Swamp Happens: The Complete Swamp Bottom Series

by Cora Kenborn

  Fucking vodka.

  I hadn’t simply limbo’ed my way to a purple beaded necklace with plastic trophies hanging off it. No, I’d straight up limbo’ed my way to being flat on my back.

  Underneath him.

  Well, from the memories coming back in broken pieces, I’d been on top most of the night.

  Bile gathered at the base of my tongue, and I slapped my hand over my mouth, willing the vomit to stay down. Resting my head against the seat’s headrest, I closed my eyes and attempted to scratch the images out of my head with a mental Sharpie. Every time I came close to blacking out his face, karma focused on him even clearer as if to say, “Behold, bitch, the end of life as you know it.”

  Pressing the heels of my palms to both eyes, I made a last-ditch effort to rationalize that what I’d done wasn’t such a big deal. I’d been upset. We were adults. Alcohol had been involved. Everyone knew when combined, all three were the unholy trifecta of stupidity. And unholy stupidity caused me to act like an unhinged slutty toddler.

  Besides, only a child would sneak out of her own house with mismatched clothes on and hide out at Starbucks while waiting for the biggest mistake she’d ever made to get the hell out and go home. Avoidance wasn’t chickenshit; it was smart offense.

  When a linebacker three times your size headed straight for you on the field, you didn’t bang pots and pans together to call attention to yourself. No, you ran like hell in the other direction.

  And besides, I really liked chai lattes.

  Now, here I sat, wondering how to set fire to my sheets from outside the house. I needed to get rid of all evidence before Sav got home then scrub my skin raw in the shower. It never happened if there wasn’t any trace of it, right?

  Can one bleach one’s own vagina?

  A sharp rapping on the window drew a scream from my throat, and I reached for my pepper spray.

  “Relax, crazy girl. It’s me,” Savannah called through the window, motioning with her finger for me to roll it down. Once I hit the button, she crossed her arms over her chest and sucked air through her teeth. “Ads? Why have you been sitting in our driveway for twenty minutes?”

  Deny. Demand. Deflect.

  “Have you been spying on me, Sav? Don’t you have anything more useful to do with your time?”

  A slow grin pulled across her face. “Nope.”

  “Fine,” I threw the door open and stomped toward the house. “If you must know, I went to the office to meet with a client.”

  She met me at the door with her index finger crooked over her mouth. “Mmmhmm, I see. This early on a Saturday?”

  “Yep.” Rushing through the foyer, I eyed the stairs and prayed I could still run faster than my sister. I’d reached the third step before she decided to turn into an amateur detective.

  “I see. And is this new client important? I mean, I assume if you met with them on a Saturday, they must be worth the time.”

  “Yes, Savannah, they were important. No reason to go into the office for mediocre accounts.” I managed to take two more steps before she bumped into the back of me and grabbed the base of my shirt.

  “I see. Well, did you explain to this big client why your bright pink shirt is on backward and half tucked into your yellow shorts? Or were you going for the drive of shame, Marshmallow Peep look?”

  “Can you say anything other than, ‘I see?’” I clasped my fingers around the banister and glared at her over my shoulder. Refusing to back down, she scratched her chin and cocked her head.

  Dubois women were notoriously stubborn and equated giving in with admitting defeat. I arched an eyebrow, and Savannah arched one back. I narrowed my eyes, and my sister winked at me.

  I’d had enough. “Why don’t you say whatever it is you’re dying to say before you blink that contact lens across the room?”

  “Now, I’m not one to gossip, Ads…”

  “You? Never.”

  “However, I’ve been back from Pope’s for over an hour. Your bed looks like a family of raccoons have been foraging for food in the sheets.” Sing-songing the last few words, she grinned and darted around me, taking the stairs three at a time. “And I’m betting the big, hot, burly raccoon left something behind.”

  “Savannah!” Panicked, I chased her up the stairs and fell in behind her as she threw open the door to my room, exposing what could only be described as a sextastrophe. Abandoning my reserved and calm demeanor, I stumbled against the wall and surveyed my own personal hell.

