came out in an ear-piercing shriek.
The door to the bathroom burst open, and a naked man came running out of it, looking furious and ready to kill someone.
Naked. Man!
I saw everything—franks and beans included—in the dim light from the bathroom behind him and the open door leading to the living room.
It was such a shock that it cut my screech off midstream as I covered my eyes, squealing, “Penis!” instead.
“Fuck, shit, sorry,” Jackson stammered, and I heard him shuffling away from me. “Where’s the fucker who hurt you?”
“Eating Thanksgiving dinner with the Golden Girls?”
“Not the time to be cute, Sadie. You don’t have to protect him, ‘cos I won’t get into trouble for killing him, I promise you. Come out motherfucker,” he bellowed, making me jump and feel sorry for my neighbor again. She might wear a hearing aid that she said she took off at night, but I swear she lied when she said she didn’t hear anything from my apartment.
“Jackson, there’s no one here, I promise. I had a nightmare. I dream vividly, and it’s usually about something I’ve watched or read, which I’ve never understood. Still, apparently, it isn’t that unusual…” I broke off, feeling like a total idiot now.
“You’re safe to look again,” he sighed, and when I lowered my hands, I saw him standing with his hands on his hips, wearing black sweats and no t-shirt. It wasn’t a bad view, but mini Sadie from the south didn’t even raise a finger to wave at him. “So, that was a dream?”
“A nightmare,” I stressed. “When I dream they’re like that as well, but they don’t make me shit my pants. Figuratively,” I added when his face scrunched up, and he took a step back.
I swear, even though it was still relatively dark in the room, I saw his cheeks turn scarlet. “I’m sorry about, well, you know,”—he waved at his lower half with his hand—“Your ugly fat cat puked on my leg, so I jumped in the shower. You were out cold, so I didn’t think you’d wake up. Then I heard the scream when I was drying off, and I didn’t think and—”
That’s when the dam inside of me burst. No, not the tear dam, the laughter one. It came out with so much force that I fell backward on the bed and had to hold my side because I got a stitch.
Ironically, it also rocked me back to sleep. When I woke up in the morning, the last thing I remembered was trying not to snort and failing as tears streamed down the sides of my face and into my hair. Oh, and I had a bitch of an ache in my stomach muscles when I sat up. And what made it start all over again was the fact that Jackson blushed as soon as he saw me and struggled to make eye contact with me all morning.
I could see why they said that laughter was the best medicine, though, because I felt lighter than I had in years.
Chapter Ten
Sadie
Two weeks later…
I felt like shit. This morning I’d woken up to three postcards from Orson. Dad had men in charge of getting them before I did and handing them to the police, but somehow he’d managed to bypass them this time. Lucky fucking me. That was problem number one.
Problem number two was what was on them, and it was making me feel nauseous.
“What’s the relevance of this school?” Jackson asked, pointing at the sign on the first one.