Page 7 of Serving Bunt

Chores started before the sun came up, nobody ate before the chickens were fed, and if you weren’t out front by a quarter to four with your boots on and hair pulled back, you’d spend the rest of the day hearing about it.

“Late is lazy,” he’d say solemnly, like it was the eleventh commandment.

Thou shalt not sit on your ass.

“And lazy don’t pay the bills.”

The rule had stuck with me for over two decades. Sadly, my miniature dachshund, Mo, still hadn’t gotten the memo.

“Come on, baby girl,” I crooned, scratching beneath her chin the way she liked. “The photoshoot starts in twenty, and I still gotta check in with hair and makeup.”

She stared up at me with those big, dark eyes, refusing to budge from her spot in the passenger seat.

Little shit.

Correction: adorable, little shit.

I’d been trying to coax her out of my truck for nearly ten minutes. None of my usual bribes were working. Not the bougie freeze-dried treats I special-ordered for her each week, nor the squeaky squirrel toy she’d disemboweled within hours of receiving on Christmas morning.

Mo wasn’t having any of it.

I lowered my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Honey, I know that you’re a diva. You crave the spotlight, and normally I’m more than willing to give it to you. But if you make me late, you’ll be sleeping on the couch for a week.”

Mo tilted her head, ears flopping, clearly weighing whether my threat held any real weight. We both knew it didn’t. If anybody was getting kicked out of our bed, it was going to be me.

“You’re right.” I sighed, leaning my forehead against hers. “I didn’t mean that. Tell you what, you let me get through this ridiculous photoshoot and then we can go to the park so you can frolic through the fountain. Happy?”

She licked my nose, then hopped down from the truck step like she’d been waiting for me to say the magic words all along. Those being “park” and “fountain.”

I should’ve known. Whereas most dogs were food motivated, my girl was water motivated. Mo spent more time in my pool than I did. That was probably my fault, though, for buying her doggy water wings . . . and her own pizza-shaped, inflatable raft.

Damn, if I was this bad with a ten-pound dachshund, what the hell would I be like with actual children?

Mo led me across the stadium parking lot, her head held high like she was leading a parade. Which, given the way the sun was beating down on us, felt a little excessive.

It was stupid hot, too hot for late June, but that was summer in Oregon for you. A week ago, it had been raining sideways. Today, it felt like we’d skipped spring entirely and gone straight to the surface of the sun.

And that was saying a lot, coming from a guy from Alabama.

Mo yipped again, this time at a discarded banana peel.

“Yeah, yeah, bananas are evil,” I muttered, scooping her up before we crossed the threshold into the building. “Don’t get your harness in a twist.”

She settled against my chest immediately, eyes half-closed in smug satisfaction.

The team entrance spit us out into the cool, echoing bowels of the stadium. Concrete floors, fluorescent lights, the faint aroma of popcorn and corndogs that never quite left the place.

Mm, smells like home.

Dani and Clarke had knocked it out of the fucking park—pun intended—when they’d suggested a line of Roasters-themed candles. What might’ve started as a half-baked idea during a rain delay had turned into an actual merch drop, and somehow, they were still selling like hotcakes. The team store couldn’t keep them in stock, and the online shop had a waitlist for half the options. Especially the ones inspired by the players.

That’s right. There’s a me-scented candle out there.

Thousands of them, in fact, and they all smelled like a mixture of sweet tea, sunscreen, and something warm and woodsy meant to evoke a “front-porch swing,” whatever the hell that meant.

On the one hand, it was flattering. On the other, it was weird as hell to think about somebody gifting their granny a Matty Miller-scented candle.

“Merry Christmas, Nana. Get a whiff of that sweaty porch swing.”