“Engaged to Cam—? What in the hell are you talking about? I wouldn’t be engaged to that snake if my life depended on it,” Gray growls back, walking towards me. He jerks White’s hands away from me. “Back the fuck off, White,” he growls quietly. White grins, but nods his head and looks back at me with a wink.
“We’ll catch up later, darlin’,” he says before getting up.
“Not if you want to keep your face as pretty as you think it is,” Gray growls. He’s towering over me and I feel at a disadvantage, so I stand up to face him. “Now what the hell are you talking about with Cammie? Have you lost your damn mind?”
“She seems to think you are engaged.”
“She what?” he yells, and the anger and surprise in his face makes me feel a little better. I shrug when he looks at me, expecting me to explain further. I’m suddenly not sure what I’m doing here. “I’m not engaged,” he grumbles, his hand coming up to touch my hair.
“She says you are,” I argue, jerking away.
“Woman, I just left your bed a week ago,” he argues, and he doesn’t say it quietly. My face heats as I hear the whispering and laughing around us.
“A week is a long time for a player,” I tell him stubbornly.
“Not the way you wring a man dry,” Gray says, and the laughing becomes almost as loud as the red on my face.
“Gray!” I snarl.
“Everyone out!” Gray yells. No one leaves. “You either leave or you’ll see me fucking my woman on the kitchen table.”
“If my child says that word one more time, I will cut your peter off so you can’t touch your woman again!” a girl’s voice yells from the door.
“I got a peter!” the blonde child yells. “It pees!” he yells, then proceeds to show everyone.
Let me tell you, nothing breaks the tension like having a child piss on the kitchen floor.
Nothing.
“What are you doing here, Cooper?” Gray asks me ten minutes later. It took him ten minutes to clear out the kitchen and make sure his nephew’s mess had been cleaned up. Speaking of which, he managed to pee on Gray’s boot. I like that kid; he’s got style.
“I came to tell you that you’re an asshole.”
“You traveled all the way from Kentucky to tell me I’m an asshole?”
“I was mad.”
“Because I’m supposedly engaged to Cammie Riverton?”
“She said you were,” I defend, resenting the way he’s starting to make me feel… stupid.
“She’s fucking nuts,” he growls. Well, I can’t argue with that.
“So you’re saying you didn’t ask her to marry you?”
“I don’t want to marry anyone!” he growls, and I ignore the fact that that feels like a slap in the face. I mean, I’m not looking for marriage either, right?
“Don’t scream at me!”
“Then start making sense!”
“You’re an asshole,” I tell him, then stick my tongue out for good measure.
“Don’t stick that tongue out at me unless you’re willing to use it.”
“In case you missed it, I’m rolling my eyes at you too.”
“Why are you really here, Cooper?”
I swallow, rubbing my arms nervously. “I got mad.”
“Why? You are the one who broke up with me.”
“I didn’t break up with you. I just didn’t want to meet your family!”
“What’s wrong with us?” I hear a woman ask.
“Yeah, we’re pretty damn good people,” White answers.
“White, watch that mouth of yours,” Ida Sue grumbles. From the sound of all their voices, you can tell they’re pushed up against the kitchen door, listening.
“You’re great! I just didn’t want to meet you! I wasn’t ready for that!”
“Why not?” Ida Sue asks.
“Mom,” Gray growls.
“It’s a legitimate question, Grayson,” she chides.
I hold my head down wondering what in the hell I’m doing. “Because,” I groan.
“That’s not a good reason, dear. Whenever my kids gave that kind of reasoning, it usually ended up with my spanking their asses,” Ida Sue says through the still-closed but useless door.
“Hey, that’s it, Gray. Spank her ass.”
“I’ve got to say, that helps iron out Ida when she gets a knot up her ass.”
“Eww. Damn it, Janson,” White growls.
“Spanking can help iron out difficulties,” Ida Sue says, and moans can be heard echoing for miles.
“Jesus. I belong to a nut-house,” Gray grumbles, grabbing my arm and pulling me outside. The kitchen door slams behind us and I can barely keep up as Gray pulls me towards an old painted red barn. I want to argue with him, but honestly I’d rather his family didn’t hear everything we say, so I go with him.
I just wish I knew what I could say to get out of this without looking like the jealous freak I am.
I pull CC into the barn with me and don’t stop until we’re in the far corner where the fresh hay has been piled up. I push her against the wall with my body and trap her there with my arms. I look down at her, pinning her with my eyes.