Page 34 of Shit Happens in Ivydell

I sink my fingers into the warm, damp soil. Jensen obviously watered it through when he filled the planters. It feels good on my skin, makes me glad we’re not wearing gloves.

Myrna heads back our way. I hear her before I look up to see her head bobbing from side-to-side. She’s whistling a melody. What song is that?

“Is she whistling ‘Sexual Healing’?”

“Don’t acknowledge it. You’ll only encourage her.”

Jensen

Like a Freight Train

Cujo rides up asI’m thinking about him. He does that a lot. It’s almost as eerie as the spooky sisters. I wait for him to shut his bike off so he can hear me. “Hey, you feel like lifting? It’s been a while. I’m afraid I’m getting soft.”

His big laugh rolls out almost as loud as his straight pipes. “You do too much manual labor for your muscles to get soft. Your head might be getting soft, thanks to that woman whose bed you can’t stay out of.”

“We spend as much time in my bed as we do hers.”

“Oh, well, that changes everything.” He shakes his head like reasoning with me is a lost cause.

To be fair, where Ivy’s concerned, it might be. Not that anyone’s standing in our way, but I wouldn’t hesitate to knock them back if they tried. Even Petra has thrown up her hands and is standing down. For the most part.

I spot for Cujo’s bench press. I’d do it anyway, but right now, I’m afraid he’s got too much weight on the bar. I know better than to voice my concern, so I silently step my right foot forward and ready myself to assist if he fails. He makes ten reps look easy, and I help him rerack.

“You been lifting without me?”

“No, man. I wouldn’t lift without a spotter.” He vacates the bench.

“Liar.” I swap the weights and lie down. I’m the only one of us who prefers a spotter. It was drilled into me at a young age not to lift without one. I had good coaches. Guess I had to get lucky somewhere.

Cujo clears his throat. “I think you could put a little more weight on that bar.”

“And I think you could’ve put a little less on it.”

“Okay.”

I change the subject. “Seems like Ivy and Josephine had fun on their trip.”

“Yeah, Jojo said it was good.”

Huh, that nickname is new. I don’t comment on it. “Ivy’s apparently a shopper.”

“You couldn’t tell that by looking at her when you met?”

“For a while, I thought all she owned was leggings and sweaters.”

“Yeah, but you probably never saw her in the same one twice.”

Now that he mentions it, she was here for over two weeks before she needed to do laundry. I tell him about her lizard encounter.

“That’s another thing you should’ve seen coming.”

“I didn’t mind.”

“Of course you didn’t. You don’t mind a damn thing about her at this point.”

At this point. Does she have any traits that will bother me at some point? It’s probably to be expected we’d eventually somehow annoy the hell out of each other. I don’t think I’d stay annoyed long, though. But that’s not realistic. We’ll definitely piss each other off.

We might hurt each other.

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