Page 19 of Gator

We never put on airs, wasn’t gonna start now.

Besides, Uncle Jack had to have known what he was fucking doing when he invited us.

Looking at my watch, I smiled. “Well, we’ve got about an hour before we need to head out. Juju, line ’em up!”

Walking behind the bar, Juju smiled, placing a fresh bottle of Hell’s Inferno on the bar. “Lookee what I found in Scribe’s office. Brother was holding out on us.”

Grinning, I ordered, “Pop the cap and pour.”

With shot glasses filled, every brother grabbed one as I raised mine in salute. “To Uncle Jack and my new auntie LeeAnn!”

“You drink that, Wade Montague Crawley, and I will take a switch to your hide!” a very familiar, firm voice said from behind me.

Gulping, I looked at Juju as he slowly backed away.

“Tell me that ain’t mymôman.”

“Can’t do that, boss,” Juju whispered, his eyes wide.

Slowly lowering the shot glass, I turned and there she was.

Mymôman.

The very woman who spent three excruciating, painful days trying to birth my big ass head, according to her. The woman who spent the next eighteen years ensuring I walked the straight and narrow, instilling the fear of God in me any way she could. To make matters worse, next to her were my aunties, Auntie Glorianna and Auntie Gail.

Standing together, the La Croix sisters were something to see. Even though they were getting on in age, they were still strikingly beautiful.

Putting on my best smile, I stepped forward, extending my arms wide, and greeting, “Môman!” before quickly kissing her cheek and the aunties too. “When did you get into town?”

I should have known my smile wouldn’t work. It never did with the La Croix sisters. That and I wasn’t a cute five-year-old rascal anymore. Nope, I was a debonaire hound dog that was about to have my ass handed to me because in the next instant, mymômanand aunties started poking me in the chest. “What’s this I hear you got a girl in the family way?”

Auntie Glorianna snapped, “I know your daddy showed you how to wrap up that dangly bit!”

“Seriously, Wade.” Auntie Gail pinned me with a glare as Uncle John stood off to the side, slowly shaking his head. “What were you thinking?”

“He wasn’t thinking, Gail.” Uncle John smirked. “Well, not with the right head!”

Just then, my cousin Romeo rushed in from the back room, shouting, “WADE! RUN! The moms are—” Stopping on a dime, Romeo paled, then gulped as Auntie Glorianna turned to look at her errant son and, just like me moments before, Rome plastered on one of his award-winning smiles and happily greeted his mother. “Momma!”

I cringed as Auntie Glorianna stormed over to her son and proceeded to wallop her bouncing baby boy into submissionwith her purse. “Just where in the hell have you been, Jasper Fontenot DuBois!”

Whack!

“Boy, you haven’t been home in five years. You think a once-a-week phone call is enough?”

Whack!

“I had to hear from Steele that you’d skedaddled to Nebraska! NEBRASKA! What the hell is in Nebraska, boy?”

Whack!

“If you stop hitting me, I will tell you!” Rome shouted, then quickly said, “King started another chapter and asked me to go with him. I couldn’t tell him no, Momma. He needed me.”

Auntie Glorianna frowned. “That handsome devil with a sheriff for a brother?”

“Yeah.” Rome nodded. “King gathered a bunch of us, and we have a new chapter in Diamond Creek, Nebraska.”

Narrowing her eyes, she smiled wickedly, and Romeo cringed. “Good! You can tell King I’m coming for a visit. Now, give your momma a kiss.”

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