19 - First Boil

*Yeah, I’m down with having a boil. Go see what we have in the back shed, pretty sure that one table needs to be replaced, - Gator*
Camille sat on the back porch with her decaf coffee and work laptop. She loved this time of the day, especially on Saturdays. The big house was not moving yet, everyone was still tucked in their beds, or whatever bed they ended up in the night before. There was a peace surrounding her that she rarely found.
Her classwork was up to date, and she was ahead in a few classes, so she was using this early morning quiet to update the program she wrote for the websites that the company maintained. The company that once again had changed names because when you googled the previous name, you ended up on a porn website.
She did give credit to the woman who shot a football out of her pussy. Laughing, she sent the link in the group chat and told the musketeers and Priss that *Someone does their kegels!* That led to two weeks of porn links being sent between the five of them.
Every time that she got a new link, she couldn’t help but laugh. Not only were they getting more and more ridiculous, but the Cajuns all acted like they were protecting her virginity. Somewhere in the texts they quit being Cajuns and became Dragons and her virginity was part of their golden hoard.
With her music playing softly from her computer speaker, she loaded more pictures into the program. Plugging in the description, discount codes and hashtags, she adjusted the release dates and times. Her fingers flew across the keyboard as she adjusted the coding to work for each website and then sent it live.
Before Darkness said anything, she knew that he was approaching from the back of the property. Tink lifted his head and looked towards where the man was getting closer. The crunch of gravel under heavy boots got louder and Tink stood up to approach the railing.
“Hey, I thought that I’d find you two back here.” Darkness smiled as he grabbed the railing and pulled himself up onto the edge of the porch “I gotta go to the home improvement store –“
“Blue or orange?”
He chuckled at her description of the two main home improvement stores. “Probably blue because the little café that does really great omelets is by them.”
“That would be my suggestion.” She saved her work and closed the laptop. “If you’ll take him, I’ll go get dressed.”
His dark eyes moved to her long legs that were exposed under her pajama shorts. The fleur de lis on her ankle was nearly a month old now. While her friends were down, the three of them went and got tattoos. He looked back up at her face and his tongue slipped out to wet his lips.
“I like you in your pajamas.”
Blushing slightly, she met his eyes. “They’re comfortable.” She whispered.
Reaching out, he cupped the back of her head and pulled her towards him. Their lips lightly brushed against each other. Just as she did every time that he kissed her, she hoped that this time it would be more. But it was not.
Darkness pulled back and his hand moved to her cheek where his thumb ran across her lower lip. With his eyes focused on her mouth, her breathing became short and shallow pants. His dark eyes met her soft green ones and the world seemed to freeze and then melt away until it was just the two of them on the back porch.
Somewhere inside the big house a door slammed, and the couple was brought back to reality. Reluctantly, he pulled away and then dropped off the edge of the porch. He called Tink and the dog ran around to the steps and then to the man.
Blinking back the tears that filled her eyes more often than she wanted, Camille gathered up her laptop and coffee and headed inside. Moving quietly through the house, she made it to her room and then out to the pickup without interacting with anyone else.
It seemed to have become the norm for them to exchange light kisses, usually with enough tension around them that would need not a knife, but a broadsword to cut through, and then to act as if nothing happened. Anyone who saw them would not know what had happened on the back porch. They talked and joked and carried on over omelets as if nothing was amiss.
After breakfast, they went across the parking lot to get the wood, screws and tools that Darkness needed to repair and rebuild the tables in the back shed. He also bought three new tanks of propane gas.
“So, what are we doing with all this?” Camille asked as she sipped on her fruit smoothie as they headed back to the clubhouse.
Darkness gave a small chuckle. “We’re going to have a boil.”
“A boil?”
“Yup.” He grinned as he turned onto the road leading to the compound. “A boil.”
“What are we going to boil?”
“Crawfish.” He grinned over at her as he took her smoothie from her and sipped it. “Not bad.” He handed it back. “Not great, but not bad.”
She laughed. “I like my blueberry and pomegranate.”
“I’m glad someone does.” He slowed down as she laughed at him. He turned into the compound and waved at Swamp Thang who was on gate duty again. “What did he do this time?”
“Let’s narrow it down…”
“What did he not do?”
“Exactly.” She smiled at him as he pulled around to the back shed where they kept the tools.
“Wanna help?” he asked as he backed up to the workspace.
“Sure.” Camille knew that she would have agreed to scale the summit of Everest if he asked. But he didn’t need to know that. She’d never had the urge to climb a mountain, much less *The* mountain.
They unloaded everything from the van and then with extreme patience, he worked with her to repair the strange tables with the large holes in the center. Once they were up to his standards, he called for some of the brothers to come and help move the tables up to the house.
Inside the house, Camille found several women in the kitchen cleaning potatoes and corn. There were large totes of water with what looked like baby lobsters.
“Where’s the rest of them? Aren’t they a little undersized?” Camille asked kneeling beside the blue tote and grabbing one of the tiny lobsters. “Look at these tiny little claws!”
“They’re not lobsters.” Danielle, Gator’s wife, laughed. “Similar but smaller.”
“Bite size.” Camille grinned at her.
“Pots are hot!” Peanut called from the back yard.
“Camille, take those potatoes out to the guys.” Danielle motioned to the large bowls of small potatoes that were on the table.
Since carrying potatoes did not count as cooking, she had no problems carrying it out to someone else to cook. Peanut took the first bowl and Zydeco the second. The third trip out, Darkness motioned her over and showed her how to carefully pour the potatoes into the boiling water without getting splashed by the hot liquid.
Less than ten minutes later, they dumped in the corn, crawfish and sausage. A short time later, the fires were turned off and the pots were allowed to cool. The inner baskets were pulled out of the water in the pots and the food was dumped onto the nearest table. Seasoning was sprinkled over it and rolls of paper towels were handed out.
“Let me show you how to do it.” Swamp Thang said as he stepped up behind Camille.
“Shouldn’t you be at the gate?” Darkness asked as he sat a couple of beers along the lip of the table.
“Fine.” The younger man said as he grabbed a large paper bowl and filled it before heading back to the front gate.
Stepping up behind her, the large, older man place an arm on either side of Camille and showed her how to peel the crawfish. As the sun set over the horizon, the lights strung up in the trees were turned on as was a radio somewhere.
For the first time since she arrived there, the Cajuns saw a little of Camille’s sassy attitude that she kept under a tight rein. She laughed and joked. Tossed a football around and watched the brothers show off their skills with their guns.
Tink received lots of bites that were sneaked when his mistress was not looking. Several of the brothers flirted. But she took none of it to heart. There was only one Cajun that held her attention.