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I snatched the letter out of Dash's hands and angrily crumpled it up in my fist. I threw the wadded up paper to the floor and stomped on it with my boot.
"When I have to go back there," I ground out between clenched teeth, "I’m kicking that fat man’s ass once and for all. I'm gonna kick all of their asses, then I'm gonna burn that stupid motel down to the ground."
The twins grunted as they came up on each side. One of them each grabbed an arm and they picked me up, hauling me away from the stupid letter crumpled up in a mess on the floor.
"You're not going anywhere," they said in unison, as they dragged me off between them toward the stairs that would lead me up to their joint bedroom.
"Get back here with my daughter," Rain yelled after us.
"Should we go with them?" I heard Simon ask his brother. "She usually gets into trouble with those two. They encourage it. She's only worse when she's with Tyson."
I threw my head back and laughed hysterically.
Holy shit.
Tyson Alexander was worse than the Salt and Pepper twins. Who would have ever thought it?
I laughed even harder, my entire body shaking with my hilarity. Both twins snorted in an attempt to cover up their laughter, but couldn't help it. Much like myself, they burst out laughing.
Abel let go of my arm and he leaned into me and wrapped his arm around the small of my back. His hand landed on my hip and he gave a gentle squeeze. Addison let go of my arm and wrapped his around my shoulders, pulling not only myself into the warmth of his big body, but his brother who was attached to me closer to me.
Trenton sighed, and the sound was so heavy and tired that it carried all the way across the room to where I stood between the twins. They'd stopped dragging me along after Simon had spoken and turned us around to face the rest of the guys.
"No," Trenton said sounding tired. "We don't need to follow them. What we need to do is find some way to chip her. You know, like how people do with their pets so they can find them when they're lost. We need to figure out how to do that with Ariel, so that we can go and retrieve her every time she wanders off willingly into the hands of danger."
"Excuse me?" I sputtered indignantly.
"That's not a bad idea," Rain quipped. "I wish we'd been able to do something like that when she was a baby. It would have made our lives a whole lot easier and filled with remarkably less pain."
My heart broke for my dad. Maybe a chip wasn't such a bad idea after all.
"I'm only getting chipped if everyone else does!" I shot back.
"Yeah," Rain grumbled under his breath. "That is definitely not going to work for me. I'm nobody’s goddamn pet."
"Well, neither am I!" I shouted back at him.
"The little guy could probably use one," Isobel commented, as she laid her hand on top of Baxter's head and ruffled his hair. The little boy jerked away from her as if her touch burned and quickly brushed his hand over his head, putting his hair back to rights. He glared at the woman and took a step away from her that put him closer to Rain.
Isobel stared down at Baxter with a look of such tenderness and sadness in her eyes that my heart ached for her. I didn't know what was going on between the two of them, but seeing that look on Isobel's face let me know that whatever it was pained her greatly. It also showed me just how much she cared for the orphaned boy. I knew she'd taken to Rain, but until that moment I hadn't known just how much she'd taken to the boy as well. It was easy to understand why she liked Rain so much, he was her rescuer and she had some type of weird hero worship thing going on with him.
Rain, on the other hand, seemed to avoid Isobel like she carried some kind of disease he'd catch simply just by being in the same room as her. I absolutely did not understand it, but I let them dance their stupid dance without interfering for fear of making it any worse on either of them.
"Stop treating me like I'm a baby." Baxter pouted adorably. "I don't know why I have to repeat myself and tell you this all the time, but you don't get it. Just stop."
He swiped his hand down his pant leg as if it had germs attached to it because she'd touched his hair and he had afterwards. I covered my mouth with my hand and giggled at the disgruntled little boy.
I looked around the room and couldn't help but smile happily at the occupants as I practically leaned on the twins with all my body weight. Neither of them minded, but instead pulled me in closer to their large bodies. Their heat enveloped me and I practically melted right there on the spot.
These people, all of these crazy people, they were my family through and through.
We'd grown larger over the past six months, gaining first Trenton and Simon, then Baxter, then Isobel, and now we had Romero. But before all of them, Rain had come to us, he'd come for me.
We weren't all wild and loving and happy and carefree. No, we were a whole lot of other things, but there was definitely love there under our skin.
As I looked around the room taking them all in, pride filled me up from the inside out. Every single one of them looked like they were willing to fight, bleed, and die for their family.
And I was right there with them because, in the end, it was only family and love that mattered.
