Yeah, this is a silly one. With a ridiculous title, but after awhile it gets challenging to come up with names for these things.
Anyway, this one's from Witness for the Persecution. And in thinking about this one I got to wondering how slow Enos drives anyway. Daisy sees him coming, the boys put on shirts, Boss squeals and runs around, then they shove him into the car -- which takes a long time Because He Is Fat (Of Course). They manage to drive away just as Enos is finally arriving. Not to mention, Daisy can see it's Enos all along, but Enos never sees the white-suited Fat (Of Course) Boss running around the Dukes' yard? Whatever.
He's starting to wonder why they bother to put on shirts to begin with.
They work on the car, they take off their shirts. They keep those suckers handy, though, because should they decide to take a ride, the shirts have to go back on. Which is fine, except the General's colicky today, so they have to stop and take their shirts off again, just to put them on so they can drive home. Eventually it gets to be night so they ditch the shirts for good, yawn and scratch themselves like that ape he saw on that field trip to the zoo back in the seventh grade, and that feels about right. Why they're going to get up in the morning and put shirts on again is beyond him.
Except that Luke and Jesse both seem to think it's necessary. Something about looking proper when they're in town, and even at home, in case a lady comes a-calling. Which is silly, because a lady could show up while they're shirtless working on the General just as easily as when they're not. Besides, ladies like their Duke boys shirtless; Bo has that on good authority. And even if they did stop wearing shirts for most of the week, he'd still put one on for church. He knows enough to be decent in the house of the Lord.
He has no idea why he bothers with shirts, not until this week's crisis has been resolved, Boss is safe, and Enos has control the bad guys that Bo has fished out of the rainwater basin, which is filled up about to his neck after last week's rain. No idea at all until Luke's got him back into the pickup they "rented" from Cooter, and drives them back into the woods, where he throws the truck into park and starts stripping Bo's wet shirts off.
"Catch your death of cold," he hears somewhere along the way as Luke's got him pinned into the corner on the passenger side of the bench seat. The yellow shirt peels off inside out, and gets thrown over the sill of Luke's open window. The blue t-shirt's more of a problem, sticking to Bo's chest, then catching in his open mouth as Luke tries to yank it off. There's a life lesson in that, about not bothering to complain about how you're cousin's manhandling you until after the neck of your wet shirt has gotten north of your mouth.
"Luke," he manages as the t-shirt finally comes free and joins the yellow shirt over on Luke's side of the cab. He shivers as the water that has gotten caught in his hair from Luke's stripping process drips back down his neck. "Now I'm gonna catch my death of cold."
No he's not, because Luke's blue shirt is coming off. It doesn't get offered to him like Bo expects, after all, it's much more handy as a towel. Luke runs it over his chest and into his hair, which wasn't wet until Luke's aggressive undressing style made it that way.
"Ought to get your pants off, too," comes muttering out of Luke's mouth in there somewhere.
"I ain't," gonna go yanking my pants off here, or maybe he's planning to say that he hasn't got anything else to wear, but—
"Shh," Luke advises him as he drops his own shirt somewhere – could be out the window for all the care Luke takes with it – and wraps his arms around him. Lips, too, seems like they're part of the warming and drying process.
Bo's in no position to argue the merit of the method; he's getting warm already. Minutes of holding, kissing and rubbing later, he's helping Luke peel off the wet jeans, then the two of them go after the dry ones.
Bo no longer wonders why they bother to wear shirts. Seems like, if Luke's of a mind to take Bo's off like this, he'll wear a shirt or two every day.