Maeve cut her own slice of cake then took the rain jacket off my laptop.
“See?” she said. “You just needed a snack to get your blood sugar up.”
“There’s nothing cake can’t solve!” I toasted her with my fork.
“There’s tons of assistant jobs posted on the temp-agency forums,” she assured me. “You’re going to get something for sure.”
I nodded as I boiled water for tea.
“Totally. It’s going to be way better than working with Beck.”
“Wear something cute,” she instructed.
“I’ll decide on my outfit in the morning,” I said, stuffing the last bite of cake in my mouth.
“You definitely need to do it tonight,” Maeve said, pointing at her laptop. “The website says that you have to be at the temp office by six in the morning, or you won’t get a job position that day.”
“Fuck my life.”
7
Beck
The girls were running around Greg’s condo, screaming loudly and off-key to the lyrics to “New York, New York.” They were hyped-up on cookies, the coffee they had stolen, and the fact that they were in a new place.
“They’re intense,” Mike said to me. He still seemed a little shell-shocked. I felt the same. After years of praying and worrying and hoping, my sisters were here. Well, most of them.
I had ordered a catered dinner, and the delivery people were setting the food on the long kitchen island in Greg’s barely used kitchen. One of the toddlers was climbing up the bookcase.
My older brother pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Enola,” I said to the eldest girl, “could you please try and calm them down? Maybe put on a movie or something?”
She nodded and went after them.
Beside me, I could feel Greg’s displeasure.
“It can’t be that bad, right? They’re girls,” I said. “Hunter manages with three times this many boys at the estate house in Harrogate.”
“Hmm.” Greg made a noncommittal noise.
I wondered how he would do with all the girls. Hunter was in charge of all the boys who my father would send to Harrogate when he deemed them too old or too obnoxious. Hunter ruled them with an iron fist. He didn’t let anything slide.
“Greg is being awfully calm about the whole situation,” Walker whispered to me.
Greg was being uncharacteristically calm. It was unnerving. Maybe he was in shock from the arrival of the girls and the insane amount of energy they had brought with them.
I couldn’t help but think that Hunter wouldn’t let the girls act like hoodlums. But then what did I care? I was glad they were finally rescued, but I was also glad I wasn’t going to be the one responsible for them.
“Girls, are you all hungry? You want dinner?”
They ignored me.
“Girls,” Greg barked.
They stopped shrieking, and Enola herded them to the buffet line.
“Get some salad,” I told them as they jostled around the serving platters.
