1
TATE
“Tate. Tate,”Hazel says, her voice nearly a screech as she barrels through the front door of the shop. If this were a cartoon, she’d have smoke billowing out from her shoes as she comes to a stop. “Guess what?”
I round the reception desk as Maddy walks in with less enthusiasm, which is usually the case. Teenage malaise…it’s something. “What?” I ask as I kneel in front of Hazel.
“We’re going to camp,” she whispers as her body shakes from excitement.
“You are?” I ask with my eyebrows raised.
Hazel nods as she bites down on her lip.
“It’s bullshit,” Maddy mumbles behind her younger sister.
My eyebrows don’t come down as I look around Hazel to where Maddy is standing. “Why don’t you tell me how you really feel?”
Maddy’s arms are crossed, and the look on her face is like she’s eaten the sourest candy on the planet. “I don’t want to spend two months in the woods. I hate nature,” she mutters through gritted teeth.
“I’m sure it’s not that bad.”
“They have canoes,” Hazel says, touching my shoulders. “I don’t know what they are, but they have them.”
“It’s a long boat that you row,” I explain to her as I tap her cute little button nose. “I love canoeing.”
“Sounds horrendous,” Maddy adds as her face somehow becomes even more sour. “It’s in Indiana. Who the heck wants to go to Indiana for the summer?”
I hold back my laughter at her dramatics. “Indiana is beautiful.”
“I want to spend the summer here with my friends.”
My heart aches a little for Maddox. I know how important time with friends is at her age, but I try to keep in mind that she’s going to have the summer of her life at camp. “I went to camp when I was around your age. It was my best summer ever.”
I was a little older than Maddy is now when I went, but I made amazing memories and friendships that still go on to this day.
“It’ll be my worst.”
Wylder walks into the shop with a box from Tilly’s bakery across the street. “I got everyone’s favorites,” he says, holding up a cup of coffee in his other hand, which instantly puts a smile on my face.
I push myself up from the floor, touching the top of Hazel’s head as I walk around her to get to my coffee and Wylder. “Thank you,” I whisper to him as I take the cup from his hand.
“You can’t buy me off with a cupcake anymore, Dad. I’m not a little kid,” Maddox grumbles.
Wylder’s forced smile tightens at his daughter’s displeasure, but that’s not anything new. The girl likes nothing, and her favorite pastime is complaining. “Fucking impossible,” he mutters as he squeezes his eyes shut.
“Did you get me a chocolate banana?” Hazel asks, oblivious to the drama unfolding around her. “It’ll be a long time before Ican have another one.” She takes the box from Wylder’s hands before he recovers from Maddox’s attitude.
“It’ll be okay,” I whisper to him. “It’s a phase, and it’ll pass.”
“When?” he whispers back.
“A decade,” I say and instantly bite my lips to stop the laughter from bubbling out of me.
“Fuck,” he groans.
“That’s two dollars, Daddy,” Hazel says as she peels away the paper wrapper from around the banana cupcake, which is also one of my favorites. “And Maddy owes one.”
Wylder’s eyes slice to Maddy as she stares at the floor, suddenly finding something interesting.
