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Chapter33
Conner
Micah looks down. “You think it’s big enough?”
Lita leans over and also looks down. “I think it’s plenty big enough. Conner?”
I stick my tool in the hole. “Bigger is always better.”
Scooping out another shovelful, I toss the dirt on the growing pile and narrowly miss clipping Micah, who shoots me a death glare.
“Try that again and it’ll be your head that gets buried in that hole instead of a tree.”
Funny. My cousin is a funny guy.
I grin at him and collect another round of dirt. “Seems like somebody missed his naptime today.”
He grunts and seizes my shovel. “Out of the way.”
With impressive strength and one-handed skill he spears the shovel into the ground and cuts away a big chunk of earth. The dirt gets slung over my head, landing in the rocks.
“Now it’s big enough,” Micah gloats and throws down the shovel.
“Showoff,” I mutter.
Lita laughs and picks up the orchid sapling we just bought at the tree farm a few miles away.
Haven said she needed to go to the club this morning and asked me to stay here with Lita. I didn’t like the idea, even though she insisted she just wanted to look in on the place, touch base with Andrei, and check the books while it’s quiet. Still, I hate letting my girl out of my sight and if that makes me a growling barbarian then I don’t care. But Haven is stubborn and I can’t exactly chain her to the bed post.
At least, I can’t do thatallof the time. We do enjoy our kinky fun when we’re alone.
She ordered me to quit grumbling, kissed me goodbye and promised to be home by noon. With the skies a deep cloudless blue and the heat of summer easing, I decided to plant a new tree in the front yard. I like trees. Plus I know it’ll please Haven when she finds out that her sister and I were teamed up for a wholesome task in her absence.
I check my watch. It’s half past ten. When I feel for the phone in my back pocket it’s gone. I find it lying in the rocks beside a sage bush, where it must have fallen out. Feeling not at all guilty for being a stalker, I check Haven’s whereabouts on a tracking app called Here I Am. The app was her idea so it’s not like I’m being shady. She suggested using it when I kept griping about her excursions to her old neighborhood. Now I’ll always know where she is. And she’ll always know where I am. No secrets between us.
I breathe a little easier when I see that her location shows up at Back Door. The thought of her being on the east side for any length of time doesn’t sit well with me. I should have insisted on tagging along. I’m tempted to abandon the tree planting, leave Lita with Micah and drive down there anyway. If she gets annoyed I’ll have fun reminding her how loveable I am.
“She’ll love this.” Lita touches the petals of the blooming light purple orchids on the tree.
Micah evaluates the hole again. “We ought to loosen some of the soil in here so the roots don’t get stuck when they expand.”
“The tree king has spoken.” Leaving the phone in an empty bird bath, I follow his advice and stab the dirt repeatedly with the point of the shovel. I’m accidentally-on-purpose careless when flinging the dirt and some of the shit lands on the toes of Micah’s shoes.
“You fucker,” he swears and shakes the dirt off.
“Sorry.”
He knows I’m not sorry. This is how we are. We’ll never change.
With Tess and the baby off visiting Dani in West Emerald today, Micah was home alone, working on his graphic design business, when he spotted us from the window of his office. He decided to barrel across the street and give us an education on how to plant trees. I doubt the fool has planted a single tree in his life but it’s always amusing to have him around because then I get the chance to piss him off.
I lift the tree up by the trunk and Lita pulls the plastic pot away. Once the thing is centered in the hole, Micah reclaims the shovel and starts piling dirt in there. He plays a tit-for-tat game and drops dirt on my shoes but manages to spray some dirt on Lita too and then he has to apologize to her.
“You guys.” She sighs but also smiles. “You’re almost as bad as Haven and I used to be.”
“Is that right?” I’m always eager to hear Haven stories.
She nods. “We kicked down doors. Broke furniture. Threw utensils.” Lita sets the plastic pot down and steps away with a pained expression, staring down the street. “Now I wish we hadn’t fought so often and so brutally. I think maybe the lost years would have been easier for her if we’d gotten along better. Haven blames herself, even now. I wish she didn’t. Our endless war on each other was my fault too.”
