-:- EDEN -:-
Rushing through the compound I shout to Meat that I’m here and ready and I see him and Mia sitting on the wraparound he placed on the treehouse. They have legs swinging looking relaxed. I grab the rope ladder and climb up, through the hatch and into the treehouse. Meat shouts to me to close and lock the hatch, which I do, and I notice he has made a lot of changes since I was last here.
He has boxes with locks that look like they could be biometric. Shit, I think to myself, what the hell has he got in those? Shaking my head, I step onto the wraparound and sit next to Meat, so he’s sitting between myself and Mia.
“So, what are we doing today?” I ask, grinning as it’s always fun when we are with Meat. He calls us his ‘little helpers’, cheeky fucker.
“I have news about the bar.” Mia mumbles and looks despondent. Oh no, I think to myself, this is going to be a bust.
Meat and I are looking expectantly at Mia when she laughs and shouts. “We got it and at half the asking price, as I argued we would have to spend so much to get it open because the niece didn’t do any upkeep.”
Meat wraps an arm around each of our shoulders and grins. “I knew you would do it.” He tells her and kisses the top of her head, then we hear. “Get your lips off my woman.” We all three look down and see Axel standing with his hands on his hips, screwing his face up at us. Mia giggles, which sets me off, I have to admit.
Silver, Hammer, Stitch and Chaos walk over from the clubhouse, and are looking rather amused at whatever is going on. They have to know whatever involves Meat is going to be a bit off base.
Leaning back, Meat hands me a ball shooter, gives one to Mia, and he drags over a box of tennis balls, showing us how to load them up. He grins and stands, lifting us both up with him.
Mia slips out of her coveralls and she’s standing in a tiny skirt with a cut off top, then takes off her shoes. I giggle at the gasp that comes from below us and I take off my coveralls showing I’m wearing the same as Mia, but the main surprise is when Meat shucks his clothes and is standing impressively with his damn six pack and v-line showing as he’s in a loincloth, then to everyone’s surprise he gives the Tarzan call and nods at us to fire.
Mia shouts, “This is Tarzan and we are his Janes,” which has me laughing at her madness. She’s as bad as Meat I think to myself.
Mia’s first hit smacks Axel clean on his shoulder, having him shout at her, “Now, pack that in Mia. You’ll be getting yourself into trouble.” Now does that stop her? Of course not, she just laughs loudly, jumps up and down in excitement then fires and hits Hammer on his ass as he had turned his back on us to speak to Stitch.
I give a Tarzan call myself, which is nowhere near as impressive as Meat’s, but he grins broadly and nods in approval which has me laughing and firing, hitting Chaos on his thigh. Chaos hops around, cursing, threatening retaliation once I get down.
More brothers have appeared from the clubhouse and are retrieving the tennis balls we’ve fired and throwing them back at us. Meat is catching what he can and helping us reload.
To say the air is ripe with curses is an understatement because every time we hit one of them we hear, motherfucker, fuck me, what the fuck, but all that does is have Mia and me laughing louder and firing faster.
Mav shouts to Buzz to get to the hatch and get inside to stop us, but we grin because we know the hatch is secured and they won’t be able to open it.
Buzz runs across and ducks under the treehouse, and I wish now I’d pulled the rope ladder up. I’ll remember to do that next time; I think to myself.
Firing, I hit Stitch squarely on his chest and he shouts, motherfucker, while grabbing his chest and rubbing it to take the sting out, and it has to hurt because these shooters are damn great.
Mia hits Knuckles who has just appeared to see what all the fuss is about, and she gets him on his calf, shouting out he hops around rubbing at his calf, trying to see where the tennis ball came from and who sent it, I can’t help the hysterical laughter that bursts out of me when the shock on Knuckles face appears.
During this mayhem, Meat has switched on his cellphone and jungle sounds are heard through speakers he has high in the tree. He gives his Tarzan call again, then climbs onto the roof of the treehouse, holding his hand out for us both to climb up with him, which we do without a second thought.
“Get down here.” Axel shouts, obviously showing he’s now worried as we are very high up and we don’t want to end up falling. Meat places Mia’s hands onto a handle for a zip slide and she turns grinning so wide at Meat, it’s a wonder her face doesn’t split. Leaning over she kisses his cheek, then she picks her feet up and zips down the line, giving more of a screech than a Tarzan call, but half way down she screams, “Love you babe.” I’m not sure if she means Meat or Axel, but I’m not asking.
I watch as Axel grabs her before she reaches the end of the zip line, throws her over his shoulder and marches to the clubhouse, smacking her butt every few steps, but he can’t be doing it hard as she walked her hands up his back and is laughing and waving at us all.
Silver is strutting about, pulling at his hair. He’s obviously getting himself pretty worked up about all this. Turning to Meat, I grin, “Do you think I should put him out of his misery?” To which Meat grins. “Yeah, off you go and thanks for being my Jane.” I lean over, kiss his cheek and whisper, “You are the brother I never had, and I’ll always be your Jane when you need me.” Meat stills, his body is stiff. I can see he’s pretty stunned. Then he grabs me in a hug, kisses me on the head, and points at the zip line.
“Get your hands off my woman. You’ve been told already about that.” Silver is shouting, but the rest of the brothers are laughing at Meat’s antics.
Saying I’m nervous about this is an understatement as I’ve never done zip lining before, but I suck it up because if Mia can do it, then so can I. I hold tight, scream my Tarzan call and throw myself off the roof of the treehouse, screaming all the way down with my eyes tightly shut.
I’m grabbed and pulled into a chest and when I open my eyes, I’m looking into Silver’s eyes. “You caught me.” I murmur with a smile.
“I’ll always catch you.” He replies, kisses me so tenderly, then carries me indoors. This is the life; I think to myself. I hope it never ends.
