I hated everyone and everything.
My father had died, and my mother had spiraled into a depression so deep that she’d forgotten that she had children—five of them, in fact.
The eldest was Searcy. Then there was Koda, who was in the military and succeeding his ass off. Koda was followed by me. I was followed by Kent, who was a boy genius and kicking ass at anything he did in life. The baby was Anders, our most perfect baby sister.
Our perfect baby sister that was currently in Washington DC with her school visiting the freakin’ White House as a reward for being so smart.
Kent walked up to Posy and started talking.
Posy nodded, and the two of them loaded Kent’s bike into the back of my truck.
My truck.
I’d just finished paying it off yesterday, actually.
Now, only twenty years to go on my mortgage.
The baby in my arms burped, and I looked down at the sweetest little five-week-old in the world.
“You’re just so cute,” I said to the youngest Hicks boy. “Too bad you weren’t a girl.”
“Amen,” Searcy walked past me into the house. “Be right back. I have to see what the kids are destroying.”
She disappeared long enough that Posy came up the length of his walk and stopped in front of me.
He looked down at me holding his kid and said, “You think you could hold down the fort for like, five minutes?”
I knew what he was asking.
“Five minutes? That’s all you have in you, Doc?”
Doc was Posy’s road name with the Truth Tellers MC. The names were interchangeable for him, and he answered to both.
He also knew what I was insinuating and flipped me off.
I got up and walked into the kitchen to find Searcy being carted off over Posy’s shoulder with a laugh on her face.
I eyed the two little boys, but focused on the one holding the empty bag of powdered donuts. “Hey, what the fuck, kid?”
He hid the bag behind his back.
“I’ll remember this,” I said. “Let’s go get dressed.”
Both boys followed me, and we pretended not to hear the sounds that their parents were making as we continued into the kids’ room at the back of the hallway.
“What are you wearing today, Pane?”
He walked to the closet and eyed his selection.
Cassidy came back with pajamas, and I went with it.
Laying the baby on the floor, who woke up almost immediately to start looking around, I got Cassidy dressed in Easter footed pajamas that used to be Pane’s. Once he had those on, I grabbed a sweatshirt and tugged it over his head.
“Find some shoes, kid.”
He did, coming back with some rain boots.
I helped him get those on, too, before helping Pane with his jeans and Carhartt sweatshirt.
