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Spirit sees me from inside the house and sprints for me, a flash of white and fur. I squat to greet her, running my fingers along her spine.
“Hey, girl. Rowdy feeding you well?”
She licks my face.
Rowdy grunts at me through the window cutout. “She eats better than I do.”
“Because you deserve it,” I praise Spirit, grinning at her. “Unlike your stupid brother.”
“Mage is a good boy,” Rowdy says with a smirk.
“There’s nothing good about his rank ass.”
With another pat on Spirit’s head, I rise to my feet and then head inside. Ronan is hammering nails into a pine log, his back to me. I wish he’d talk to me and stop avoiding me. I’d give anything to be able to go up to him and hug him from behind.
Ryder is in the bathroom off the living room, on his back on the floor, cursing up a storm. Dad is standing over him, grunting as he assists. Surprisingly, the bathtub was salvaged from the fire, but from the looks of it, not hooking up properly to the new pipes.
“Need help?” I ask, peeking my head around the corner.
“Yeah,” Ryder grumbles, “toss a match on this stupid fucking house.”
“Not funny,” Dad says with an irritated grunt. “You’ve almost got it. Be patient.”
Something slides into place and then Ryder hollers, fist pumping the air. “Got you, you bitch.”
“Language around your sister,” Dad bites out.
Rolling my eyes, I walk over to Dad and give him a quick hug. “I just came to get Mom some more ginger. She’s puking again.”
Dad gets a dopey grin on his face, which tells me all I need to know. She’s definitely pregnant. I didn’t even know old people could keep making babies. Seems like their innards would rot over the years. Maybe that explains why Dakota is such a brat.
“When you guys finish up here, my cabin’s next,” I say to Dad, smiling prettily at him. “Sound good?”
Dad’s smile vanishes and he squats to help Ryder with another piece of the plumbing. “Nice try. You’ll have your old room with Destiny again.”
I grit my teeth and clomp off. I’ll have to work on Dad another day when he’s not grumpy from working on the house.
Rowdy is still working in the kitchen when I pass by him. I make my way to the pantry that we’ve already been using to store food. At the back of the pantry is the hatch that leads down to the root cellar that survived the fire. Before it got too cold, we were able to harvest a lot of the fruits and vegetables, most of which we’ve been keeping down here. There’s even a good supply of eggs and jerky. As soon as I lift the hatch, the sweet, peculiar scent of something makes my stomach turn.
Gross.
Did something die in here?
Bile creeps up my throat and I gag. Holding my breath, I scamper into the root cellar, locate a piece of ginger root, and bail as quickly as I can.
“Check for dead rats in there,” I tell Rowdy, pointing toward the pantry. “That’s disgusting.”
He scrunches his nose before sauntering over to the root cellar. I stand there, hip against the new kitchen counter he built, clutching my ginger while I wait for him to find the source. After about five minutes, he returns shrugging.
“I can’t smell anything. Must be your upper lip.”
I curl said lip up and deadpan, “Thanks for nothing.”
His chuckle warms me. Lately, Rowdy is more of the brother from before. Maybe Ryder is rubbing off on him. I hate to admit it, but it’s probably good for Rowdy to have someone staying with him so he’s not so alone.
When I finally make it back to Ronan’s cabin where my family has been squished in, I find Mom is no longer puking. She’s sorting laundry as if she wasn’t sick as a dog twenty minutes ago. Dakota and Declan are throwing a ball back and forth, narrowly missing the puke bucket. Honestly, I think Dakota is aiming for it.
Boys are gross.