  Four condom wrappers.

  I covered my eyes and peeked through my fingers, but they still mocked me. Four? What the hell had I become, the Energizer Whore?

  “Ads, who did you bring home last night?”

  And there it was. The question I knew she’d inevitably ask. The logical, adult thing to do would be to come clean to my sister and utilize her evil brain for the pure purpose of getting me the hell out of this mess.

  But logic waved bye-bye to me when I shot Smirnoff out of a purple-rimmed snorkel. Once that happened, the spiral of disgrace spun, taking out everything and everyone in its path. My head pounded, my back hurt, and God help me, my vagina felt like it’d been beaten with the damn limbo stick.

  Logic had left the state of Louisiana.

  “His name is Jim,” I blurted out without half a thought in my head.

  Savannah bent down and peered underneath the bed, tugging a piece of material until it dislodged and wrapped around her hand. Whistling low, she held it by the sleeve and twirled it around her finger. “Jim seems to have wandered off without his shirt. Tell me, Ads, what’s Jim’s last name?”

  “Le—” I stopped myself, chewing my lip while wiping away the line of sweat beading across my forehead. Glancing frantically around the room, my eyes finally landed on Babs’ antique rocker. “LeChair.”

  “Le—Chair?” Repeating the word slowly, she sauntered up to me and held the black graphic T-shirt up to my face. “Never heard of it.”

  “God, Savannah, are you that uncultured? It’s French. It’s pronounced La Share.”

  “I think you’re full of la shit.”

  “I think you’re—full of shit.” Fidgeting, I willed the T-shirt away from my sight.

  She dipped her chin, continuing to stare at me with accusing eyes. “Nice comeback.”

  I hated myself for giving her the satisfaction of a reaction, but I had enough to deal with without my sister playing a losing game of “Who’s Been in Addie’s Bed”.

  Holding her by her wrists, I backed her toward the door. “This conversation is over.”

  The moment she reached the threshold, she dug her heels in and grasped the doorframe. “Hey, I’m all for Party Addie, but maybe you need to calm down on the drinking if you’re gonna do weird-ass bedroom stuff like this.” With a shit-eating grin, she picked up the purple snorkel and yelled through the top with a muffled voice. “My sister is a super freak!”

  I couldn’t resist the chance to screw with her. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Savvy. I had a lot to drink last night. I’m not sure where that thing’s been.”

  Savannah’s eyes widened, and she blinked a few times before ripping the snorkel from her mouth and hurling it across the room. “That’s fucking disgusting, Addie,” she mumbled while scrubbing her tongue with her palm. “You need therapy.”

  Remembering the whole reason for my impromptu outing in the first place, I snorted. “I need something, for sure. After you’d left yesterday, a courier came by.”

  “Proposal on the new boats?”

  “Petition for divorce,” I answered matter-of-factly. “Roland served me.”

  “He did what?” Savannah’s eyes flared with a shiny glare reserved only for her deep-rooted hatred of my ex. “Fucking Shit Stain! I’ll kill him!” Pacing the hallway, she clenched her fists by her side and tightened her shoulders. “No, killing him is too easy. I’ll blow his dick off with Pope’s gun and feed tiny dick sandwiches to the whole country club.”

  It wasn�
�t as if I hadn’t already entertained Savannah’s threat. Roland would be icing down his balls with frozen bags of peas for weeks if I let Bam-Bam loose on him. However, in the end, what happened to us was the only foreseeable ending. Roland and I were over. Even if he dumped the jailbait stripper and begged for my forgiveness, I wasn’t the same woman who ran crying from Sugarbirch. It took ten years, but I’d finally outgrown Roland Christopher Bordeaux III and the life he’d planned for me.

