Page 38 of When We Met

Morgan has, thanks to Camdyn. Let me tell you, they’re faster than they look.

I’ve already dealt with Earl; Grandma Mel is in Birmingham visiting her sister, and Monday, Camdyn left the gate open, and Lucy… Lemon… whatever the fuck that damn horse’s name is, took a stroll up to the feed store where she walked right into Wagner’s Feed Mart and helped herself to grain.

What’s next?

My current dilemma, other than Kacy, is Camdyn stuck in a bucket, ankles around her ears, and barely able to lift her head.

“Stop ya’s screamin’. I stir you up.”

I stop dead in my tracks to look for Sev. I wouldn’t have even known this was going down in the parts room had I not walked by and noticed Sev standing next to the bucket. Leaning my shoulder into the doorframe, I shake my head. “What are you doing?”

“Help me.” Camdyn grunts. “She’s trying to cook me.”

“How’d you get in there?”

“I just did. Get me out!” she screams, struggling and crying. “I don’t wanna be a bug.”

A bug? Must be what Sev’s trying to make. Last Tuesday she sprayed Jace with lighter fluid she found and told him if he caught on fire, it meant he was a prince. I know, scary shit, and I don’t even understand it. Was she deprived of oxygen in the womb? Fighting back laughter, I take the wrench from Sev. “Why’d you let this happen?”

Sev shrugs, her face strained in a forced smile. No answer.

I kneel next to the bucket and sweep Camdyn’s hair from her face. “Why are you guys even in here? I told you to stay in the office with Lillian.”

“We was bored,” Camdyn cries. “Daddy, my butt cheeks hurt.”

“Okay, okay.” I lift one of her arms and then the other. “Can you not do this anymore?”

It takes me fifteen minutes and the help of Jace, Granger, and Rhett to get Camdyn out of the bucket. The plastic took a chunk of skin out of her butt cheek. “Go see Lillian. Tell her to put a Band-Aid on your ass for not watching you.”

She sighs, glaring. “Fine.”

Sev takes her wrench back, but I take hold of it and her. “Stop tryin’ to make your sister into a frog, bug, snake, or whatever else you want.”

She blinks at me. No words. She can’t promise that, and there’s one thing this little nut case in my arms isn’t, and that’s a liar. Tickling her ribs, I set her down. “Go back in the office. I’m almost done here.”

Jace watches her disappear down the hall where Camdyn went. “I can’t imagine those two as teenagers.”

“You and me both,” I mumble, thinking it’s time I start taking them to a daycare instead of the shop.

Between repairing the side of the building, clearing a path in the snow to get in and out of the driveway leading to the shop, and getting kids out of buckets, the day goes by fairly quickly.

“You stopping by Tilly’s tonight?” Jace asks, smirking as he closes his lunch box and reaches for the repair orders on his toolbox.

Every Friday night, I take the girls out to my aunt’s bar. It’s hardly a place for kids, but we live in the middle of nowhere, and rules are seldom followed. To be fair, half the building is a restaurant, so it’s not unheard of to have kids there. “I don’t know,” I tell him, pushing the welder out of the way so I can make room for Kacy’s car in the corner of the shop.

“Bring the girl,” he notes, smiling at Granger, who’s shaking snow from his hair, his jeans wet from the knees down.

We cleared the entire drive, and there’s already three more inches on the ground. “I’m not going.”

Jace snorts, slipping his arms into his jacket. “Bullshit. You say that every Friday.”

“I’m not.”

“You will.”

Unfortunately, he’s probably right. Only because I’ll be kid-pressured into going, and what the fuck am I going to do with Kacy at my house all night besides wonder about what color her panties are and if they’re the cheeky kind? It’d be better to be out in public where I can’t act on it.

Right?

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