I’m blindsided by a pop upside my head and turn to see Hen.
I rub the spot where she hit.
“What the fuck did ya do that for?” I ask.
“You were daydreaming. I don’t have time for the crazy shit you think up. We need to get out of here now!” she yells.
“There they are!” a woman screams with love and admiration.
I mean I know when I hear love and admiration in a woman’s voice. We are talking about me here.
“Come on!” Henley yells and we break into a sprint as I grab Sandy by the waist and carry her through the store like a football.
“Put down the fucking mannequin!” Henley yells as we run down the escalator.
“No! We’ve been through a lot together!” I yell back.
When we get to the bottom of the escalator, we run into another horde of admirers. Hen’s going to kill me. They must’ve tweeted this shit. Damn, it’s hard to be so loved.
I scale the side of the escalator with Sandy in tow and look back to make sure Henley made it over.
“I’m going to cut your throat while you sleep,” she threatens from behind me.
“Not if they trample you first!” I yell back to her.
I’m sweating like a whore in church and almost completely out of breath. We dodge displays, and bob and weave between racks of clothes never far from the adoring fans that want to tear us to shreds with all their love.
Henley runs past me and I get stuck at another display of mannequins. I check out their lovely asses to see if I want to trade Sandy up, but I’ve decided we’ve bonded after everything we’ve been through together in the last ten minutes. I can’t find that with just any mannequin so keeping Sandy is only right.
Henley slaps me upside the head again, snatches Sandy away from me, and takes over carrying her through the doors and the parking lot like a football. I attempt to run and pull the keys out of my pocket at the same time. The mob is on my heels and I feel like I’m going to be engulfed into their huge circle of lust. I bet they’re checking out my ass.
I click the fob to unlock the doors, and Henley enters. She sets Sandy down beside the car.
“Don’t forget Sandy!” I remind her.
She pulls Sandy into the Escalade, slides the sunroof back and places her in the back seat with her head sticking through the sun roof.
“The bitch won’t bend!” Henley yells.
“That’s not good. No man wants to hear that,” I frown.
I start the car and punch the gas to get the hell out of here.
Once we’ve driven for a few minutes, Henley glares at me but doesn’t speak. That’s not good. Flattery is my friend right now.
“I really love your hair in braids. Have I ever told you that?” I ask with a big charming smile.
“Hmph.”
I give her a few minutes before testing the waters again.
“I bought you something nice,” I try again.
She glares at me again.
I’ll wait until we get home. She’ll have plenty of time to make peace with almost getting trampled by fans. That should be enough time, right?
I pull into her yard to discover everyone we know is here. I mean everyone.
“What are they all doing here?” I ask.
“They probably saw the videos of us running for our lives,” she grumbles.
She exits the car and I follow but then remember Sandy. I lean back into the car to retrieve my new friend. Our friends and family are clapping for us and laughing like hell.
“Bravo!” Rhys laughs.
“You brought the fucking mannequin home?” Jagger asks.
“We bonded,” I defend.
“Jesus Christ,” Henley mumbles.
“Bruh, have you seen the asses on these things?” I ask them.
I set Sandy down on her feet and lean her face first against the porch and then pull down her pants.
Beau and Chauncey are here as well.
“He’s got a point,” Beau admits.
“That is a really nice fucking ass. I didn’t know they made those things like that,” Rhys adds.
“I’m an ass connoisseur, so I was immediately impressed by what Sandy was working with,” I continue.
Henley grumbles again and walks inside leaving me with the family. I may have underestimated her level of anger. I’ll give her some dicky doo later and she’ll be good as new. She’ll forget she was ever mad at me.
I follow Hen into the house with Sandy and look around the living room for the perfect spot. Placement is everything when you bring a mannequin home. She’s accustomed to being put on display for all to see her beauty.
“Hen!” I yell when I realize what she’s done.
“What?” she yells back and enters the living room.
