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“He looks friendly,” she says.
“He’snotfriendly.”I start the car, and then Johnny gasps.“What?”
“I forgot my poster.”
I close my eyes and count to ten, then drive back to the house and run in for Johnny’s project before returning to the car to take them to school.
“You won’t be in the barn for the rest of the month,” I inform Holly.“You’re grounded from it.”
“But, the babies!”
“You should have thought of that before you broke the rules.And you don’t get to go to Kayla’s birthday party on Saturday.”
“But we already bought a present!”
“That’s the consequence, baby girl.”
Holly sniffles in the back seat.“I’m really sorry, Daddy.I didn’t know any better.”
But rather than fall for that old trick, I laugh.“Oh, yeah, you did.You’re just stubborn, and you made a potentially dangerous choice today, so you’ll have to pay the price for that.I’m not kidding when I say I don’t want you walking around alone.”
“I’m not a baby!”
“Yes, you are,” I shoot back.“You’remybaby, and you’ll do as I say for as long as you live in my house.”
“I want to move in with Grandma.”
I snicker and shake my head, not willing to participate in this conversation any longer.
Damn it, maybe my dad’s right.I need some help.
ChapterThree
Erin
“What are you doing right now?”
I sigh and lie back on my couch, exhausted but happy to hear from my sister.“I just got home from work, and I’m dead on my feet.It’s spring break here, and we’re full of tourists.”
“Interesting.”My baby sister, Zoey, who’s actually less than two years younger than me but I always call her the baby, called to chat.Because she misses me.Of course, just when we were starting to get along better after a childhood of being at each other’s throats, I moved away.“So, you feel a big difference there during tourist season?”
“Yeah, a lot, actually.And I’ve noticed that when people vacation, they kind of lose their minds.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re stupid.They ask really stupid questions that, when they’re at home, I’m sure they would never ask.Like, ‘Do you wear bear spray to repel the bears?’or ‘Where do you keep your horses?’It’s so weird.”
“Now I want to come hang out there and listen.”
“You should.Spend one day in the coffee shop, and you’ll get an ear full.Anyway, enough of that.How areyou?”
“I’m fine.I went shopping with Haley and Chelsea yesterday, and we all ended up at a tattoo parlor, and the next thing we knew, we had matching tattoos.”
I pull my phone away from my face and frown at it.“Seriously?”
“Yeah, they’re really pretty.I’m surprised you didn’t see our posts on the ‘gram about it.”
“YouknowI don’t do social media.Definitely not after what happened when I was in college.”This makes me feel left out and like I’m missingeverythingback home.
