Great Sass: Providence Family Ties Series

by Mary B. Moore

  Before they could get into a debate, though, Bonnie, God love her, threw a pair of gloves at Ari. “Just follow the instructions on the tub. The longer it’s on there, the more anxious she’s getting, and you two arguing isn’t going to help. It’s also probably going to get the men's attention—” men? “—and that’s the last thing she needs. Put yourself in Sadie’s shoes right now.”

  Reaching up weakly, I patted the side of her face. “Bless you, Bonnie, bless you.”

  There was some shuffling and rustling beside me, but I figured that because it worked better for me when I had an injection or blood test not to look at the person doing it, that’s what I’d do now.

  “Here, take the box and read me the instructions,” Ari huffed.

  The sound of snapping was hopefully her putting on gloves and not chunks of my cooch coming off.

  “Okay, it says to spread the wax with the spatula in a fine line. Then you need to leave it for sixty seconds, test it, blah, blah, blah,” Beau muttered. “Ah, okay, so go to the bottom of the strip, pick at the end to raise enough of it to pinch, then pull the skin taught with your other hand, and pull the wax up quickly toward it.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ari look down at my crotch and frown. “It’s all one big piece, though. I don’t know if I can get an edge.”

  “I’ve got a manicure kit in my purse that has small nail scissors in it,” Bonnie offered. “You could carefully make a line through the wax and split it into sections.”

  So, that’s what they did, painstakingly using the sharpest point of the smallest scissors I’d ever seen to get through the wax and separate it into strips. When they got to the thigh that was still stuck against it, Beau frowned down at me.

  “I wouldn’t have thought normally it would be that hard to separate your leg from…” she broke off and nodded at the area. “I don’t think you should use this one again.”

  “Unless it does a good job. I mean, beauty isn’t pain-free,” Ari shrugged.

  Then I felt a gentle hand hold my thigh as a weird tugging sensation started in the area itself. “I’ll just cut through the wax to separate them,” Bonnie explained.

  And she did. It only took about five minutes, and then my leg was free. It was an emotional moment, but definitely not as emotional as what followed.

  Holding my hands tightly, Beau smiled down at me. “It’ll only take a couple of seconds, and you’ll be free. Ready?”

  I wasn’t ready. There was no countdown, no warning, just a tugging sensation again, followed by an almighty burning rip.

  “What the shit was that? Are you cutting the skin off my—”

  Fortunately, Bonnie was wise because she covered my mouth so whoever was in the living room wouldn’t hear.

  Unfortunately, using my distraction, Ari pulled a couple more of the chunks off. I swear I saw dots and bursts of light with the pain. It made being shot seem like a cat scratch, Dobby’s evilness seem like kisses, and period pains seem laughable.

  What psychopath invented this kit?

  Blinking out the tears that were making my eyes burn—although not even close to as much as my poor poonani—I looked up at Bonnie pleadingly.

  When she lifted her hand, I panted, “Is it over?”

  The wince said it all.

  “We’ve just got to get the… uh… part slightly farther back to get off now,” Beau whispered, not meeting my eyes.

  “I don’t know if I can do this,” Ari croaked. “I’m basically going to be picking her choochie, you guys. There’s friendship, and then there’s friendship. Maybe we should get a professional to do this part? What if I pull a lip off or something vital?”

  “Ugh,” Bonnie growled, reaching over for the second set of gloves that’d come in the kit. “I’ll do this part.”

  Then, with the gloves on, she just ripped with no warning.

  The noise that came out of me was like the love child of a seal and a crow, and if Ari hadn’t held my torso down, I probably would’ve been up and running for my front door as fast as my waxed vagina would let me.

  In the end, I had to endure a total of twenty-five minutes of this agony while I lost a vital piece of my anatomy, wax chunk, by wax chunk. By the end of it, I swear I saw the pearly gates to heaven.

  “Oh, shit, that looks angry,” Beau hissed. “But it did a great job.”

  Ari, who was closer to it, had covered her eyes ten minutes ago with a hand and still hadn’t lifted it. “Just be grateful it didn’t drip down to your butthole.”