“You scalped poor Sandy!” I yell.
“I didn’t scalp the fucking skank. That ho was wearing a wig, and the shit flew off when you punched the gas to escape your mob of adoring fans because you can’t just fucking blend in anywhere. I swear to God Kip I can’t take you anywhere! I wanted to finish shopping today! Could I do that?” she asks and Koi interrupts her.
“No, you couldn’t,” he answers her.
“You’re right! I couldn’t finish shopping because my ass hat of a boyfriend had to start a fucking riot in the middle of Belk’s. Do you have any idea how much I still have left to fucking buy?” she continues to yell at me.
“A lot,” Memphis puts in his two cents.
Assholes.
“Yes! A lot. My list isn’t even halfway done. I’m going to stick something up your ass while you sleep tonight and maybe, just maybe you’ll be so full you can’t figure out how to open your god damn mouth!”
“Teach him a lesson,” Cam joins in.
“Shut the fuck up!” I tell them.
“No! You shut the fuck up! I could’ve died! All I wanted to do was buy some fucking gifts for fucking Christmas and not have to deal with these fucking crowds another fucking day. This entire Christmas holiday is a sham. A commercial conspiracy to make consumers buy stupid shit in crowds that want to kill them. Rip them to shreds!”
“You’re so selfish with your fame,” Griffin says to me.
“Oh, and if the mob of fans isn’t enough, this mother fucker…” she begins.
“Whoa!” I throw my hands up. “Why I gotta be a mother fucker?”
She pinches the bridge of her nose, and I think maybe I should’ve just kept my mouth shut this once. I close my mouth and pretend to zip them up so she can continue her rant and expel all the demons that have taken over her body.
“Please continue, Henley. We really want to help you work through this,” Koi says.
Funny guy. He’s got jokes today. I shoot him a glare.
“Wait till I tell mom, fucker,” I threaten and the smart ass grin on his face drops.
Take that.
“As he’s being chased around Belk’s by a horde of women, he’s hiding behind a mannequin, and…”
“Sandy,” I correct. “Her name is Sandy.”
She chews on her lip for a minute like she might be plotting my untimely death.
Shut up Kip.
“I’m sorry. Continue love,” I say hoping my pet name will lessen her rage.
“He’s hiding behind Sandy and calling me on the phone as the crowd is moving towards me. I had an entire conversation with this dumb ass twenty feet away while he hides behind a mannequin and leaves me out in the open to be attacked. Not once in this five minute conversation, and I mean not fucking once did he ever mention the swarm of his loving disciples coming my way. He didn’t say we need to leave, let’s go, run, or fucking mayday!”
“So for future reference, ‘Mayday’ indicates we should run,” Jagger clarifies.
“What do you think?” she looks at him like he’s a fucking idiot.
Welcome to my world, bruh.
“I clearly st
ated we had a problem,” I defend myself.
“YOU SAID AND I QUOTE ‘I have a little problem’. A hundred plus women chasing me through a department store and parking lot is not a little fucking problem! It’s a really big fucking problem! If you weren’t so fucking worried about my eyebrows we could’ve had a head start on the crowd. Instead, you’re playing with Sandy, clearly not thinking of my safety!”
“What’s wrong with your eyebrows? Do you need a wax?” Jessica finally gets her little jab in.
“He was pouting behind Sandy, because he thought my eyebrows meant I was disappointed in him,” Henley answers.
“Oh, I would say you are very disappointed in him,” Griffin jabs.
I sigh. I’m outnumbered here.
“I was thinking of your safety blueberry. I don’t understand why you speak about Sandy with such disdain in your voice,” I say with concern.
I mean she’s just a fucking mannequin.
“Oh, you don’t know why I have a problem with your inanimate girlfriend?”
“No. I don’t think he does,” Cam answers her and glare at him.
