“I want three,” she said, giving me a nod.
Much like her (middle) namesake, Vara loved her food. She practically stabbed your hand with her fork if you tried to take anything off of her plate.
“Three it is. For my little killer,” I said, leading her toward the side of the ring.
“Feral,” Mills was mumbling under his breath. But Vara had the hearing of a carnivore on the lookout for some prey.
I needed to snatch her out of the air as she turned and flung herself toward her brother.
“Mills, shouldn’t you be showering now?” I asked, glancing back at the clock while I wrestled Vara out of the ring. “Maeve is going to be here soon,” I reminded him.
You’d have thought I’d dropped a firecracker in his shorts, he shot up so fast.
Maeve had moved in next door when Mills was all of three. And they became the best of friends ever since. But, I’d been noticing lately, Mills’s interested seemed to be taking a turn more toward the romantic than the friendly.
“Dad!” Vara called, smiling big.
“Why does your mom have a death grip on you? What’d you do?”
“Not—“ Vara started.
“Tried to beat the crap out of her brother for stealing her Luncable,” I told him.
“Yeah? Good for you. We don’t condone thievery in this house.”
“Valen,” I hissed, but I couldn’t stop the smile that tugged at my lips.
He indulged Vara’s wild and crazy. Which, of course, only made her wilder and crazier. Sure, as a girl who’d been indulged by her own father much the same way, it was sweet. As a mother of a child that was ninety-percent feral, yeah, I wouldn’t mind it if the kid took two or three seconds to think things through before she acted, or brushed her teeth without practically spitting at me.
“Come on, a backbone is an admirable trait in a woman. Might as well help her build it up strong now.”
“Then you have to make her brush her teeth and comb her hair,” I told him. In fact, I kept Vara’s hair in styles like wrap-around or French braids and space buns because it kept it tangle-free for longer, so we didn’t have to have the brush fight as often.
On the other hand, Adie set her own tooth brush timer, did it to that length, then brushed out her own hair. The kid even washed her face without prompting.
Adie was the calm and cautious to Vara’s crazy and reckless. They balanced each other out.
And thank God for that.
I wasn’t sure I was strong enough for two feral children.
“But you’re better at that,” Valen insisted as Vara and Adie both let out little gasps.
Because there in the doorway was their Aunt Vi. Who told me she was coming to pick them up and take them out. Which meant she would stuff them full of candy, grease, and ice cream, cover them in temporary tattoos, buy them the loudest, most obnoxious toys available in the store, and possibly send them home with a new pet.
Like the hermit crabs Mills had gotten at their age. The ones that had practically quintupled in size, and were still kicking. Or the betta fish who they’d rescued from a tiny little plastic container at the pet store.
Luckily, it had all been relatively small, easy to manage creatures so far. But we lived in fear of the day that Vi brought home some giant dog. Or Dezi dropped off some miniature version of a farm animal. That the kids would all fall madly in love with, and we would have to figure out how to keep.
“Ladies,” Vi greeted them. “Whip any butt today?”
“Vara did,” Adie said, nodding.
“Well, it’s good that you have a kick-butt older sister, huh? Since you don’t like kicking butt as much?” Vi asked. “So, are we ready for ice cream?” she asked, getting cheers from our girls. “And your mama can save her lecture,” she said, looking at me. “She knows there is no putting limits on our fun.”
With that, she led our girls out of the closed gym.
I generally had a pretty decent work-life balance. But sometimes something came up at the gym that meant I had to bring the kids in to handle. Even when the place was closed.
It gave them a chance to screw around in the ring or on the workout equipment while I handled things.
“Mills, Maeve is here,” I called when I spotted a petite redhead standing at front, looking down at her phone, likely texting him that she was there.
“Damn,” Valen said when our son ran out of the locker room so fast while trying to pull on a shirt and kick into his shoes that he actually face planted for a second before getting up and rushing toward the door, pausing to take a second to pull himself together, then walking out and trying to seem casual as hell as they walked down the street toward She’s Bean Around. “I know. I know you want to say it,” Valen said, giving my hip a nudge.