  “No, no one is making Roland eat his own dick, Sav.” Sighing, I sat down on the disheveled bed and gripped the edge of the mattress. “This isn’t a bad thing. Roland and I should get divorced. I just wish I’d been the one to file for it.” I shrugged and chewed the inside of my cheek. “This just feels like settling for a new life when it’s what I wanted all along. Even in a divorce, Roland is still calling the shots.” My eyes blurred as I glanced up at my sister. “When do I get to call the shots, Sav? I mean, look at this room. I can’t even call the shots and stop myself from sleeping with…”

  “Jim LeChair,” she finished for me as she grabbed my hand.

  Staring at my ugly yellow shorts, I bent my head, and a tear fell onto my bare thigh. “Jim was a mistake, Sav. A huge mistake, and I don’t know how I’m going to face him now.”

  Slowly, she sank next to me. “Maybe Jim feels just like you. Maybe he just wants to know that after last night you can still be”—kicking the purple tube across the room, she patted my hand—“snorkel buddies.”

  As the plastic tube hit the wall and bounced back, I frowned. The way I handled the entire situation was the old Addie. It was the Addie who didn’t deal with her problems, choosing instead to just smile and pretend they didn’t exist.

  Where did that get me?

  “I’ll talk to John,” I said, attempting to hide the wobble in my voice.

  “Jim.”

  “Yeah,” I nodded. “Him too.”

  Monday morning, I sat in the truck another twenty minutes before stepping foot in the office. Savannah had already slammed the door and rolled her eyes at my immobility, but I didn’t have space in my jumbled head to worry about what she thought. Every few minutes, she’d peek through the blinds of the front window and shake her head.

  What? You’ve never seen a grown woman hide out in her truck at nine a.m.?

  After a rather involved pep talk that included phrases like, “you can do this,” and “you’re both adults,” I walked through the front door of DuBlanc like a woman marching to her execution. Sentenced to death for being horny, drunk, and stupid.

  Crossing from the safety of the outside world to the unpredictability of the indoor one, I stood with my briefcase in my hand and a death grip on my purse. As her computer chimed, Savannah grinned and dangled her fingers in a half-hearted wave.

  “Hola, sis. Did you run out of gas?”

  “I was on a conference call,” I lied.

  Concentrating on her game, she reached in her purse and held my cell phone above her head. “With this phone?”

  Stomping across the room, I swiped it out of her hand and glared at her. “You’re a dick.”

  “Was your conference call with Jim?”

  “Who’s Jim?” From behind me, a baritone voice slid across my raw nerve endings and spiked my temperature.

  Stiffening, I refused to look at him as I made my way to my desk. “No one.”

  “He’s Addie’s sex-crazed boy toy.” Savannah managed a grin before taking a long swig of Diet Coke.

  I sliced a heated look across the room, swearing if my arms were long enough, I’d have strangled her. “Will you shut up?”

  “Actually, I’d like to hear more about this Jim.”

  A sudden lack of sufficient air forced my eyes to trail up strong, jean clad legs and then settle on the broad chest wrapped in a red T-shirt that hugged him in all the right places. A familiar, unwelcome feeling settled over me, seeping through my skin and sinking low in the pit of my stomach. Memories of my face pressed against that chest as I collapsed on top of him flashed through my head.

  “Stop it!”

  Zep’s eyebrows pinched together, his expression hard. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “No, I wasn’t talking to you.” Shit, this wasn’t going anything like I’d planned.

  “Oh?” Leaning down, he placed both hands flat on my desk and shifted forward, amusement dancing on his lips. “Were you talking to Jim?”

  “Who?” The minute sea salt and spice hit my nose, another memory blazed through my mind of my legs wrapped around his waist. I shook my head to force out the images, but they kept coming, each one more explicit than the last.

  “We’re going to talk about this whether you like it or not, Snow White.”

  Bristling at his tone, I threw the file I’d picked up back onto my desk and jumped to my feet. “You and I have nothing to say to each other. You want to talk? Talk to Savannah. She loves to talk—never shuts up.”

  Storming into the kitchenette, I slammed coffee mugs and spoons around like they’d done hard time in prison. After pouring a hot cup of coffee, I wrapped my fingers around it, praying for warmth to counteract the ice in my veins.