“I’ll tell you,” she says and shakes her head like women do when they get really pissed off. “Instead of worrying about me you were carrying that fucking cunt through Belk’s like you were running for a fucking touchdown. You were too busy checking out her ass to help me get out of the store safely you halfwit! I was dodging and ducking through the store and all I wanted to do was shop for fucking Christmas gifts!”
“What’s the world coming to when a woman can’t even shop for Christmas in public?” Memphis says and shakes his head with pursed lips.
He’s an asshole too.
“What would Jesus think?” Koi adds.
Jack leg.
They all burst into laughter. They’ve obviously been holding it in this entire time.
Cory walks in with his angry face. I mean he scares the shit out of me anyway, but he looks particularly disgruntled today. He takes in both Henley and I and assesses us to make sure we aren’t injured.
“You should’ve called me to go with you,” he says to Henley.
“Oh, yeah?” she turns her disapproving eyes on him and I swear I see him flinch. He’ll never admit it, but I swear on Cash’s life he fucking flinched.
“And what do you think you could’ve done differently to prevent a riot? First of all, I should’ve been perfectly safe with my boyfriend, but he was too fucking busy checking out the mannequin’s ass. I mean this wasn’t a slight glance, the mother fucker couldn’t function properly because he was constantly checking her out. Do you think you could’ve made him behave? Secondly, you might be scary looking but even you couldn’t have handled that mob any differently than we did. I take that back, maybe you would’ve thought to rip precious Sandy from Kip’s loving embrace and hit him over the head with her,” Henley fumes.
Cory raises his eyebrows, “Who the fuck is Sandy?”
“This is Sandy,” I say with a smile and wrap my arm around her shoulder.
“Is that the mannequin you were carrying like a football through the store?” he asks.
“Did they get that on video?” I ask.
“Yeah. It was actually pretty fucking funny. Joe sent it to me,” Cory laughs, but it falls when he sees Henley’s serious face.
“Sweet! Sandy is fucking famous already. This bitch won’t be able to go anywhere without you, Cory,” I advise.
“No,” he says.
“What do you mean ‘no’?”
“I’m not paid to protect a mannequin.”
“What if something happens to her?” I ask.
Henley lets out a small scream and turns on her heels into the kitchen. She really needs a time out.
“You rob Belk’s for another mannequin.”
“It won’t be the same. Jesus, Cory have you no compassion? What if something happened to Cash and Henley was distraught over it. Would it be okay for me to find another puppy and expect her not to miss Cash? I can’t expect her to forget about Cash. He’s like her child, and it wouldn’t be very sympathetic of me not to take their bond into account before I got another puppy to ‘replace’ Cash.”
“You have a bond with the mannequin?” Cory asks.
“Bruh, she saved my life.”
“You should see the ass on that thing,” Beau says.
Cory looks confused at first but it clears quickly and there is pure curiosity on his face.
I raise my eyebrows, “You wanna see it?”
He hesitates, “Yeah. I think I do.”
Chauncey and Rhys help me keep Sandy steady and pull her pants down for Cory to check out the goods.
“Damn,” is Cory’s response.
“Told you.”
“I’m still not guarding a mannequin.”
Henley walks briskly through the living room and knocks Sandy from my hands, leans down and thrusts a huge kitchen knife into her face, and then she stands up straight, dusts off her hands and smiles at me.
“I feel a lot better now. Get that thing the hell out of my house before I hack her ass into pieces and throw her in the fireplace,” she says calmly.
I mean sooooo calm… I’m scared. Cory and I exchange looks, take another glance at Sandy with a large five inch blade sticking out of her face, and then peer back at Henley who is visually challenging someone to say something to her. I can smell the fear radiating off him too. He won’t ever admit that shit either, but this fucker is as scared as me. She cut a bitch with a five inch blade like it was a tomato.
“Wait a minute,” Koi stands up. He looks at me and then at Henley. He repeats this several times. “Why are you so emotional?”
“What?” she asks.
