I wasn’t sure what exactly I’d instilled in Finn that made him game for anything at any time, but I had to admit that sometimes it made life a hell of a lot easier. Someday, it was going to come back to bite me in the ass when one of his little douchey friends had a really bad idea that Finn went along with, but I’d deal with that when it came. For now, I was going to be silently thankful that he hadn’t thought twice about coming home from school to see that his entire life had been packed into the back of our truck.
“Oh,” Barry, the property manager, said in surprise, looking down at the paperwork, garage opener, and keys I’d set on his desk.
“You need anything else?” I asked.
“You’ve already moved out?”
“Yeah.”
“I—um…” He looked over the paperwork. “No, I don’t think so. Uh, do you have a forwarding address?”
“You’ve got my number if you need it,” I replied. “Let me know if you need to send me anything.”
“Yes, uh, yeah.”
“Excellent. Thanks.” I turned on my heel and got out of that office. I’d dealt with the property manager plenty of times, but it wasn’t as if we were friends. From the little I knew of him, he responded to maintenance concerns quickly, made himself available almost obnoxiously, and he liked to talk. It didn’t really matter about what. He just wanted to have a conversation. Since I didn’t have time for that, it was better to bail before he dug in.
The truck was still running, and I’d barely put on my seatbelt before I was reversing out of the space. Good thing too, because Barry had come to the door of the office, probably to catch me. I gave him a wave as we passed by him, but I didn’t slow.
“We’re really doing it,” Jesse said quietly.
“On our way,” I said, checking my mirrors, even though I knew that nothing in the back would move. I’d been tying shit down in the back of a pickup since I was twelve years old. Back then, it had been dirt bikes.
Finn needed a dirt bike. I bet he’d love that shit. I added it to my mental list of things I wanted to give the kids at some point.
I checked the time.
“Who’s hungry?” I asked.
“Me,” Finn said, leaning forward to put his hands on my shoulders.
“You buckled?” I asked, looking in the mirror again.
“Yeah.”
“Your seatbelt’s supposed to be over your shoulder, dude,” I said. “What did I tell you? Keep the seatbelt on right, or we’re going back to the booster seat.”
“We threw out the booster seat,” he shot back.
“I’ll buy another.”
“What are you? Made of money?” he joked, throwing my own words back at me.
“Nice,” I grumbled. “Smart ass.”
“If we’re going south, can we get burritos?” Jesse asked as I pulled onto the freeway.
I calculated in my head and nodded. “Yep.”
“I wanted a burger,” Finn said with a sigh as we hit traffic. “But a burrito works.”
“You always want a burger,” Jesse said, turning to look at him.
“I do not.”
“Name one time you haven’t,” I said in amusement, glancing at him in the mirror.
“I don’t know,” Finn said in exasperation.
