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I pushed my index finger against his chest. “And yet...you never really grew up,” I teased.
“Oh you got jokes now?” he asked, tugging on the hem of my shirt.
“Some days.” I was about to turn back to the stove when my eyes landed on the thick scar cutting into his skin, slicing several of his colorful tattoos in half with a jagged white line that used to be crimson.
Preppy lifted his arm to look at what had caught my attention and I felt the embarrassment creep up my cheeks. “I didn’t mean to stare, it’s just that it’s all healed now.”
“You can stare all you want, Doc,” Preppy said, pulling me into his chest. “You can touch all you want too.”
A sizzling sound caught our attention. The pot on the stove was boiling over. Foam spilled over the top, landing on the hot burner with an angry hiss. “Fuck,” I said, grabbing the pot with two oven mitts. I was about to dump out the water and half cooked noodles when Preppy stopped me.
“Wait,” Preppy said. “Set it back down.” He turned the dial to the left, lowering the heat of the stove. “Do we have any olive oil?”
I rummaged through a cupboard and found what he needed, tingles shot up my arm when our fingers brushed as he took the bottle of oil from me but it was hard to deny that I felt anything when my nipples were peaking against my shirt. If he looked over there was no way he wouldn’t be able to see his effect on me.
Preppy poured a bit of the oil into the pot with the noodles and stirred it. Instantly the rising foam fell back down. “All fixed,” he said proudly.
I cleared my throat and wet my dry lips. “Are you going to tell me why you have King and Ray’s kids?” I asked curiously, taking a package of ground chuck out of the fridge. Preppy took the package from me and had already washed his hands and was pressing out hamburger patties before I could protest.
He shrugged. “Beats the fuck out of me. I was with King in his studio and we were going over some business shit. The next minute Doe, I mean RAY, calls King on his phone and then he’s asking me to watch the kids for a while because he has to go meet her.”
“I hope everything is all right,” I said.
“He didn’t tell me what was going on, but he didn’t have that ‘life or death’ look about him, and trust me I’m pretty familiar with that look,” Preppy said. “I’m pretty sure if they’re asking me to watch their kids though, it must be a sign of the zombie apocalypse.”
“Must be,” I giggled, loving the interesting places his mind went.
“Seriously, zombie apocalypse is seriously the only reason I could think of why they would want me to look after their little sex trophies when they’ve got lots of other people to call on.”
“First of all, they’ve seen how great you are with Bo, so that’s Bullshit. Second of all, sex trophies?” I asked.
“Yeah, you know, cause they’re a product of...”
“Uh, I get it. I know how that works, Preppy.”
“Oh DO you?” he asked, wagging an eyebrow.
“Shit,” I said, as a realization kicked in. “The grill doesn’t work. It’s ancient so I put it to the curb with the trash last week. Should we make the burgers in a pan or bake them in the oven?”
“Blasphemy!” Preppy shouted, gasping and looking around like he was making sure no one else heard me. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “You do realize you’re in the south, right?”
“Uh, yeah, but what does that mean? That doesn’t automatically give us a working grill.” I jumped up to sit on the counter, my legs dangling against the cabinet as I watched Preppy move around the kitchen with ease.
“That means that us southern boys can pretty much make a grill out of anything,” Preppy said, plating the last burger. “I’m like a redneck MacGyver.”
“Oh yeah? Prove it,” I said, teasingly.
“What do you want to bet?” Preppy stalked across the kitchen, getting as close as he could to me with only the tray of burgers between us. My body zinged and hummed like a light being turned on for the first time in a long time.
“What do you got? I asked, suggestively.
Bo appeared in the kitchen, rubbing his eyes with the ball of his hand and yawning. “Bo, my man! Just in time. You must come with me so we can do man things!” Preppy said with as deep a voice as he could muster. He beat his closed fists on his chest.
Bo smiled and was instantly awake as he followed Preppy out into the back yard. “Man the mac and cheese, woman! We will be right back,” he said, shutting the sliding glass door.
As crazy and silly as that man could be, I wouldn’t have it any other way. It took a lot of crazy to put up with me and Samuel Clearwater was my kind of crazy.
