Page 47 of Her Daddies' Everything

Gray was growling at Maeve for moving around on her own, but Immy barely paid them any attention. Nope, she was too busy feeling dumb and stupid.

Then she saw Gray pick Maeve up. Okay, wow. That was so sweet and romantic.

“The doctor never said anything about me not walking,” Maeve grumbled at Gray.

If Jenner wanted to pick her up, she wouldn’t protest. If he just wanted to carry her around everywhere like a baby . . . yeah, she’d like that a lot.

“She said you’re to take it easy, though,” Gray countered.

“That doesn’t mean I can’t walk,” Maeve protested. “It means no running or exercising excessively. And trust me, if I’m running, we’ve got bigger problems than my health. It means the zombies have attacked or killer robots or enraged hamsters.”

“Enraged hamsters?” Gray asked.

“Those things are evil.”

Immy couldn’t believe that Maeve still thought that poor little hamsters were evil. They’d grown up with pure evil. Hamsters were just, well, furry rats. Weren’t they?

“Hamsters are not evil, Maeve,” Immy said.

“You saw that movie too,” Maeve told Immy. “I had nightmares for weeks about evil hamsters.”

“Movie?” Gray asked.

“Some cartoon movie,” Jenner explained. “Maeve has an overactive imagination.”

“Hey, take that back,” Maeve protested. “I remember you nearly peeing yourself when we watched that horror movie with that guy in the mask.”

“That’s different! He was going around hacking and stabbing people. And I was ten.”

“We snuck into a movie theater,” Maeve explained to Gray. “They were playing Halloween reruns back-to-back. We thought we were old enough to deal with it. We were not.”

“I don’t think we need to talk about that,” Immy said hastily. She didn’t want to think about that memory. It was the only time they’d dared sneak away from the cult. They’d only managed it because they’d snuck into the back of a truck that had been heading into town to get supplies for the Camp.

The return trek had been more difficult. They’d managed to jump onto the back of a flatbed truck for part of the way, then they’d walked the rest. She had ended up being piggybacked by the guys for most of it.

But her father had lost his mind when she’d returned home and snuck into her bedroom. He’d been looking for her everywhere and when he couldn’t find her . . . well, he’d figured that she’d somehow snuck away. It was the only time she could remember him hitting her. But he didn’t have to hit her to make an impact anyway. Not when his yelling was enough to scare her into compliance.

“We could have picked you guys up, you know,” she said, trying to forget the memory of that day.

“Had my rental car,” Gray said.

“And you’re staying tonight?” Immy asked.

Please, please, stay tonight.

She missed Maeve like crazy and she just wanted her close after what happened to her. Honestly, Immy was scared forMaeve and while she probably couldn’t do anything to help protect her, she wanted to make sure she was all right.

Thankfully, Gray nodded before checking in with Maeve. “If that’s still what you want? We can stay at a hotel tonight if it’s too much.”

“I . . .”

Oh no. Maeve looked scared.

“Fuck,” Jenner said. “I hate that you might be too scared to come here, Maeve. This is your home. We’re going to have to sell the place.”

“Guys!” Maeve said.

Immy nodded, in total agreement. “I’ll start looking for new places. Isaiah and Sampson will want a say on security, but I think we need to look at tightening things up.”

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