Katie covers her mouth and lets out a giggle. “You have to be kidding.”
“I wish I was,” Bess admits.
Bess drives us home, and she walks with Aaron to his cabin while I wait on the porch. Aaron is still humming that naughty tune and staggering so much that Bess is more or less supporting him. Gabby has been watching the children and she meets them at the door. “I’ll stay with them tonight, Gabby, in case the kids wake up. He’s certainly in no shape to deal with any emergencies,” Bess says quietly.
“I’ll stay,” I hear Gabby say. “I can sleep on the couch. It’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?” Bess asks, as I pee off the side of Aaron’s porch.
Bess groans out loud when she seems me through the front window, and Gabby says, “I think you already have your hands full.” She laughs quietly, and she sounds just like Katie.
“Aaron!” Bess whispers, because all the kids are asleep. “Do you need help getting undressed?” She waits for his response, but none comes.
I guess I should offer to help, but I’m not too steady on my own feet. So I lean in the open doorway while Bess finally gets Aaron into the bedroom, and through the open door I see how she lets him fall onto the bed then quickly strips off his damp clothing. Then she pulls up a quilt to cover him and does that ten-count thing as he begins to breathe rhythmically, already asleep. She quietly slides the portable crib with the sleeping baby out of the bedroom, and then she closes the bedroom door. “Good night, Gabby,” she says. “Call me if you need me.”
“Will do,” Gabby says.
Bess steps past me out onto the porch. “Aaron okay?” I ask as I follow her.“Yeah. I got him to bed. He’ll be fine.”
We head toward our cabin next door.“Did you see his junk?” I ask. “Because I’ve seen it before and I wasn’t all that impressed.”
Bess gasps. “Of course not! Seeing Mr. Jacobson naked was quite enough for one night, thank you very much.” She gives a dramatic shudder. “That’s something I can never unsee.”
“Oh, stop it,” I tease. “I know you took his clothes off. I watched.”
She glares at me. “You watched and you didn’t offer to help? Gee, thanks.”
I scoff. “I would have been more hindrance than help.” I stagger a little and almost knock her down before I can right myself. “See? Sorry. Plus I was curious to see your reaction to his junk.”
“Eli!” she scolds fiercely. “I did not look at his junk. Not intentionally, anyway. So don’t get me in the middle of your childish dick-measuring bullshit.”
I clamp my lips closed at that.“But I can tell you his ass is hairy,” she says after a beat. “Why didn’t Lynda ever tell me about his hairy ass?”
She laughs out loud and pushes me from behind, up the steps of our porch and into our cabin. “Did you have fun tonight?”
“It was great.” I pull my damp clothes off on the way to the bedroom and then fall naked onto the bed, face first. “But this is the best part,” I murmur as Bess shoves my legs under the covers.
“What? Showing me your hairy ass? I’m not going to compare them, so don’t even ask.” She jerks the covers higher over said ass.
I chuckle, already beginning to relax into sleep mode. “Coming home to you. That’s the best part.”
She kisses my forehead, lingering there. “Sleep it off, you drunken sot,” she whispers. She kisses me again, and I close my eyes.
39
Eli
I wake up the next morning feeling like I’ve been hit by a truck, and acid crawls up my throat as I sit up. I rest there, sitting on the edge of the bed, until the room stops spinning. My mouth tastes like Sam’s cat crawled onto my face and shit directly inside my mouth, so I stumble to the bathroom and brush my teeth while leaning heavily on the countertop, my elbow supporting my weight.
What the fuck happened last night? One minute we were building a shed and the next Bess was getting a full-frontal exposure to Mr. Jacobson’s dick. I remember that we all ended up in the lake after jumping off Five Mile Bridge, but I can’t remember why we jumped off the bridge. “Cops,” I say to myself as I rinse my mouth. “I think the cops were there. Fuck.”
I pull on some clothes, opting for some athletic shorts because my skin hurts almost as much as my head does. In fact everything hurts. Where’s Bess? She could kiss it and make it better. Kiss everything. Make everything better.
She isn’t in the cabin. I step out onto the porch and look around. And that’s when I see Aaron stepping out of his front door, looking just as bad as I feel.
I lift my hand to wave at him, but he ignores me and sags down to sit on his top step, like his legs won’t support him anymore. “Dude,” he suddenly calls out. “What the fuck happened last night?”
I gingerly walk down the steps and join him on his top step. “I have vague recollections,” I say. I shake my head, but that hurts too. “What do you remember?”
“I vividly remember Mr. Jacobson’s dick.” He spins to face me. “Why do I remember Mr. Jacobson’s dick?”
“I think he stripped naked so he could jump into the lake unencumbered.”
“Do you know where my children are?” Aaron asks.
“Gabby spent the night at your house to take care of the kids,” I tell him. I do remember that much at least. “She probably took them with her when she left this morning.”
“I guess I had better go find them.” He scratches his head, and then it turns into him rubbing his eyes, and then he just lets his face fall into his palms.
“Oh, I just remembered.” I hold up one finger. “The cops came. Thank goodness it was just Little Robbie or we might all be scrambling for bail money right now.”
“Oh yeah,” Aaron says, memory returning. “Jake had to pull Mr. Jacobson out of the lake, stark naked.” He lifts his head to look into my eyes. “You realize we all saw Mr. Jacobson’s junk, right? Dude…I can never unsee that.”
I laugh even though that hurts too. “Bess said the same thing. She said seeing you naked too was just way too much,” I confess.
He looks startled for an instant, but it looks like the expression hurts his face so he relaxes it. “Wait… How did Bess see me naked? Were we all naked?”
“Relax. She just made sure you were safe and sound in your own bed.” Pause. “She did comment on your hairy ass, though.”
He groans. “Please tell me I was face down. Was I really that wasted?”
“Dude, we all were. If it makes you feel any better, I peed off your porch last night.”
“It’s supposed to rain later,” he remarks, totally unconcerned now. He pushes up to stand. “I’m going to go find my kids.”
“I’ll walk with you. I need to find my wife.” I walk a few steps and find that my skin still hurts. “I think I’m too old to drink like that anymore.” I stare at him. “When did we get old?”
“Last night, apparently,” Aaron replies. “I feel like I need to throw up.” He stops walking, bends over, and spits a few times into the grass. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “False alarm,” he says.