Page 45 of Home in the Country
“Isn’t Everett going to hate that?”
“Pretty sure,” she says with a grin.
I laugh and nod as she puts the cake in a box with The Poppy Seed’s logo stamped on the front.
“Make sure you let me know how it goes.”
“I will. Briggs, are you ready, buddy? We have to drop this off first.”
He grabs his napkin and jumps out of his seat.
“Push in your chair.”
“Oh, yeah.” His little body spins, and he races to fix the chair before returning to my side just as fast.
“Let’s go, you silly goose.” He giggles, and we decide it’s nice enough to walk the short distance to The Rusty Fender without melting.
“TNT” by AC/DC blasts out the open bay doors of the garage. Briggs scrunches his nose as he looks up at me. “What is that?”
“Rock and roll, Big Rigg.” Otto steps around the side of the building, and I’m so startled I almost drop the box in my hands.
Briggs giggles, and Otto holds his fist out, which Briggs taps enthusiastically with his own.
“What are you doing here?” I blurt out, and two sets of male eyes turn to look at me. Otto holds up some tool that looks like a big wrench in one hand and motions toward the garage with the other.
“Case broke the excavator, and I needed somethin’ bigger to fix it. Also my brother owns the garage so…”
“Right. Of course, that makes sense,” I stammer. Luckily my hands are full, otherwise I’d be tucking a lock of hair behind my ear right now. Otto smirks.
“What are you doin’ here?” He eyes the box with suspicion.
“It’s for Everett.” Otto’s expression is eerily impassive, but his eye twitches so I rush to add, “Rhea said that Hayden ordered it for Everett’s birthday, but he got held up at work, and Rhea is busy, and we just happened to stop in so she asked if we could bring it down.”
“That was quite the mouthful.” His gaze drops to my lips for the briefest second, and I feel my cheeks flame. “Did you say it’s Everett’s birthday?”
“Apparently.”
Otto turns to Briggs with a mischievous grin. “Big Rigg, do you know how to sing ‘Happy Birthday’?”
“Yes!”
“Cool. Wanna go sing to my friend Everett?”
“Yeah! Can I, Mommy?”
“I guess…”
They take off toward the garage, and I watch as Otto nods along to something Briggs says and then laughs. Briggs is smiling ear to ear, and I wonder if it wouldn’t be so bad having him around more. Maybe we could take things slow.
I’m shaken from that line of thinking when Otto shouts and the music abruptly stops.
“Everett, man, you didn’t tell me it’s your birthday!”
“Son of a—” The gruff male voice cuts off, and I round the corner just in time to see Everett acknowledge that Briggs is standing in the bay.
“Briggs, are you ready?” My son nods, and the two of them begin the world’s worst rendition of the birthday song.
Everett is glaring at Otto, Hank is smirking, and Waylon pops out of a back room with a smile on his face.
