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Kyrin stood up and gently squeezed my hair with the towel. His face was pinched with frustration as he worked and it was impossible to not see that something was bothering him. The lines across his forehead were etched deep, even as he forced a smile when my hair was dry. “All done.”
I was a sucker because I couldn’t ignore his mood. I touched his arm and stared up at him, eyes protected from the sun by his hat. “Are you okay?”
His shoulders sagged and he pulled his hat off, revealing matted hair and even more dirt. “We lost a mare today.”
Knight blew out a harsh breath. “Shit. I’m sorry, Ky.”
I wrapped my arms around his waist and hugged him tight. “I’m sorry, too.”
He accepted my hug for less than five full seconds and then pulled away roughly, shoving his hat back on his head and turning towards the house. “I’ll be down for dinner.”
Knight stared after his twin with a deep frown on his face. He glanced over at me once before walking after his brother. I stood there, feeling rejected for no reason and pissed at myself for feeling that way.
17
***Knight***
Dinnerwastense.Kyrin was upset about losing the mare and Zander was stuck at work. I was worried about both my brothers and my mood transferred into anger at Jamie when he stared at Aggie for too long again. I didn’t want to show how petty I was being, so I just acted angry in general. By the time dinner was over, Gracie was cranky and refusing to talk to anyone. Aggie was quiet and picked at her food. It was an overall shitty experience. We couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Kyrin retreated to his rooms while Aggie and Gracie went up to get Gracie ready for bed. I stayed at the dinner table, considering how stabbing myself in the hand with my fork would be more fun than repeating the night.
A sense of loneliness crept in the way it did sometimes. The house was too big, our family nearly decimated. When we all lost ourselves in our own thing for too long, I started to understand just how small our family had become. It was just the four of us. There was no one else. We didn’t even have friends, really, just the people who worked for us.
Since Zella passed, we’d all retreated into ourselves more. We spent more time apart than ever. I knew we were each mourning our sister’s passing, but I wanted to lose my mind and tear the walls of the house down some nights. It was hard to sleep when the house was so quiet because it made me think of what it would be like one day, when the rest of us went. It was a depressing thought, but I wasn’t above them from time to time.
When I left the table, I went up to my room and took a shower before settling at my desk. There was always work I could do, but I didn’t want to do work. I wanted human interaction. I wanted more of the time I’d had in the pool with Aggie and Gracie.
Even though I knew it was wrong, I didn’t stop myself from pulling up the security system and clicking on the set of cameras in Gracie’s side of the house. I panned through each camera until I found Gracie and Aggie sitting on Gracie’s bed, reading a book. I turned on the sound and listened in.
“And then Princess Gracie kicked the frog’s butt and realized she didn’t need to kiss him because she wasn’t interested in a prince with frog breath at that moment in her life.”
Gracie giggled. “That’s not what it says, Aggie.”
Aggie pretended to strain to see the words on the page. “I don’t know. I’m pretty sure it does say that. Can you read already?”
“Yes!”
“Darn.” Aggie closed the book and put it away. “Of course, I find the smartest six-year-old ever to nanny.”
“Will you tell me a story about the place you moved to? After your mommy went to heaven?”
My stomach dropped and I sat up, torn between listening in to learn more about Aggie and giving her the privacy she deserved. Ultimately, I couldn’t force myself to walk away from a chance to hear her talk about herself.
“Sure.” Aggie wrapped her arms around herself. “So, I told you we moved to live close to my aunts, uncles, and what felt like hundreds of cousins. We lived on a farm, but it wasn’t a big farm. It was tiny. Dad and I started with three chickens that just wandered onto the farm one day and never left. We started selling eggs after a while. It was my job to go out and collect the eggs each morning.”
“Uncle Ky showed me the chickens here.”
Aggie grinned. “I bet Uncle Ky doesn’t have a chicken anywhere near as mean as the one we had. I called her Mean Gene. Want to know why?”
Gracie giggled. “Yeah.”
“I had an Uncle Gene. I thought he was such an old fart. He was always yelling at the kids to be quiet. When my dad heard what I’d named that chicken, he just laughed and laughed. Especially since the chickens were girls and I named her after a boy.” Aggie brushed Gracie’s hair out of her face and continued quietly. “Mean Gene would hide at the back of the chicken coop and wait for me to come gather the eggs. She was so quiet and sneaky. I never expected her to be there and she always was, waiting to peck my hands when I reached in to grab the eggs.”
“Why didn’t you stop getting the eggs?” Gracie yawned. “I wouldn’t have gone to get them.”
Aggie shrugged. “Sometimes, you have to do things that aren’t your favorite to get what you want. I wanted fresh eggs for breakfast and for Dad to not gripe at me. Eventually, I learned to wear oven mitts to gather the eggs. Mean Gene couldn’t get me after that and eventually she got bored of her game.”
“Where is she now?”
