Page 40 of Peach Tree Family

"You don't talk much. That leaves plenty of talk time for me. Maybe too much," she said.

That made him think of Theo and how Seth liked to hear him talk, which he didn't do nearly enough. But even when they weren't talking, whatever Theo was doing, Seth wanted to be helping him with it. Did he want to be friends with him that bad? Or...

After they hung out for a while, they heard the truck approaching well before they saw it. "Here comes that awful truck," Hannah said.

There she was starting up again. "It runs," Seth told her.

"It's ready for the junk yard," Hannah said as the truck came into view.

"It's a working truck," Seth pointed out.

As soon as the truck came to a stop, Ace jumped out and ran over, asking Shawn, "Did you see Butter?"

Shawn was confused. "Butter?"

"My cat!" Ace told him.

"We haven't been inside," Seth said and watched as Theo got out of the truck slowly.

For some reason, he was eyeing Hannah and didn't look happy to see her. Seth did text to ask if it was OK that she and Shawn were coming over, but now he wondered if Theo disliked her for some reason or if he didn't want him bringing guests over.

Now that he was there, Theo unlocked the side door and they all went inside.

"You all are camping out here," Hannah said on seeing the lawn chairs in the living room.

Theo objected, "We're living here."

"Furniture don't grow on trees," Seth told her.

"Was that supposed to be funny?" Theo asked him.

"Um, no," Seth said and then realized what he meant.

Ace was still in the kitchen with Butter and Shawn when Seth heard him say, "We like our house!"

That meant Shawn must have said something bad about the house too. They went into the kitchen where Ace was holding Butter and furrowing at Shawn.

"OK. Sorry," Shawn said and rolled his eyes a lot like his sister did. Then he noticed that Ace hadn't let him off the hook yet. "Why you still looking at me like that?"

"Try saying sorry like you mean it," Hannah told him even though they were two of a kind.

Theo didn't wait for a sincere apology, he just told Ace. "You can take Butter outside but watch that she doesn't get lost."

"I was going to cook up something," Sean said to Theo as they followed Hannah and the kids out the door.

"We still have the stew. You can just go ahead and hang out with Hannah," Theo said but the look in his eyes was kind of mean.

As they went out front, Seth was surprised to see a big, black SUV pulling up. "What's this now?"

"That's the handyman who was here before, Mitch McEvers, but I don't know why he's here now," Theo said.

"Oh, I might know," Hannah said. "I texted Rico about your padlock situation."

"How is that any of your business?" Theo asked her.

"I was just gossiping, and gossip is everybody's business," Hannah claimed.

That made no sense to Theo or anybody. "What?"

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