  Bonnie’s eyes flew up to meet mine worriedly, so I shifted as much as I could to see if I’d sealed my arse cheeks together as well. Fortunately, I hadn’t, so I gave her a discrete head shake to let her know that both of our traumas had ended.

  “From what I could see,” she said softly, back to the gentle woman she was, instead of the vagina ripping masochist, “you have some areas… uhh, even farther back that might need to be shaved.”

  “Unless you want to try again?” Ari suggested, getting glares from all of us.

  “I’m good, ta. If there are patches in the woods, there are patches in the woods, and my helpful razor—which I should’ve appreciated more—will deal with them.”

  “You’re going to need to wash the area with some hydrogen peroxide to get the residue off,” Beau reminded me, looking at the box. Not mine, the one the wax had come in. “I’d suggest getting in the shower and not using a perfumed soap on it after that, then maybe putting some Neosporin or something over it.”

  “Did I lose a lot of skin?”

  All three shook their heads, but I still had more concerns.

  “Did I lose anything vital?”

  Again, three head shakes.

  “Am I bleeding?”

  This time they all looked at each other and winced.

  Not wanting to know any more, I rolled onto my side and tried to get up onto my feet. It was like a turtle—a waxed one—trying to right itself, though, so all three of them helped me up and then spotted me as I stumbled toward my bathroom.

  And that’s where the third stage of my trauma happened: the hydrogen peroxide. Instead of reading the instructions again, I figured that just pouring it over the area would help more.

  No, fuck no, it did not.

  Once again, the feeling of my soul being sucked out of the area by napalm engulfed me, and I screamed my arse off before I collapsed back in a ball on the floor.

  Never, ever again. I doubted I had a vagina ever to wax again—and on the off chance that I did, I doubt the hair would ever come back—but I was never putting wax below my neck. In fact, I was probably going to have to move to threading on my eyebrows, too, just in case. I was even going to go as far as throwing out every single candle in my apartment and banning birthday ones for the rest of my life.

  Not that I’d ever celebrate my birthday. I doubt I could ever face any of these lot ever again.

  The next day…

  I was in a fucking awful mood. Not only was I in so much pain that I couldn’t wear knickers, but I’d had to wear a pair of harem pants that I only had for when I was on my period to work.

  And to top it off, Dad had called to say they’d been intercepting postcards from home to my apartment for the last five weeks, and no one had told me. Normally hearing postcards would be a good thing because someone was thinking about you, but these were all of West Wickham and only had my name and address on them. With how worried Dad was, I didn’t even ask what they were photos of. Sometimes not knowing kept you sane.

  They could only have come from one person, which meant that Orson Riley knew where I lived now.

  To be honest, I was tired of it all. I’d moved countries, left my best friends and Nan behind, left my home behind, and it still wasn’t enough. Granted, I’d met amazing people and was closer to Dad and MeeMee, but all of the emotional stress had been for nothing. Now I had a choice–leave and move again, or stay and say fuck-you-very-much.

  I was going with t
he latter, but I’d promised him I’d update the Townsends about what was going on. He thought they were adequate protection for me, but I was doing it for their own safety. I’d seen what Parker had gone through after we’d been taken. If Orson hurt one of them because of me, I don’t think I’d come back from it regardless of what they said.

  So, I was walking into work—well, waddling—with a sore crotch, a pissed off mood, and my boobs hurt and were getting bigger, so I was also due on my period while a psychopath sent me fucked up postcards. Happy day to fucking me.

  And today, I was working with Lily, Tate, and Levi. This was something I loved about the family. They had a large oil company that they all worked hard for, but their woosah oneness time seemed to come from helping out with other things like Lily and her dad’s bar. They obviously all had private time away from each other, but the family was like a tight-knit unit.

  It made me wonder what mine would’ve been like if Mum was still here.

  A couple of days ago, I’d remembered one of the things she’d repeated to us frequently. “Laugh, love, and live, my precious babies. That’s how life’s meant to be.”

