Page 97 of Driftwood Daffodil

Nova’s door flew open, making me duck down a touch. Enough so that I was hidden but could still see her sister standing on the other side with her hands on her hips.

“Why are you torturing my child?”

At least the kid had a good mother. If I had to take anymore of her singing my ears might actually bleed.

“I’m not torturing him,” Nova shot back. “I’m teaching him about good music.”

This was not good music, and certainly not when she was singing it.

Her sister’s hand flew through the air, pointing at her son, “He’s eating your earbud, Nova!”

“Oh calm down, they have wires. He’s not going to choke.” Nova rolled her eyes and tugged on said wire, popping the small bud out of the baby’s mouth. “See.”

“You’re the world’s worst babysitter.”

That one I agreed with.

“Oh please, Knoxy loves me.” Nova picked up the baby and bopped his nose. “Don’t you, Knoxy.”

He laughed and yanked on fistfuls of her hair.

“Fine,” her sister grumbled. “Then you can give him his bath.”

She walked away before Nova could do much more than groan and chase after.

I took the chance to look around. If there was one thing I learned from Atlee’s sisters it was that someone could find out everything they wanted to know about a teenage girl by searching their room. That place was like a sanctuary to them. All their little secret notes, pictures, and posters were displayed in there. Or at least they should be.

Nova’s room was oddly bare. There were the usual things, bed, dresser, and night table, but there was a surprising lack of everything else. There were no posters on her walls, image filled mirror, or little knick knacks laying around.

The only thing she did have displayed were four pictures. One of that blonde twit she hung around with. Next to that was one of the baby, one of her sister, and one of her brother. That one I had to stop myself from climbing in the window to tear up.

The interesting part about the photos was she wasn’t in any of them. They were single shots of one person and no one else. The baby and his mother weren’t even sitting next to each other. They were separated by the other two, and if I had to guess, I’d say her sister was a couple years younger in that photo.

Why wouldn’t Nova have one with her sister and the baby together? It wouldn’t be hard for her to get. Veda’s room was filled with them. She didn’t even have a family picture. It was as if she wanted to have them all there, but not together.

My fists readied when a hand shot out of nowhere and grabbed my shirt to pull me down.

“Get down.”

I had to resist the urge to facepalm when I was met with a pair of familiar eyes.

“Atlee,” I whisper/growled. “What the hell are you doing here?”

The son of a bitch was dressed all in black and had camo painted on his face, like he was getting ready to go to war.

Atlee pulled out a long stick that had a mirror on the end and started extending it. “I’m stalking her for you.”

Could I hit him, I really wanted to hit him.

“Why in the hell would you do that?” I didn’t tell him to do shit.

“In case you haven’t noticed,” he shot me a sideways glance, “you kind of suck at stalking.”

I was definitely going to hit him.

“That wasn’t stalking.” If I wanted to stalk someone, then I’d stalk them without being seen. I was simply observing my opponent.

“Don’t worry, Buddy,” he smacked his hand on my shoulder. “I got you.”

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