Page 3 of All I Need

“I’M HUNGRY.”

I glance across the seat of my pickup to my nephew Grayson and smirk. “When aren’t you hungry?”

Two dimples appear for a brief second before his attention returns to his phone.

At fifteen he’s more man than boy and corny as it sounds, it makes my heart squeeze realizing how fast time has gone.

“When I’m sleeping,” he eventually murmurs after about ten minutes, still not looking up from whatever’s on his screen.

“What?” I ask, confused as to what he’s talking about.

“That’s when I’m not hungry.”

“I disagree. This morning I woke up to see a new box of granola bars opened at some point in the night. Three bars were gone from the box.”

He chuckles. “Oh yeah. I can’t help it, though. I woke up at midnight and had to pee.”

I shake my head and laugh as I flip my blinker to make a right onto the highway that leads back to my house, his second home. My twin sister Willow is raising him alone after her one-night stand the night before our college graduation ended with a bonus chapter.

She’s an ER nurse, though, and doesn’t work nine to five. Grayson may be old enough to stay home alone but old habits die hard. Even when I was in vet school, I made sure to have a place for him at my apartment. And when I bought my large piece of land to build a home on, I did so with him in mind. There was an old barn on the back end of the property and lots of open space for him to play, be a kid. I let him decorate his own room for when he stays with me the nights his mom is working. I wanted space for him to run and play. I had dreams of him playing on a tire swing hanging from a mature tree. Of me relaxing on a porch swing. It might sound weird, dreaming of a home for a family that’s not even my own.

“And that translates to you eating, too?”

“Yeah?” he asks it like I’m the one who’s weird.

I stop at the four way stop in the highway, look both ways and continue on.

“I have some hamburger patties already in the fridge. We can throw them on the grill when we get home. You staying again tonight?”

“Yeah I’m staying. Especially if you do burgers. I could eat a freaking cow,” he grumbles.

It’s only five-thirty in the evening, but considering he’s been helping me at the vet clinic all day, I’m sure he is hungry considering he hasn’t eaten since noon. It might be Saturday but that doesn’t mean the animals don’t need help.

I ease off the gas when I see a shiny black car on the side of the road… and a woman kicking the absolute crap out of the side of it.

“What the heck?” Grayson asks, laughing.

“No clue,” I mutter, slowly driving past, both of us rubbernecking the entire way.

Grayson looks at me with a twinkle in his eyes. “Whip around. I wanna see what’s going on.”

“Nosey shit.”

“She could be in trouble. You’re the one always telling me to help strangers in need.”

“She’s kicking her car, Grayson. She could be on her way to crazytown.”

“Or… she could be stranded.”

I grumble, just wanting to get home but knowing I won’t be able to relax once I’m there until I know if she’s okay or not. I pull a U-turn in the middle of the highway, my front tires dipping into the ditch for just a minute before I get straightened out before pulling over to a stop on the road across from her and rolling down my window.

She seems oblivious to our presence so I watch her for a few minutes before she suddenly stops attacking her car and reaches inside the car and the trunk pops open. We continue watching as she walks around the back of the car and begins rummaging around inside the trunk, throwing out a suitcase that lands in the ditch beside her. She seems to think better of her actions because she traipses after it and opens it. Men’s clothes fly all around her as she stomps around in the grassy ditch.

“I wish I had some popcorn,” Grayson says.

I ignore his insinuation that this woman is here to entertain us, even though I, too, can’t pull my eyes away from whatever’s happening.

Satisfied with destroying the contents of the suitcase, she trudges back up the side of the ditch, slipping just once but it doesn’t seem to faze her. A set of golf clubs is pulled out of the trunk next. She takes one club out inspects it, and throws it like a Frisbee into the field. She does the same with the others, save for one, chucking them each in different directions.

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