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After his debacle with Mindy Jasper, Double A had spent nearly a month sleeping in the clubhouse before he’d groveled enough to be allowed home, and all this time later, things still weren’t fully back in balance between him and Candy. Over whiskeys in the Hall, he’d described his situation as ‘wading through eggshells up to my asshole.’ Clearly, he was taking no chances with misperceptions about the pretty city girl now flirting with him.
“I don’t know why everybody’s so twisted up about somebody buying that rundown old building,” Zelda said, handing her popcorn to Zaxx so she could hold a necklace with a funky glass pendant to her chest and check her look in the mirror provided. “It’s just sitting there rotting. Isn’t it better if it becomes something?”
“It’s about what it would become, and who would turn it into whatever that is. This company is based in Indianapolis. They buy up properties in small towns and sink their roots in, then keep buying shit up until it’s all theirs. Erasing all the local-owned shops. We don’t want that.”
“So you do something with it!”
“Me?”
“Don’t pretend to be dense. The club, dork, not you personally.”
They’d discussed exactly that, but there was still nothing approaching a consensus or even a majority. A couple of patches’ votes changed back and forth on the matter, too. Nobody was enthusiastic about the club taking on more responsibility.
“The Horde isn’t sitting on a mountain of money, Zel, and we’re not kings. We can’t fix everything to our liking.”
The sound she made was about eighty-percent raspberry. “Please. It’s Signal Bend. You’re kings.”
The foursome up ahead moved on, seemingly headed to the Crafty Nanas tent. Autumn Rooney minced her way down the fairway, trying to keep the heels of her absurd shoes from sinking into the earth with every step.
“Let’s go see Mom,” Zaxx said, grabbing his sister’s hand before she could play around with any more stock she had no intention of buying.
~oOo~
They had their wine at Valhalla Vin and stayed at the booth to drink it, talking to Mom while she filled plastic wine glasses with cabernet or chardonnay and sold them by the handful. At the end of the summer, Mom had quit Marie’s for what she’d hoped were better tips at Valhalla Vin; that had panned out. She was actually good at this work. Zaxx had been concerned that she’d struggle to understand wine enough to serve well at a wine bar, but she’d done it. She was making more money than she ever had, and she enjoyed the calmer atmosphere at Valhalla.
Zaxx asked Mom if she’d overheard anything Badger and the others were talking about while they stood nearby, but she hadn’t. The booth was busy, and her attention was on work. Zaxx and Zelda got the hint, and they were headed somewhere anyway, so they didn’t hang for long.
Finally, after Zelda also ate a corn dog and cheese fries, and Zaxx had a hotdog himself, they arrived at the horse corral. Actually, it was two corrals, a pasture divided down the center by a stretch of temporary fencing. One side was pony rides for kids; Lilli and Bo were in charge of that one. The other side had a small course set up, with a couple of jumps, some barrels, and other easy obstacles. Gia and Isaac ran that side, Gia both demonstrating and teaching, Isaac assisting.
Zaxx started toward Gia’s side. He loved to watch her work with horses; she was a real expert, and it was hot as fuck to see her in expert mode. She absolutely embodied confidence. As much as he’d seen her working on her dissertation, that was all reading and writing. She’d talked to him about it, too, and she talked like a scholar. But it was all still nothing but words. Watching her work horses, her whole body knew what it was doing.
But Zelda grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the pony rides. Since Gia hadn’t noticed him at the fence, he didn’t fight his sister.
“You wanna ride a pony, little girl?” he teased.
“Maybe not a pony—but maybe that horse over there.”
Zaxx looked for a full-size horse in this corral, but all he saw were six ponies, ranging from not much bigger than a Great Dane to not much smaller than an actual horse.
He was about to ask which one she was talking about when he registered where she was looking. Not at any pony, but at Bo. He was helping a little boy onto the saddle of one of the littlest ponies.
Zaxx didn’t know what to say. Zelda had expressed absolutely zero interest in men since the summer. She’d made, instead, a lot of noise about how she was done with penises altogether. Once or twice she’d even suggested that she was done with sex altogether.
He understood where that was coming from, of course, and didn’t try to counsel her in any direction. He’d been an ear and a shoulder, and kept his remarks to a minimum, lest she hear judgment when he meant comfort.
But Bo? He was about Zelda’s age, yeah, and he was a good-looking guy, sure. He was also a good guy. Zaxx liked him a lot and would trust him with his sister without a qualm. He had no clue whether Bo was gay or straight or what; he’d never been with anyone Zaxx knew about, and he and Gia didn’t talk about her brother like that.
He did know that Bo was autistic, of course, and pretty much the opposite of Zelda in all the ways that mattered in that kind of connection. Where Zelda was bold and irrepressible, Bo was cautious and quiet. Zelda loved chaos and noise; that kind of clamor sent Bo into a meltdown.
Actually ... he was thinking of his sister as she had been before the summer. Since then, he’d seen the cracks as she tried to perform that old version of herself. Maybe somebody like Bo would be a safe place for her.
“Are you talking about Bo?” he asked. “You’re interested in him?”
Her first answer was a shudder she tried and failed to camouflage as autumn chill, which was answer enough.
“They were just words, Zaxx. I’m not interested. He’s hot, is all I meant. Kinda weird, but very pretty. I’m just enjoying the view. Like looking at a sculpture. I don’t want to go down on the statues at the art museum, either.” She looked up at him with a shit-giving smirk. “Is that a thing with you? Do you get a big boner for bare boobies in marble?”
He grabbed her into a tight hold and gave her a gentle noogie. “Smartass.”
