“The next decade? That’s eight years from now, moron,” Thief chortled from his recliner. “All right. Well, if we know what we’re doing now, let’s watch Top Gun from the beginning. I missed it.”
Will looked at me with a ‘please’ gesture, and I got up, gesturing toward the one free spot that I’d just vacated next to Shine.
Will took it, then guided me down into his lap.
I curled in, and together we watched Top Gun from start to finish
All the while, he never let go of me, making me feel calm and soothed just by wrapping his large arms around me and holding me tight.
CHAPTER 17
No rain. No flower.
-Text from Rook to Cannel
CANNEL
Brianna. Again.
At least, who I thought was Brianna.
God, she was getting on my last nerve.
I growled under my breath and stiffened where I was sitting next to Will on a weight bench where I was about to watch him work out.
He caught me by the hip when I would’ve gotten up to walk away from whatever conversation they were about to have.
I couldn’t stand the damn woman and having her text me all day long hadn’t helped my annoyance.
To make matters worse, Will had literally just walked through the door after having to help solve a murder with her all morning, evening, and yesterday evening as well.
She’d literally had him from sundown to sundown, and it was my turn!
“Who is it?” he asked, curling his hand around the inside of my knee.
I shivered and showed him the phone.
He looked at the readout, and his eyes narrowed.
“God,” he shook his head. “I swear to Christ. It’s like whomever this is knows just where to hit to make themselves the most annoying.”
I scoffed.
He had no fucking idea.
Since three days ago when the texts had started, they’d gotten progressively worse, to the point where I thought blocking them would be the perfect idea.
Only, it hadn’t been.
Whomever it was—cough Brianna cough—had just gotten a brand-new phone number and started it all over again.
Meanwhile, I was considering changing my number because I couldn’t handle much more of this.
“Whomever it is won’t stop bothering the shit out of me,” I admitted. “I’ve done nothing but ignore these texts, and it’s getting to the point that I think I might need to get a new number.”
Before he could reply, though, the doors to the gym opened and the two sweetest brown-headed little girls rolled in like tidal waves.
One second they were at the front door and worriedly scanning around the room, and the next they were screeching at the top of their lungs and heading our way. “Uncle Willlllll!”
Will dropped me like a hot potato.
One second he was standing next to me holding my phone, and the next the phone had been dumped in my lap and he was racing across the room toward his little tidal waves.
“Eeeeeeeeee!” The curly-haired, brown-headed little tidal wave screamed. “I missed you!”
Then they hit each other.
Both girls wrapped their arms around their uncle, and I swear to God, my ovaries nearly exploded.
“Sweet baby Jesus.”
I looked over and found an older couple standing in the doorway holding on to each other, staring at the spectacle with smiling faces.
Smiling faces that didn’t quite reach their eyes.
I got up and pocketed my phone, ignoring the text I got as I did, and headed in the elderly couple’s direction.
“You must be Mr. and Mrs. Schultz.”
The woman smiled and held out her hand. “Jane. This is Dick. You must call us Mom and Dad, though,” she urged.
I smiled, even though I wasn’t sure that I could call them that quite yet and shook Jane’s hand.
“I thought y’all were going to the Grand Canyon?” I asked curiously. “We were supposed to meet y’all there.”
“Oh.” Jane flushed. “Well, about that…”
“Grandpa was driving his big trailer, and he accidentally hit his truck with the trailer, and now we have to put both in the shop.” A girl came up on my left, causing me to look down at her.
The curly-haired one.
Petra.
“Is that right?” I asked curiously. “That doesn’t sound very good.”
“No,” the other little girl said as she came up to my other side. “You’re very pretty.”
I smiled sheepishly. “Am I?”
“Yes,” Ashlie confirmed. “You’re beautiful. Like our mama was. Uncle Will says you’re so pretty sometimes his eyes hurt when he looks at you. You don’t hurt my eyes, but your makeup is on point.”
I burst out laughing just as a hand wrapped around my waist and Will said, “Ash, you’re not supposed to be telling all my secrets.”
“You didn’t tell me that was a secret,” Ash confided. “You told me that when I was telling you how cute that I thought Thor was. I didn’t know we were supposed to be keeping secrets.”
“Well, now you do.” He ruffled her hair with his free hand. “Y’all will tell me why you’re here after I finish my workout?”