  I needed to get that back into my life, and I’d planned to start by spending more time with my family. My brother, Craig, had called me last week to let me know he was near the States, doing some sort of training with the US Navy. My sister had been in touch as well and had been planning to come and visit me. I’d been so excited about seeing her and my nephew when she’d said it, but after what I’d found out this morning, it was probably better that she kept Wick away from me. I’d speak to Craig and find out if he still wanted to come, though.

  I was damaged, and not just my poor fandola.

  Dropping my bag off in the office, I made my way slowly to the bar, focused on getting through another day. I refused to think about him and my problems and cooch gave me a good excuse today.

  I was just raising the bar flap thing when someone made a choking noise next to me, drawing my attention to a good looking guy with brows I’d give my pubes for and hair that was so perfectly styled, I had follicle envy.

  “You’re freakin’ adorable,” he chuckled, looking over at the others and shaking his head. “I see why, now.”

  Blinking, I glanced at my bosses and Levi, then back at him. “Do I know you?”

  Surely Orson wouldn’t send someone like him after me? And why would he send a guy who had an obvious familiarity with the Townsends?

  With a grin that looked relaxed and genuine, he reached his hand out to me. “I’m Jackson, and you must be Sadie.”

  Would a kidnapper be so polite and want to shake my hand? Like I could answer that, I didn’t have any experience with the psychology of one.

  So, deciding it would be wiser to endear myself to him, I shot him a smile and shook his hand. “That’s right. How do you know these guys?” I nodded my head at Tate and the others, noticing that they’d joined us.

  Well, at least I had backup if he grabbed me. Hopefully.

  “Uh, Sadie, this is our cousin,” Tate explained, and it all made sense.

  “Ah, now it makes sense. Hi again, and welcome. It’s great to meet you. Are you one of the Piersville ones?”

  For some reason, this made him frown. “No, I’m not.”

  Scanning through the information I remembered about the family, I tried to recall a Jackson. The problem was, there were about a thousand of them, so it wasn’t an easy thing to do, and the stories about them kind of overshadowed the names and relations.

  Looking mildly amused, Levi muttered, “Uh, this is Elijah’s—"

  “Don’t say that name,” I spat. “We had an unspoken accord that it’d never be mentioned in my presence. In fact, if you’re going to, we need to come up with a signal so I can either make myself scarce or I can cover my ears.”

  The brothers’ mouths both twitched at my rant, but Jackson didn’t have that level of control and burst out laughing instead. “Holy shit, she’s fuckin’ awesome. All of that sass in one tiny package.”

  Now that pissed me off even more. Crossing my arms over my chest, I shot him a glare. “I’ll have you know that I’m five and a half feet tall.”

  The words worked like an off-switch for his laughter, and even Lily tilted her head and looked me up and down like she was measuring me with her eyes.

  “I call bullshit,” Jackson finally replied, a smile tilting one side of his mouth up. “There’s no way you’re that tall.”

  Straightening to my full—and unimpressive—height, I shot back, “I am.”

  “Prove it.”

  So, smugly, I pulled a medical card out of my back pocket. Yes, I had insurance through the bar, but I always carried around the policy Dad had gotten for me that covered pretty much everything. When I’d arrived, they’d put me through a long and tedious assessment, then handed me a card with my vitals on it and told me to carry it everywhere just in case. Being used to the National Health Service where I’d get treated no matter what, I’d taken that advice to heart and never went anywhere without it in my pocket or bra.

  And that’s how I could prove I was five and a half feet tall because it said so on that card. Unfortunately, it also had my weight on that, but I deducted twenty pounds for my boobs—something I wasn’t going to tell them as all four of them examined it.

  “Uh, babe,” Jackson said slowly, looking up at me. “It says your five feet and half an inch tall.”

  “That’s right, five and a half feet.” Happy that I’d won, I held my hand out for it back.

  “No, five feet and six inches is five and a half feet, darlin’. There are twelve inches in one foot, so you’d have to be five feet and six inches tall to be considered five and a half feet tall,” he explained.

  Scowling at him, I reached back for my phone, glad I’d kept it in my pocket, and looked up what he was saying.

  Shit on it, he was right.

