Page 43 of Story of My Life
“Cactus Cam? That’s a good one,” Hazel said, her lips quirking. Her eyebrows disappeared into her fringe of bangs. “He didwhatwhen he was nine?”
On a growl, I wrestled the phone away from her, getting us both tangled in the cord in the process. Her chest bumped into my torso, and once again my entire body reacted like someone was about to throw a punch at my face.
“If you don’t mind, I have shit to do to close up your store, Larry,” I said, trying to ignore the fact that I had a woman wriggling against me for the first time in…way too fucking long.
There was a hiss of breath on the other end of the call. “If it were up to me, I’d be there and you’d be home,” Laura reminded me, with just the hint of a tremble in her voice.
Feeling lower than unexpected dog shit on a sidewalk, I quit trying to free myself. I swiped a hand over my forehead. “Fuck. Laur, I’m sorry. I just had a long day?—”
“Sinker, sucker!” she cackled in my ear. It was family code forhook, line, and sinker. As in, I had just taken the bait.
“I hate you.”
Hazel’s eyes widened as she extricated herself from the cord wrapped around her shoulders.
I covered the mouthpiece again and looked down at her. “Not you. My sister. But maybe also a little you.”
She rolled her eyes and tossed the phone cord over my head.
“Yeah, right. That’s why you’re taking the closing shift at my store after you put in a full day of work on your own shit,” Laura said airily in my ear.
“I’m just doing it to make you feel guilty,” I insisted.
“You may be all prickly on the outside, but I know you, Cam. You’re just a big ol’ squishy teddy bear of family loyalty on the inside.”
“Don’t be weird,” I grumbled as Hazel and Zoey tried to figure out the credit card reader.
“Thanks, Cammy. Now stop being an asshole to the woman who wrote three of the books in my top ten and is just trying to give our family money.”
I watched Hazel break out into a hip-bumping victory dance when the reader spit out a receipt. “I’m not promising anything.”
Laura groaned. “Never change, Cammy.”
“Stop bothering me. I’ll see you when I drop Melvin off.”
“Teddy bear,” she said again before hanging up.
I returned the phone to the cradle on the wall and turned to find two women looking proudly over their eight bags of supplies.
“Told you I could do it faster than you,” Zoey said archly.
“You really should take a few keypad lessons if you’re going to keep working here,” Hazel said, crossing her arms smugly.
“Okay, smartasses. How are you getting all of this home?”
The two women looked at each other.
“Shit,” Hazel said.
“Thanks again for the ride…again,”Hazel said as we pulled up in front of Heart House for the second time that day.
“Thanks for making the interior of my truck smell like a winery explosion.”
“You already knew about the wine smell before you offered us the ride, so if you’re waiting for an apology, you can keep waiting,” she said, hugging a bag of Cheez-Its and soda to her chest.
I got out from behind the wheel and started looping bags over my arms.
“Bet he can’t carry them all,” Zoey taunted, sliding out of the back seat.