I finished up the mac and cheese and put it in the oven to warm while Preppy took all three kids through the back gate into the open field. They were gone for about twenty minutes when they’d come back carrying a clay pot and an old shopping cart.
“Why do people always dump their garbage next to the tracks?” I asked as Preppy set the cart sideways over the clay pot.
“What garbage?” Preppy asked, taking a step back. “This is a state of the art cooking machine, right kids?” All three kids nodded or cheered enthusiastically as they watched Preppy turn junk into a grill. A half an hour later the four of us sat on the steps in the back yard as the sun set, eating mac and cheese, and burgers cooked on a shopping cart.
The kids finished their food and started a squealing game of tag in which Oscar decided he wanted to be a part of, bumping between kids and practically hopping around as they ran from one side of the yard to the other.
Preppy shifted next to me so that our thighs were touching. He took my hand in his and the warmth of his palm ran up my arm straight into my heart. “You know,” he said, caressing my hand with his thumb. “You’ve done a really, really great job with the place.” Preppy pointed through the sliders into the living room of the house. “I know you were talking about getting a job as a counselor, but personally I think this is what you should be doing. Building stuff. Designing stuff. Making old shit look new again. You’re amazing at it.”
“I’ve been thinking about it,” I admitted, blushing at his compliment. “But it’s not as noble as being a drug counselor but I do love it.” I chewed on my bottom lip.
“Noble isn’t really a thing where I come from,” Preppy laughed. “You don’t have to have a noble profession, Dre. You just have to be happy. Shit, you don’t have to have a profession at all. But if you’re really great at all this. And you should do more than furniture. Fuck, do a whole house. When you’re done fixing it up do the design of the inside, furniture and all. I’m sure people would snap that up real quick and there’s no shortage of houses that need fixin’ round town after the real estate market crashed.”
“That’s a great idea in theory, Preppy. But houses are a lot more expensive than furniture,” I pointed out. “And you already managed to buy this one without me knowing.”
Preppy tipped my chin up so our eyes met. “You leave that up to me, okay? Let me take care of you,” he said with sincerity in his sparkling amber eyes.
I grinned like a schoolgirl. My stomach flipped. “Okay,” I whispered, because there was no arguing with Preppy. There never was. Even if his side of the argument bordered on the ridiculous, he would still win.
Every. Single. Time.
Even with a possible threat looming over our heads, I was still thinking how lucky I was up until the gate on the side of the yard squeaked open. Preppy and I stood and walked over to stand in the way of where the kids were sitting in a circle playing with ladybugs in the grass. The three of them were completely unaware of the bloodied man being carried by his shoulders into the yard by two of Bear’s bikers. His one eye swollen shut, his cheek split open, his hair coated in sticky red. His clothes tattered and stained. The bikers set him down on his knees on the grass.
Preppy was the first to recognize him. He took a step forward.
“Kevin?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Preppy
“What the fuck happened?” I asked, glancing between Wolf and Rev. “You two?”
Wolf held up his hands defensively. “Not us, brother. The kid came limping up the driveway bleeding and beat to shit. Someone got him good, but it wasn’t us.”
“I’m fiiiiiine,” Kevin moaned, dropping his elbows onto the grass almost like he was fighting the need to lie down.
“Yeah, you look it,” I said, rolling my eyes. Stubborn son-of-a-bitch.
Behind me I heard Dre shuffling the kids inside the house.
“You want us to carry him in?” Rev asked, resting his hands on his belt.
“We’re good here,” I said. “Thanks.” The bikers left the yard to go back to their posts at the front of the house.
“Anything broken?” I asked, squatting down next to Kevin.
“Just my spirit, my pride,” he groaned. I grabbed him by the elbows and pulled him up into a sitting position. He winced and hissed through his teeth. “And maybe my collarbone.”
“Well, there’s good news and bad news,” I started. “The bad news is that there ain’t shit you can do about a broken collarbone. I know, because I broke mine twice and had mine broken twice more.” I paused. “Do you want to hear the good news?”
