“Is now a bad time to tell you that I’m going to live with you for a while?” She snickered.
I looped an arm around her shoulders before saying, “How about, if they’re amenable with it, you take over Birdie’s lease?”
“Perfect,” she said. “As long as it’s not a shithole. I don’t do anything less than excellent accommodations anymore. Been there, have the t-shirt, don’t wear it.”
I chuckled. “Birdie’s old place is nice…now. The club bought the place from Reyelle, the local coffee shop owner. We fixed it up after everything that went down. Small, but nice. And even better, I have a couple of club members that live on the street. Plus, it’s right in the middle of town.”
“Perfect.” She bumped me with her hip again. “Seeing as my job is right smack dab in the middle of town.”
“You already have a job?”
“I do.” She paused. “For now. I’m going to be working at the General Store. I saw the help wanted sign when I was here puttering around town. They needed help, and I needed a temporary job.”
“Are you going to go back into work as a nurse practitioner?”
“No,” she sighed. “I wouldn’t mind, but when I said I’d drop off the side of the planet, I meant it. I can’t very well register as a NP in Montana unless you want them to have a paper trail. Your friend set me up with a new Social Security number, but I’m not sure how that’ll work with the state licensing board and all that fun stuff.”
“I’ll talk to Apollo,” I said. “I’ll see what we can do.”
“I know I already said it, but I missed the hell out of you, Bubba.”
I groaned at the old nickname. “Damn, that one hasn’t been used since I was fifteen and begged you to stop.”
“I know.” She pulled away to stare up into my face. “But I figure if I can’t call you what I want to call you, I’ll call you the second best.”
The door to the house opened behind us, and I turned to find Hux yawning loudly. “Your girl’s up and acting like she’s about to cook us all breakfast. I told her not to worry about it, but she’s insistent.”
I squeezed Bernice hard enough to cause a wheeze to squeak out of her, as well as expel every bit of air she had.
When I let her go, she inhaled swiftly, then punched me in the gut not all that softly before saying, “Go make us some breakfast, big brother.”
I did just that, but only after I collected the kiss from the woman who’d stolen my heart.
Twenty-Nine
If I ever get rabies, you’re high on my biting list.
—Birdee to Creed
Birdee
One month later
My dad was in prison. Grace was in prison. Cody was dead. My mom was dead.
And Mable and Bernice were now so far entrenched with Charleigh and I that it was like she’d always been there. Even Shade was hanging out with us, and he and Mable hadn’t fought once.
It was…weird.
A good weird, but weird all the same.
“No, but seriously. Why don’t you just start your own business?” Shade asked. “You could literally be feeding everyone. You could start a meal prep business. Cook everyone food to take to lunch every day. I’d buy. I suck at cooking. Like really suck. If I had somewhere where I could buy food for myself that wasn’t fast food or takeout, I’d feel a lot better about myself.”
Mable’s eyes were contemplative. “Cody always said that, too. I don’t know. I just feel like maybe if I started cooking for work, it’d be just that. Now, it’s fun.”
“You’re technically already cooking for work,” Bernice pointed out. “You cook for everyone at your job. You’ve been doing it for years, from what I understand. Why not just quit the job and do what you want for a bit? See how it goes?”
Before Mable could answer, the black truck with ‘MONTANA GAME WARDEN’ pulled up to the curb outside of Reyelle’s coffee shop where we’d been sitting in for the last hour.
