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Thankfully, it was frigid, the AC pumping full blast. It chilled her overheated skin, producing a different set of goosebumps all over her body. Her nipples pebbled under her bathing suit top and her hands shook from the cold the longer she was in the kitchen, trying to scrounge up something that passed for a snack the kids would actually want to eat. She doubted cabbage and broccoli, or a protein shake were high up on their list of ideal snacks.
She was so cold by the time she’d assembled a few peanut butter sandwiches and grabbed some orange juice, that her fingernails were purple and her teeth were chattering, but the cold still hadn’t managed to penetrate or shut off the heat buzzing through her veins.
CHAPTER 8
Curtis
The rest of the day went something along the lines of just about everything in the house getting broken. By the time evening rolled around and the mini monsters had their second macaroni dinner, Curtis thought the breakage was pretty much done. He didn’t actually think there was anything in the house left to break. Of course, Noel proved him wrong.
Lexi had gone down the hall to use the bathroom for like, all of two seconds when Noel’s screams brought him racing into the living room. It sounded like someone was murdering the kid. He wasn’t attached to them by any means, but he knew his sister would be beyond devastated… okay, who was he shitting? He didn’t want anything to happen on his watch, and not just because it would make him look like a terrible human being but maybe because the little whiner and the little poop machine were growing on him. Just a tiny bit. Like a hair.
Curtis pulled up short when he saw what the shrieks were about. Noel stood there in the middle of the room, a huge discarded marble- who the hell gave kids marbles the size of their heads anyway- sitting a few short feet away. Noel was sobbing, screaming, and staring at the flat screen TV up on the wall. The thing was huge. It also happened to have a marble sized smash in the middle of it.
“What the ever-living hell?” Curtis roared as soon as he saw the damage. The TV screen was black, but shades of red and green bled out from the damaged area. It didn’t matter that he had enough money to buy a ton of those TVs. It was the fact that the brat had just thrown a marble into the center of it and ruined it.
“I- I- I- I’m s- so- sorry,” Noel hiccupped and wailed. She balled her hands into tiny fists and bunched them into her eyes. Her face was scarlet. Austin was nowhere to be found.
Lexi rushed into the room, panting. She scooped up Noel like he was a lion on the prowl, about to devour her as his next meal.
“Language!” Lexi shouted right in his face. “And why you are cursing at her anyway?”
Curtis pointed a silent finger in the direction of the TV. Lexi let out an even louder gasp. Her face turned just about as red as Noel’s. Still. She shook her head at him.
“Where is the other one?” Curtis seethed. “Smearing poop on the wall again? I thought I was paying you to watch them.”
“I am watching them,” Lexi huffed. “And correction. You’re paying me to help you watch them. Sue me for having to pee. Austin was right outside the door. I left it open a crack just so I could keep an eye on him, I’ll have you know. I left him there and came running because it sounded like Noel was in real danger.”
Lexi took off, a sobbing Noel nestled in her arms, but not before she gave him a murderous, disgusted look that told him she basically thought that he failed as a human being on every single count.
Curtis trailed after her, his eyes burning daggers into her back that she obviously didn’t feel since it didn’t stop her or slow her down. Of course, she was on her way to pick up Austin. He finally realized that was the reason she took off. Because she couldn’t leave a two-year-old unattended in the middle of a hallway.
When she scooped him up too, taking both kids in her arms and stomping back down the hall to head upstairs to their room, he ate up the floor after her and barged into the spare room a few seconds after she did. She set the kids down on the bed like they hadn’t done anything wrong. Like he was the crazy one for being angry about the lack of respect and common sense that his niece so clearly displayed.
Luckily, she seated them both on the bed facing him so that he could point a raging finger in his niece’s still scarlet, tear-stained, puffy face. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her cheeks swollen, her little lips trembling with fear and sorrow. Fresh tears welled up and trailed down her face, but hell no, he wasn’t moved by those. Didn’t his sister punish her brats or did she just let them get away with fucking murder?
