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Phoebe, who had just come out of the house with a handful of cookies in each hand, snorted. “I have a helmet.”
“With you?” I clarified.
She nodded and offered her dad the cookies in her left hand. “I keep it here with my dad’s bike, because I don’t normally ride with anyone but him.”
He took them and instantly bit into one.
“Then yes, I’ll give you a ride.” I paused when she offered me one. Not wanting to be rude, I took one. “Will you need a lift to work, too?”
I wasn’t a big fan of sweets in general, but the cookies did look appetizing.
I looked over at her father to see that he’d already inhaled two of his. And they weren’t small cookies. They were the size of my palm, so that was saying something.
I took a hesitant bite.
She thought about my question for a few long seconds. “Yes. But I work half a shift tomorrow, ten to four. I can get someone to take me over to my parents’ tomorrow evening to get my truck. We’re going to family dinner night.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I mumbled around another bite of cookie. “Then yes, I’ll give you a ride, to and from work. Then you can have your sister or Hoax pick you up from your place. When are you moving into the rental?”
The abrupt switch in lines of thought didn’t phase either Mackenzie.
“The boys and I will help her this weekend,” Sam said.
The thought of her father’s men—though still fit—doing all this made me uncomfortable. They were all in great shape, but should they really be lifting shit from an upstairs apartment down a flight of stairs and into a moving trailer? Probably not.
Not that I’d ever tell him that.
“Then I’ll have a few men help out, too, if they can finagle it. Only two of them have trucks, though,” I said.
“You don’t have a regular vehicle?” Phoebe asked in surprise.
“No,” I shook my head. “I don’t need one.”
And I didn’t. The day that I got a truck that kept me confined was the day that I was no longer wild and free—and being free was something that I required to stay sane.
“What if it rains?” she questioned. “What if it snows?”
“Then I get rained and snowed on,” I answered. “Plus, I live about a mile and a half from where I work. If I can’t get there on my bike, I’ll walk.”
Sam started to laugh. “Just wait until you get old like me, then you won’t be feeling the same way. There are some days that I feel the cold in my bones.”
I looked at him sympathetically. “When that day comes, I’ll revisit not having a cage then. Until that happens, I’ll just continue being happy to ride my bike wherever the fuck I want and not feel claustrophobic while I’m at it.”
It’d never happen, but I’d give him the benefit of the doubt. It could.
“Do you want another cookie?” Phoebe asked, holding up one more in between the space that separated us.
I looked down at my hand to see that I’d devoured the cookie.
“Umm,” I hesitated. It was a good goddamn cookie. I wondered who made it.
“Here,” she said. “There are about eight more in the house I can go get. I have to go get my helmet anyway.”
Then she was gone, and I was left staring at the cookie as if it was a foreign object from another land far, far away.
“They’re oatmeal cinnamon,” Sam said as he wiped crumbs off his chest. “I wasn’t supposed to have sweets anymore, but once every couple of weeks Cheyenne lets me have some. Though she tries and times it with the days that she knows people are coming over here and can help me eat them so I’m not eating all twenty-four by myself.”
I took a bite of the cookie. “I’ve never had oatmeal cinnamon before. To tell you the truth, it’s kind of surprising that I like them at all. I don’t usually care for sweets.”
He looked over at me. “Count yourself lucky, then. When the doctor told me that I wasn’t allowed to have anything high in fats or carbs anymore, it was like my entire life was a lie.”
I grinned. “I’d probably still be affected by that. I can eat my weight in cheese…which is quite high in fat. I can also eat yogurt by the gallon. Though I guess technically that’s a sweet. But since it has some health benefits, I don’t necessarily equate it with sweets. But tell me that I can’t have what I want anymore, and I’d probably be in the same boat as you, though less accepting of it.”
Sam’s lips formed into a small smile and he shook his head. “It’s not all that bad. Cheyenne cleaned up her eating, too, making it easier to eat healthy. I didn’t realize just how awful I was eating until I started feeling better. Funny how diet affects stuff like that when you don’t even realize it.”
