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I turned woodenly.
“What?” I asked the big man at my back.
“The two gang members were there because Thor thought it would be funny to see, and also cause a distraction long enough to get suspicion taken off him.” He paused. “He came into the ER, forced a nurse to tell him what was going on with Catori, and then left before the entire place was locked down.”
Lynn came to stand at my side. “How do you know this?”
“That would be me,” Hunt called from inside the house. “Come sit down so we can have this discussion not yelling it back and forth to each other.”
We walked into the house, and Six, Lynn’s wife, met us at the bar.
She surveyed me as I walked, and I wasn’t sure if it was because she was making sure that I was okay, or if it was, again, how much I looked like my father.
I chose to ignore both and focused once again on the tea that she was pouring.
“Can I have some?” I asked.
“Your dog is barking in the truck,” Wyett, Hunt’s wife, said as she came into the room, her arms loaded down with pizzas.
I glanced at her and said, “Let him. He’s mad at me because I left him in there. It’s a cool day. The windows are down. And his bitey ass forced me to take the truck today when I would’ve rather taken my bike.”
Wyett snorted as Six bumped me with her hip.
“Your cup is the red one there.” Six pointed at the cup. However, being color blind and unable to see most shades of red and green, I couldn’t tell the red cup from the green cups, meaning I had no clue which one she was talking about. And wouldn’t unless I asked her to clarify. Which I wouldn’t because none of them knew that I was color blind. That was a well-hidden secret that I would continue to keep hidden. “I added Splenda since you seem to like that better than real sugar.”
I grinned at her thoughtfulness.
The thing was, I didn’t prefer it over real sugar. I preferred it because it was what I knew.
When I was growing up, I wasn’t allowed to have sugar.
In fact, if I did have sugar, my foster father always seemed to know, and make me pay.
I couldn’t ‘waste his sugar’ and if I did ‘he’d waste my ass.’
Those were his words, not mine.
So, since I fuckin’ loved sweet tea, I used to steal sugar packets from gas stations to have in case I needed to add sugar to my drinks.
Something that I still did to this day.
“Can you bring it to me, Mom?” I teased.
Six snickered.
Lynn didn’t find it anywhere near as amusing.
But, technically, she was going to be my stepmom.
Though she was a few years younger than me, after finding out about Lynn and who he actually was to me, Six and I had been teasing each other about being stepson and stepmom to each other. It annoyed Lynn because I did it facetiously. Six did it because she liked to get under her man’s skin.
Whatever our reasoning, knowing that it bothered him made us keep doing it.
Lynn, ignoring our giggles and chuckling, leaned his ass against the counter and flattened me with a stare.
“What are we going to do about this guy on the loose?” Lynn asked the moment that he sat down.
I leaned back in my chair and sipped on the sweet tea that Six had poured me.
“I’m gonna find him, and then I’m going to feed the pigs,” I replied instantly.
CHAPTER 7
You know you’re an adult when you go to the grocery store and get mad because they rearranged the aisles.
-Catori’s secret thoughts
CATORI
Today was going home day.
Today was my day!
Today was also Adam and Amelia baby day.
Unfortunately.
Fortunately, she was at a solid two centimeters.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay in the hospital another second.
So I’d made a deal with her. When she was at nine centimeters, she’d FaceTime me, and I’d get to watch my brother pass out like the little bitch that he was—they were only allowing each other in the room for the first couple of hours anyway, so I wasn’t too sad about missing the birth.
Meaning, that unless I wanted to drive myself home, I was here to stay.
Which I didn’t.
I’d had enough of here.
Which was why I’d pulled out my phone when my nurse left to get me my discharge papers.
Catori: I’m being sprung in fifteen minutes. My SIL is having her baby. Parents splitting their time between me and them. Do you think you can come get me?
Laric replied almost instantly.
Laric: Ten minutes tops. At a red light on the way to you now. Five if I’m lucky.
Grinning like the complete loser I was, I hesitantly got up and walked to the bathroom, inspecting my appearance.
