Dropping my head back to glare at the ceiling for a moment, I counted to ten and then looked back down at her.
“There has to be a way to survive this.” When Naomi tilted her head to the side, I explained, “Wanting you when I can’t have you. I don’t see DB, Garrett, Raul, Alex, Logan, and all the married men in town suffering like this.”
Her lips twitched. “Maybe it’s because it’s got that new car smell?” Her cheeks turned bright red as soon as the words were out. “I don’t mean my vagina smells like a new car. I-I-I m-meant this thing between us.”
Bursting out laughing, I shoved my head in her neck and held on.
“Cheezus, I’m such a dork,” she muttered, shaking her head as best as she could, given how we were standing.
Still chuckling, I lifted back up and cupped her face with one hand, tilting it back to look up at me. There was a six-inch difference between her five-foot-five height and my own, so it wasn’t too bad.
“So, are you saying you didn’t have a similar problem? That you weren’t wet for me all day?”
Her tongue poked out, drawing my attention to it as it skimmed across her lower lip. Fuck, I wanted to suck on it.
“I can’t say I was hard all day because I don’t have a penis, and I’m not sure a hard clitoris would be an issue, but then again, it might be? I’d have to look it up and see or experiment to see if it was possible.” Her rambling had me laughing my ass off again. “Stop being a di—” she broke off and looked at the doorway just as she slapped me on the arm “—inosaur.”
“I’m poo-ping,” Shanti sang, then started choking. “Aunt Naomi, do we still have that Anusol?”
My mouth opened and closed. So many questions were blocked by the hilarity of the situation as Naomi’s face turned scarlet.
“It’s aerosol, Shanti. Aerosol.”
There was a moment’s silence, then a sigh. “Oh. I maybe should have checked before I told Nemi’s new daddy ‘bout it.”
Her eyes slid shut, and then she clenched them tightly. “She told Bond I used Anusol. Please, I’m begging you, kill me now.”
I might have found the cure for my erection, but the moment just made me love them both even more. I’d definitely take that over the discomfort I’d felt all day, plus who didn’t love having a reason to laugh? It hadn’t happened a lot to me over the years, and it didn’t surprise me one bit that these two females were the way to fix that problem.
“She was telling me that the toilet paper at school was so thin her fingers went through it like finger puppets,” I snickered. “She was worried the bathroom at the pet store would have the same kind.”
Naomi pinched the bridge of her nose. “That kid. They never tell you that for the first five years of their lives, they’re going to embarrass the shiitake out of you, do they?”
“Five years?”
She raised an eyebrow at me. “With the way that girl’s going, do you foresee her stopping before her fifth birthday? And I hate to break it to you, but I can’t even promise she’ll stop then.”
She had a point.
Just as I opened my mouth to tell her that, though, the little gremlin started coughing. “That’s strong. I can’t reach the window! Oh, Carter, I drew you a picture.”
“Please, God, tell me she hasn’t used her poop to do it?” I begged Naomi, whose body was now shuddering as she chuckled. “Or that she didn’t do it while she was in there. I already have enough issues, Nome. I don’t think I’d be able to look at it knowing she was on the toilet drawing it. That’s a whole new level of perverseness.”
And at that word, the incident with Mrs. Abrams hit me all over again.
Groaning, I dropped my head down so my forehead was on her shoulder. I was ready for today to be over.
“I think she means earlier today. At least, I hope she means that.”
The sound of the toilet flushing had me reluctantly releasing Naomi and taking a step away from her, just as the little poop gremlin came dancing back into the room.
“I can’t promise, but I think I’m done.” Shanti did a twirl, kicking up a leg behind her. Then, she skipped up to her aunt and held out her cell phone. “I took some selfies for you.”
Naomi looked from the phone to her niece. “While you were pooping?”
At the frantic head nod, she moved over to a pack of wipes and pulled one out, laying it flat in her palm and gesturing with her other hand for Shanti to put the phone on top of it.
“You say, like, always”—she drew the word out dramatically—“you want more photos of me, and I did the things Aunt Sayla and Aunt Jacinda told me to do in them.”