“Well, ain’t that just perfect?” the man asked. He stuck his hand out. For a horrible moment, I thought he was trying to give me the goose’s leash, but then I realized he wanted to shake hands. “My name’s Bobby. Bobby Merritt. I’m the mayor of Goose Run, and if you’d like to follow me into my office in the back, I have a proposal for you.”
It wasn’t like my day could get any weirder, right?
So I followed Bobby Merritt and his goose to the back to see what he had to say.
CHAPTER 3
CHASE
Ipassed out on Saturday morning with Cash curled up tight against my side, but when I woke up, the light was streaming around the edges of the blanket and I was alone. I hadn’t noticed when Cash had left, so I must have crashed hard.
I still wasn’t sleeping well and I was still trying to figure out how to get off nights, but at least Cash and I both had tonight off, so we’d both get some sleep. I needed it desperately, but I was pretty sure Cash needed it more.
I dragged my ass out of bed and pulled on some jeans and a shirt that was halfway clean, then wandered out to the kitchen, stifling a yawn. As I passed Gracie’s room, I could hear her singing under her breath, the way little kids did when they were making up some game, and it made me smile. I liked having Gracie around. She was fun. She and Wilder spent about half the time at our house and half the time next door at Avery’s. Danny joked we should just knock the rickety fence down and be done with it. When he said things like that, it reminded me that it was more his house than ours, even though we all lived together. And even though Grandma Jane had said we could stay as long as we wanted, I worried sometimes what might happen if that changed. I guessed we’d be back up shit creek in a heartbeat.
And yeah, it wasn’t likely to happen, but I didn’t like to take anything for granted, you know?
Sometimes I thought about what would happen if we had to live like we had before. The past couple years living with Danny and Wilder had made me soft. If I didn’t sleep great or I missed a meal, I got cranky as shit these days. Back then, that was every fucking day, and if that was the worst that happened, we’d have counted ourselves lucky.
See, if we had to run again now, we’d be going backward. But when we’d done it the first time, anything had been better than what we’d been leaving behind.
From outside on the back porch, I could hear the low murmur of voices. My brain was still too sleep-fogged to figure out who it was or to give a shit. I was drinking milk straight from the carton when the back door opened. I shoved the milk back as quickly as I could and spun around.
It was Cash. He raised his eyebrows at me. “That’s gross. Use a glass.”
“You didn’t see a thing,” I said. “And even if you did, who are you gonna tell?”
He snorted. “You’re an asshole.”
I flipped him the bird to prove his point, and he came and rested his head on my shoulder. I put my arms around him. “Did you sleep?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Slept good.”
The dark circles under his eyes were still there, but they looked less like two caverns now and more like he’d forgotten to wash off his eyeliner. Not that Cash had ever worn eyeliner in his life. He hated anything that might draw attention to him. Sucked that we were twins, right? People always stared at twins.
“How are your knees?”
“Itchy and scabby.” He pulled away with a grin. “We’re having a cookout. Miller’s bringing steaks.”
“Nice. Is Avery bringing his potato salad?”
Cash shrugged. “I didn’t ask.”
No. Of course he hadn’t.
I stretched, and my back gave a satisfying crack that made Cash wince. “I hope he does.”
Cash leaned on the counter. “Pretty sure he will.”
The back door creaked again, and Danny stepped inside. “Hey, guys. Chase, wanna help me clean the grill since you’re awake?”
“Nope,” I said, and Cash shoved me and snorted. Of course I was gonna! Maybe I’d ask him about approaching Bobby to move back onto day shifts. Danny had changed his shifts around when he started community college, so it wasn’t like it was impossible, right? Though everyone liked Danny.
But hey, since he was working less, that meant there might still be some daytime hours available, right? I didn’t need everyone to like me to make this work. Just Bobby. And I was pretty sure that Bobby liked me since I still had a job even though I got more complaints than everyone else combined. But also, maybe that meant I was already on thin ice. I had no idea. I hadn’t had a job before this one, and I didn’t really know how any of this shit worked. I wasn’t sure why he’d even hired me in the first place. But then, Bobby made his own rules.
Like, who evenhada freaking pet goose?
I pulled on a jacket and went outside into the crisp air and helped Danny clean the grill.
