Page 54 of Story of My Life
My statement kicked off a spirited and occasionally inappropriate discussion of what exactly resting dick face entailed. Which left the topic of Hazel Hart exactly where I wanted it. Off the table.
My family looked at her and saw salvation. I looked at her and saw nothing but trouble. Trouble that had me spending the better part of the night tossing and turning thinking about her.
“Now, I need one of you to take in two kittens,” Mom announced.
We didn’t let her finish the sentence before interrupting her with a collective groan.
“Come on, people. It’s just for a few days until they’re dewormed. A week tops,” Mom said.
“Mom, I have a dog, two cats, four lizards, and that goddamn bunny you said was going to get adopted. I am drawing the line,” Laura said.
“Not it,” Gage insisted. “I had to drive two hours to the bird sanctuary last week to drop off that too-stupid-to-live purple finch that got caught in the landscape netting.”
“Sorry. My landlord has a strict no-pets policy,” I said.
“We’re your landlord, dummy,” Laura pointed out.
“Give ’em to Livvy. He has a whole cabin for them to destroy,” I pleaded.
“Sorry. I still have the chickens,” Levi said, casually reaching for another piece of bacon.
“You’ve had those chickens for a while now,” I noted with suspicion. Levi had gotten out of the last several rounds of Mom’s pathological animal fostering due to a pair of injured chickens he allegedly took off the hands of a stranger who found them on the side of the road.
“Yeah, has anyone else actually seen these chickens?” Laura demanded.
“You said they were asleep in the coop last time I stopped by,” Gage said accusingly to Levi.
“Oh my God. There were never any chickens, were there?” Laura screeched.
Throwing each other under the bus was the Bishop way. In the moment, I loved them all so much it physically hurt. Not that I would ever tell them that.
Instead, I went in for the kill with mock disbelief. “Did you build an entire chicken coop just to get out of taking in helpless animals, Livvy?”
“That’s diabolical, Uncle Levi,” Isla said.
“I don’t know where we went wrong, Frank. This is the paintball incident all over again, isn’t it?” Mom said.
Levi threw down his fork. “For fuck’s sake! I swear on Grandma Bernie’s lemon square recipe I did not shoot up that barn door.”
“Bullshit,” Gage and I said together.
13
THE FUR DEMON
HAZEL
I woke with a start,staring up at gold wallpaper with trellis roses. It took me only half the time it had the day before to remember where I was. In my new bedroom that needed a facelift in my new house that required extensive and expensive renovations in my new town that thought I was a bird-killing outsider who needed to be run out of town.
“Hello, morning panic, my old friend,” I grumbled, rolling over and tugging the duvet up to my chin.
The summer sun was already bright and streaming through the windows above the ancient wooden half shades. I really needed to think about window treatments.
Window treatments, bed linens, and clothes hangers for all of my many closets, including the new walk-in that Cam reluctantly said waspossibly doable.Ooh, and a fluffy rug for under the bed. And some cool piece of art for above the wooden mantel. And a dresser.
I sat up. This was my first home of my own. The first place where I could choose the curtains and dishes, and hog all the bookshelf space. That was something worth fighting for?—
“Ahhhh! Get away from me, fur demon!”
