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“We can go back,” Charlie said, shrugging as she shut the Jeep’s door. “I got Gram’s quilts and you’re right—there’s not a lot for us to do.”
“Seriously?” I asked incredulously.
“I just wanted to make sure,” Charlie said, unrepentant. “But it seems they’ve got it under control.”
“Thanks for the confidence,” my dad replied in amusement.
“Anytime, Mack Truck,” Charlie said, happily giving my dad a quick hug.
“You two let me know when you get back to town, alright?” Dad said, ruffling Charlie’s hair.
“We will,” I replied, glaring at Charlie as I gave my dad a hug.
“Oh, stop,” she said, waving me off. “You know you didn’t want to come out here in the first place.”
“And I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t been so hell-bent on it,” I replied as my frustration boiled over. “And I hate this fucking smoke!”
My dad laughed.
“Tell me how you really feel,” Charlie said in mock sympathy.
“This shit’s gotta end at some point,” my dad said in real sympathy as he opened my door. “It won’t be long.”
“I should’ve hitched a ride to California with Cecilia’s family,” I said, hopping into the Jeep.
“I doubt that would’ve been any fun,” Charlie called out as she rounded the hood. “That’s a long ass time in the car with all her kids.”
“If it don’t get handled pretty quick, we’ll head out and spend time with your grandparents, alright?” my dad said, leaning in to kiss the side of my head. “Now go back to Callie’s and let me know when you get there. Drive careful.”
“I will,” I said as he closed my door.
“Sometimes, I feel the urge to throat punch you,” I said to Charlie as I turned around in the driveway. “Like, I wouldn’t actually do it—but I fantasize about it.”
“Sometimes, I fantasize about making you go out on the town with me and then holding you down and making you eat carbs and drink tequila,” Charlie replied, not looking at me. “But I haven’t done that either, so I guess we both deserve a gold star.”
We were silent for the rest of the ride back to my grandma’s house.
Chapter 6
Draco
“I recognize that look on your face,” my gramps Casper said as he strode toward me. “And I’m sure your brother deserves whatever ass whoopin’ you’re about to dish out, but put it on hold, would ya? I need ya to get the roof watered down.”
I stared at Curtis, who still hadn’t said a fucking word.
“Fine,” I said finally, turning toward Gramps. “Where should I start?”
I followed him around the side of the house, nodding as he handed me the hose and pointed at where I should start the process. Thankfully, he was pretty good about keeping gutters clean and shit, so we didn’t have to worry about any embers starting a fire that way. Still, though, if it made its way to the house, I wasn’t sure anything we did would stop it.
“Just do what you can, bud,” Gramps said, patting my back. “We’re fightin’ a losin’ battle here.”
“If you think that, then why are we even here?” I asked curiously as I pulled the trigger on the hose nozzle, making it spray twenty feet into the air.
“’Cause I couldn’t let your grandmother’s house burn without at least tryin’ to save it,” he said with a rueful smile. “Without knowin’ that I did what I could.”
“Alright,” I said.
“You’re a good boy,” he said softly, reaching up to cuff the side of my head lightly. “Mostly a man, now, I guess. Can’t really think of ya that way, no matter how hard I try.”
“Mom can’t either,” I joked as he started walking away.
He turned around to look at me and kept walking backward. “My gram lived with my woman and almost grown kids, and she still felt the need to remind me to shower after work,” he said, his eyebrows high on his forehead. “I don’t think mama’s ever see their kids as adults.” He laughed to himself. “And big sisters ain’t no better. Callie still reminds me to buy your gram her birthday gift, like I’d forget all these years later.” He shrugged, then spun and rounded the corner and strode out of sight.
Turning back toward the house, I focused on methodically wetting every single inch of roof I could see. Maybe, just maybe, it would be enough to keep embers from lighting the place up. Gramps was right—trying was better than not doing anything.
I tried to keep my thoughts on the house in front of me, but they strayed back over and over to Kara calling Curtis a self-righteous prick. It wasn’t so much the words she’d said as how she’d said them that set off warning bells in the back of my mind. He’d done something or said something, and I didn’t think it had been recent. The pain in Kara’s voice hadn’t been new and sharp. It was old and dull. A memory. Something she’d lived with for a while.