  Avoiding eye contact, I took the card that Levi was still holding out for me, no doubt doing his best not to laugh, and put it back in my pocket. “I’m still five and a half feet tall. If you want to be anal about it, half an inch is still half.”

  And with that, I walked carefully down to the other end of the bar, ignoring the laughter from the gits behind me. Arseholes!

  It was half an hour later that I found myself in front of him again, and by that time, I’d lost my attitude from before and knew that I needed to apologize for being a cow.

  “I’m sorry about before. I’ve had a bad day—”

  “Sounds like you’ve had a bad couple of months thanks to Elijah,” he interrupted matter of factly. “If it makes you feel better, none of us have heard from him either, but he’s done this before. He’ll show up soon, feeling like a dick.”

  Shrugging, I focused on the bar top instead of the pity in his eyes. “He has good reasons for it. When I lost my mum, all I wanted to do was crawl into my bed and be left alone. Everyone grieves in their own way, and there isn’t a set time allowed for it either, so he just needs time.”

  “Sadie,” he called gently, and I looked up to see him watching me with a soft expression on his face. “I agree with what you’ve said, and I’m so fuckin’ glad my brother’s found someone like you who gets him. But he was still wrong to just leave without saying anything and making sure you’re okay. It’s also not okay for him to not answer his damn phone.”

  “That’s ‘cos it’s in my drawer. I found it on my bed after I went home that night, so I thought I’d put it somewhere safe until you guys knew where to send it.”

  Frowning now, he mumbled to himself, “Now it all adds up. Stupid dickhead.”

  The question I wanted to ask was almost burning my tongue, so I leaned closer to him and whispered, “Do you think he’s safe?”

  “Elijah is a self-soother. When he’s got heavy shit to deal with or just needs time alone, he retreats into his own world where he stews over it, swims, has a beer to relax, and just takes time to himself. He still has ide
ntification on him, so if anything had happened, we’d have been informed by the authorities.”

  What he said made sense, but if I was in his shoes, wouldn’t I be tearing my hair out with worry? Then again, Cynthia was the same way, which was why I hadn’t seen her since I’d moved here, and I wasn’t losing sleep over her, was I? Sometimes people needed space to breathe, and it was up to us to give it to them.

  Coming to a decision, I gave him a small smile and nodded. “Thanks, Jackson. And it’s nice to meet you.”

  “Likewise, we’ve heard a lot about you from our grandparents and cousins.” Then, lowering his voice to a whisper and looking more serious than I’d seen him so far, he added, “Sorry ‘bout what happened to your leg, precious, and all of the shit you’ve got going on.”

  I was the queen of being blasé, I’d had to do it a lot, so I just shrugged. “It’s cool. Shit happens, right?” Then something he’d said hit me. “We?”

  “Yeah, we. My twin, Marcus, and my other brothers. You haven’t heard of us?” The tone he used wasn’t offended, more teasing because, of course, his family would tell people stories about them.

  Then I remembered something I had in common with him. “Oh my God, you’re the one who was shot when Charlotte had problems, weren’t you?”

  Nodding, he pulled the sleeve of his t-shirt up, showing me a thin pink line on his arm. “Just skimmed, not badass like yours was.”

  Snorting, I held my fist out for him to tap. “Bullet buddies!”

  Hey, when life gave you melons, you made melonade, and bullets counted as melonade.

  Tapping my fist, he chuckled, “Dork.”

  Satisfied that I’d made amends for my shitty behavior earlier, I patted him on his perfectly styled hair and went back to join Lily, who was writing out a list on a pad of paper.

  “Anything I can help you with?” The bar was quiet just now, so it was the best time to get extra jobs done.

  Dropping the pen, she blew out a breath. “Do you miss him?”

  She didn’t need to explain who the him was. “Sometimes.”

  “I’m just going to say this, and then we’ll put it to bed, but I loved the two of you for each other. I didn’t know him really well, but Elijah was always so serious and withdrawn, but you brought him out of his shell. He laughed like he meant it, his eyes were always on you, and you looked like you didn’t have a care in the world when y’all were together.” She stopped and shook her head. “I want to punch him in the nuts for just disappearing like he did.”