Page 16 of Croc Food

But that didn’t mean he was gonna like it.

CHAPTER 7

Chad

Ishould have been relieved. Bitsy had smiled so sweetly when I asked for her forgiveness.

However, I still felt uneasy as I showered in her dad’s guest room. And it wasn’t just because I’d packed no clothes so all I had to wear was hand-me-down overalls from Bitsy’s brothers.

There was something in my wife’s manner that I did not like.

Oh, she had said all the right words. But somehow the look in her eyes had been all wrong.

I didn’t like it. Didn’t like it at all.

It was almost as if she didn’t believe me.

I buckled my overalls and headed downstairs to make sure my wife was fully aware of my everlasting devotion. The fact that I’d even forgotten this trip was fucked up. I had to do better.

The entire downstairs was an absolute festival of cuteness and whimsy, but this time everything swamp and bayou, with crocheted crocodiles, herbs that I hoped weren’t going to be used to curse me hanging upside-down, and quilts with fishing poles and garfish.

This was what Bitsy deserved. Full-throated support of her and her passions.

So why the fuck had I ever said anything about our house?

Did I want to live in a sterile, minimalistic condo or did I want a happy wife? It wasn’t even a question. Just because I was raised with a bunch of uptight WASPs didn’t mean I had to pass my neuroses onto my sweet creative wife.

And why the ever-loving fuck had I even brought up Kyle’s wife Jyessica? She was a boring basic status climbing freak, and I wouldn’t have touched her with a ten-foot pole,

But now I had to convince Bitsy that it hadn’t all been bullshit. That I really did love her.

I opened the door to all of my wife’s relatives earnestly imploring her to divorce me.

“Bitsy, what do you want us to do with him?” Hayes asked as I walked out in a T-shirt smelling faintly of crocodile and overalls that were several inches too short.

“Well, what are the options?” Bitsy asked, putting the finishing touches on her Gran’s cake.

“Firstly, we could kill him,” Junior said.

Was that a twinkle in her eye? Or was she seriously considering this?

“And what are the other options?”

By this time there were other relatives around, and her brothers and uncles and great-uncles all leaped in at the same time, detailing what exactly they would like to do to me, and it ranged from feeding me to the crocodiles to leaving me alone in the swamp to find my way out to rolling me up in mud and shoving me into a beehive.

“Sweetheart, look at him!” Third protested. “He’s such a scrawny little thing.”

“I’m taller than you,” I said heatedly, because I knew one thing about Bitsy’s brothers and that’s if they smelled any weakness they’d be on it. “You want to take this outside?”

“Any fighting will be indoors,” Hayes said. “So we can all watch and judge it.”

“Bitsy, there are men out there who would truly appreciate this,” Junior said, pointing at a papier-mache sculpture of a ghost.

“I’m afraid I made a vow,” Bitsy sighed regretfully. “So I must see it through to the bitter end.”

I didn’t like this point of view at all. Surely she wasn’t just staying out of some obligation. Surely I hadn’t fucked up that much.

“I want another chance,” I said hastily. “I want to start fresh and show how much you mean to me. I’m so sorry I said what I did. That was wrong of me.”