He had? Marcus hadn’t mentioned anything to me about it, but maybe it was a surprise for his grandad?
“If you’d all just turn so you’re facing where the little s— hellions are playing so we can enjoy”—the word came out sounding strained—“their cuteness.” Sasha jabbed him in the side with her elbow as she watched what the kids were doing.
Clearing his throat, Jackson smiled tightly at us all. “Just look at the damn kids.”
Oh, God, please tell me they weren’t putting on a show? What if they started singing? Kids were cute, but these ones had DNA in them that just spelled trouble and mayhem. It’d be like watching some sort of Home Alone movie.
Hands covering my eyes made me squeak and jump, but then I smelled the cologne I fell asleep to every night and instantly relaxed.
“Sorry, baby, I just want you to be surprised by it, that’s all. Now, I’m going to turn you to face the kids.”
As soon as I was facing where Marcus wanted me to be, he dropped them, and I took in the group of kids with their backs to us.
“What are they doing? Is that one peeing in the grass?” I pointed at a little boy who I was pretty sure belonged to Levi.
Sighing, he moved so that his chin was resting on the top of my head. “Yup.”
“Kid,” Hurst shouted. “You do that here, and a rattlesnake’ll bite it clean off your body. Put it away. And for the love of God, don’t touch anyone with those hands until you’ve washed them.”
The boy glared over his shoulder at his great-grandad, but he did as he was told and took a big piece of paper from the kid standing next to him.
Marcus tensed behind me, but I was too focused on the dirty hands of the child. Whatever was on that board would be memorized by me so that if he handed it to me later, I knew not to take it or to ask him just to lean it against the wall.
“Okay, when I get to the number three, I want y’all to turn around, just like we rehearsed,” Marcus yelled to them, making me jump. Clamping his hands firmly around my biceps, he began counting.
When he got to two, three of the kids turned around. On three, another two turned, leaving two with their backs to us, and by the looks of it, picking their noses.
“Why are my family such assholes?” Marcus hissed under his breath, then bellowed, “I said three!”
The last two kids jumped and spun in place, and I tried to read what message the boards in their hands spelled out.
R A M R E M Y
“Oh, shit,” one of the cousins snickered as a quiet hum of laughter made its way through the group of adults.
“‘Ram Remy?’” I read out, looking over at Remy, who now had his hands pressed tightly against his eyes. “Uh, I mean, fair play to people who have open relationships, but I’m not that way inclined.”
I had zero experience with things like that, but it’d always struck me as something I’d never be able to accept. At some point, wouldn’t hostilities come out? I mean, you’re committed to someone, and each of you is banging other people. What if someone got pregnant? What if the other person in the relationship didn’t like the person you had sex with? What if they’d wanted to see a movie that night, and there you were, getting humped by someone else?
But what if he wanted a polyamorous relationship—was that what they were called? Now those I could understand a bit better because there was a commitment and feelings between all of the people in it, even if not all of them were physically having sex with each other. I still wouldn’t want to be in one myself, though. No, Marcus Townsend-Rossi was more than enough for me, and although I could acknowledge Remy was hot, he didn’t do one thing for me.
And now I couldn’t help feeling a little bit hurt that I wasn’t enough for him and that he wanted to bring Remy into our relationship. Wait, oh shit, what if he and Remy had been having a fling before we’d met?
“You had one job,” Marcus clipped loudly. “One. Job. I even put numbers on the back of the boards, so this wouldn’t happen.”
“Uh, they’re little kids. Right now, farts, pooping, and boogers kind of dominate their brain matter, man,” his cousin, Noah, said matter of factly.
“You want me to ram Remy?” I asked slowly, unsure whether I wanted to slap him in the face or kick him in the balls first. Could I do both at once? “Or do you want to ram him?”
Remy’s head shot up as he glared at me. “Not happening.”
“Like I’d let you touch me with your baby-making pecker,” I sniffed haughtily.