Page 64 of Doctorshipped
I laugh again.
“Yeah. You laugh.”
“Sorry,” I gasp out. “Really. But, you will see the humor in this whole situation one day.”
“All I see is the guys making eternal fun of me.”
“Oh. That will happen. No doubt. But any one of them would have been in the same predicament. You can’t say no to those women. I know how they are.”
“Can you do something?” Brooks nearly begs me.
“About the three of them? No. I’m sorry. Nothing can stop them when their minds are set on something. You know that as well as I do.”
I try to stifle another giggle. I really do.
Memaw comes into the room from a side-annex where they keep a coffee pot and have cupboards full of supplies for various events.
She says, “Oh, Brooks! Esther and I were wondering if we could use finger paint.”
I look over at Memaw. She’s as serious as a heart attack.
Brooks looks confused. I completely see where this is headed.
“We’d love to fingerpaint you. You know, body art is all the rage these days.”
Brooks turns the shade of his fire truck. Half the room erupts in laughter.
Of all people, Esther represents the voice of reason. “Girls, girls. We don’t want to run him off. Sorry, Brooks. Excuse them. But, you can’t blame ’em can you?”
“No ma’am, can’t say I do,” Brooks says, turning the tables on all of us by flexing a bicep and playing along. Good for him. “It might help if I put my shirt back on.”
Nice try, apple pie.
“Oh, no. We’re doing this the Italian way!” Mabel shouts from the annex room.
I mouth, “Quit while you’ve still got your pants on.”
And Brooks chuckles.
I look over toward Fiona. She’s roving her eyes around the room in a valiant attempt not to ogle Brooks. She glances at me and then moves her eyes away quickly again. I’d better phone Grant. He’d want to make the call as to whether Fiona stays for paint night now that it’s gone from G-rated to June’s foldout in the fireman calendar. And here I thought we’d be painting something like a basket of apples.
It really is beyond awkward having an impressionable eleven-year-old mingle with our barely-appropriate seniors.
I grab my phone and walk toward the hallway.
Grant answers on the first ring.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Fine. We just have a little situation over here at paint night.”
“What kind of situation?”
Grant’s all broody and protective, and all the feelings I didn’t have at the sight of a shirtless Brooks are firing off like miniature fireworks in my chest and down through my legs.
I ignore that whole patriotic explosion and answer Grant. “Well, it seems the seniors got Brooks to take his shirt off to pose for paint night.”
“What?!”
