AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Over to the pool.”
“By yourself?”
“No, Evan and Theo are there.”
Holly stands up and stares at her. “Who? You’ve already met boys here?”
“I met them when I went to get our mailbox key. They asked me to go to the pool.”
“How old are they?”
Fern shrugs and rolls her eyes. “I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”
“Theo just turned thirteen,” I volunteer. “And I think Evan’s fifteen.”
“The pool is right across the street. You can see me through the window,” Fern huffs.
“Fine. Be careful and have fun.”
The door has barely closed behind her when Holly turns to me. “Should I be worried?”
“About teenage boys? Absolutely. But you’d better get used to it.” She throws a dishtowel at me, and I dodge it.
“I’m glad I work with preschoolers,” Lila pipes up as she hangs curtains in the nearby living room. “I didn’t know how to talk to teenagers when I was a teenager.”
Lila and Holly have hit it off and have been hanging out lately. I’m happy that they’ll be neighbors now that Lila doesn’t have Cara here and I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be staying. If I get Pop’s house back, we’ll be moving by autumn.
“At least the pool is functional now and not a place for all of them to smoke weed,” Cara adds.
“I’m just going to lock her in the laundry room,” Holly sighs, peeking out the window. “Lila, there’s a big box on your porch. Are you waiting for a delivery?”
Lila climbs off her step stool. “No, I’m not expecting anything.” She runs next door to check. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” she shouts.
Cara, Holly and I glance at each other, then rush out to see what’s going on. The sound of whining and little yelps reach my ears before I can see into the box.
“Puppies!” Cara cries. “Oh my god, look how cute!”
Lila snatches a note from the side of the box, reads it, then snorts out a laugh. “Glad you think so because they’re all yours. They mixed up my trailer with Row’s and didn’t know you’ve moved.”
“What?”
She hands Cara the sheet of paper, and I read it aloud over her shoulder. “Congratulations! It’s a boy! And another boy! And six girls. Your dog kept jumping over my fence and knocked up my chocolate lab. See evidence below. You get custody. Consider the bag of stuff child support.”
Lila bursts out laughing, leaning to reach into the box. “The pictures were a nice touch.”
At the bottom of the paper is a picture of Twist humping a brown labrador and another of him sitting beside the same dog with his big doggy smile.
“He even smiled for the camera,” I point out, kneeling beside Lila. Eight wriggling, hyper puppies clamber over one another to get our attention. They range in color from yellow to dark brown. They’re adorable. One that could be Twist’s clone dives on my hand when I go to pet him, and I pull him out to play.
“It doesn’t say who it’s from,” Cara complains, turning the page over to see that it’s blank on the back.
“Well, you know it’s someone weird enough to take a picture of dogs mating.” Really, who does that?
“Oh my god, what am I going to do with eight puppies! Twist is wild enough.” Cara takes out her phone and taps the screen. “Monroe! Get your ass down here to Lila’s and see what Twist has done.”
“Twist? He’s at home!” Row says through the speaker.
“Congrats, you’re a grandpa!” Lila calls out.