Chapter 16
Kip
“Are you pregnant?” Memphis asks and moves from the couch to stand next to Henley.
“What?” I ask.
I’m confused, how in the hell did that escalate so quickly?
“Don’t get mad, but you’re really emotional and maybe even a little irrational,” Cory adds.
“Don’t get mad? What the fuck are y’all going on about?” she asks.
“You knock my little sister up?” Koi asks and stalks towards me.
“Wait, what?” I ask.
“Oh my God! You’re pregnant!” Meghan shrieks with joy.
“I’m gonna be a dad?” I ask.
“This is so amazing!” Kathrine jumps up and down with Meghan.
“You should totally name him Rhys,” Rhys says.
“I’m not fucking pregnant!” Henley yells at us.
“Babe, you totally are. I mean look at how you’re acting,” I reason with her.
Holy shit, I’m going to be a dad. Henley’s going to look so hot pregnant.
“I’m trying to quit smoking,” she admits.
“For the baby? That’s great, Henley,” Kathrine says.
“It’s really bad for the baby,” Meghan imparts her knowledge on Hen.
“No. I’m trying to quit smoking because it causes lung cancer, emphysema, and heart disease. It’s really bad for me, not the non-existent baby.”
“Think of all the possibilities the room to the left would have for a nursery. That big bay window with the window seat is going to look great with curtains,” Jessica says dreamily.
“You could read to the baby there,” Samantha adds.
“Holy shit, I’m gonna to be a dad,” I say again.
I catch Beau’s eyes, and he’s tearing up a bit, “I’m going to be a grandfather.”
“I’m going to be a great-uncle. Dad will be ecstatic,” Chauncey adds.
“We’ll need to figure out how you guys want to announce it publically,” Samantha thinks out loud.
“I’ll work on a safety plan since Hen’s pregnant, and I want to ensure we have a bigger team in place by the time the baby arrives,” Cory adds. “I better call Joe.”
I p
ad over to Henley and drop to my knees. I put my head on her stomach and feel little butterflies of excitement moving around in my own.
“Why are you listening to my intestines? It’s weird. Stop it,” she says.
“I’m not listening to your intestines, Hen. I’m listening to our baby,” I correct.
“My womb isn’t there, it’s here,” she says and points lower. “There isn’t a baby in my intestines or in my womb.”
“It’s okay to be in denial, baby. It’ll sink in and you’ll realize how great of a mom you’re going to be,” I reassure her.
She steps away from me and takes in all the surrounding chatter. Everyone is so happy about the baby. The girls are already debating nursery themes, and the guys are talking about who the baby should be named after. Everyone votes for themselves of course.
“Would you all shut the fuck up?!! I’m not pregnant!!! I’m trying to quit smoking and none of you are helping the situation!!! I’ve almost been mobbed to death, had to compete with a fucking mannequin, and now you’re all blubbering on about a baby that doesn’t fucking exist!!!” she screams abruptly bringing all conversations to a halt.
“Are your breasts tender?” Cam asks and Kathrine looks at him like he’s a dumb ass.
Henley sighs.
“When was your last menstrual cycle?” Rhys asks.
Henley sighs again.
“Have you experienced any nausea?” Koi asks.
Henley grumbles.
“What about heartburn or indigestion?” Memphis asks.
Henley grumbles again.
“Any spotting?” Chauncey jumps in.
Henley pinches the bridge of her nose.
“Has your sense of smell heightened?” Meghan asks.
Henley rolls her neck.
“Have you been more tired than usual?” Kathrine asks.
Henley rolls her eyes.
“Has your urination increased?” Beau asks.
Henley scratches her head.
“Have you craved any specific foods?” Griffin asks.
Henley looks up at the ceiling.
“You know sometimes it isn’t just cravings, sometimes certain foods just turn you off. Like you loved it one minute and the next thing you know you hate it,” Stephanie says.
Guitar Face Series Box Set: Books 1-4 Page 102