  The kitchenette door slammed, and I smelled him before I heard him

  “You want to freeze me out, Adelaide? Fine. You stand there with your back turned and pretend it didn’t happen, but don’t you fucking dare make up some bullshit story about a guy named Joe.”

  “Jim.”

  “What-the-fuck-ever. I know you, Adelaide Dubois, and you’re not going to bed-hop no matter how mad at yourself you might be. It’s not your style.”

  I curled my hand around the spoon. “How the hell would you know what my style is, Zep? I haven’t talked to you in thirteen years.”

  “You talked plenty Friday night. In fact,” he growled, wrapping his arms around my shoulders and prying the spoon out of my hand, “you moaned more than talked. And it wasn’t so much actual words as it was my name. Just like I remembered it.” Pressing his lips against the outer shell of my ear, he dug his nose into my hair. “Only this time, you screamed it over and over until I thought the neighbors would call the cops.”

  I jerked my hands to my ears. “Enough! Please stop it.” I couldn’t hear the truth. In my own little, make-believe world, Jim LeChair was a nameless, faceless man who I’d never have to see again.

  But Zep refused to indulge my denial. Prying my hands away from my face, he placed my palms down on the counter and covered them with his own. “That’s not what you said Friday night. In fact, I think your exact words were, ‘Oh, Zep, please don’t stop.”

  Snapping back to reality, I whipped around and shoved him in the center of his chest. “What the hell do you want from me?”

  My pathetic shove did nothing but cause him to readjust his footing as he pinned me against the counter and wove a hand through my hair. “I want you to admit to yourself that you did exactly what you wanted to do. You asked me to touch you. You wanted me to touch you. I want you to admit that you woke up and didn’t panic because you’d slept with some random guy, Addie. You freaked out because you realized you slept with me, and then you bolted like you always do.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Come on, Adelaide. It’s your MO. Thirteen years ago, shit got dicey, and you couldn’t handle staying around and working through a bump in the road, so you split. You ran off to Shreveport and married the first douchebag who offered you anything.”

  “I didn’t run! I went to—”

  “When you woke up, and the same feelings came back, you didn’t know how to handle them.” Zep’s calm and controlled demeanor vanished, and he blew out a hard breath, his jaw ticking as he pressed harder against me. “How long did it take you to get dressed and peel out of the driveway once you realized it was me next to you, huh? Fifteen seconds? Maybe thirty? Do you know how much that fucking sucked to wake up and have you gone again?”

  “Zep...”

  “I know
that bastard hurt you. I’m sorry you went through what you did, Addie, but it’s no reason to put me through this kind of bullshit twice. In thirteen fucking years, you’ve never left my mind. Have you ever wondered why everyone from our graduating class is either married or divorced except for me?”

  Unable to speak, I simply shook my head.

  “It wasn’t from lack of trying, trust me. No one measured up. We’d get to the part where she’d give me the marriage or hit the road ultimatum, and something inside me could never make that commitment. I was a dumbass, you know. I knew you were married; you had been for years. But shit, Addie, you can’t settle for what’s acceptable when you’ve had perfect.”

  What the hell was this? Zephirin LeBlanc never married because of me? All this time, he waited for me?

  Drowning in information overload, I gripped the counter behind me and glanced up. “I’m not perfect, Zep.”

  “No, you’re not,” he admitted, releasing his hold on me. “You’re really mixed up, Addie.” A hint of sadness crossed his face as he rubbed his hand across his jaw. “I’m not Jim or Joe or your dirty little secret.” Backing away, he cursed low under his breath and reached for the doorknob.

  “Where are you going?” Even to my own ears, my voice sounded desperate.

  He paused at the door, one hand on the knob. “Back to work.”

  A strange panic filled me, and the words spilled out before I could stop them. “Maybe we could talk about this at lunch?”

  A resigned smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “No thanks. I have a date.” Opening the door to the office, he slammed it behind him.

  22

  Picture Perfect

  Savannah

  New Orleans, Louisiana

  Morning, Beautiful.