“Great, now that I have my son back will you come help me?”
Ethan groans, “Fine.”
“I’ll go find Lily, but we don’t have any plans,” I tell their mom.
“That’s okay. If you want to stay for dinner, you’re more than welcome to.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Ethan follows his mom upstairs while I turn off the game and can hear Lily’s voice in my mind giving me shit about calling her mom “ma’am” like she used to.
“Ma’am,” Lily mocks as soon as her mom is out of the room.
“I’m respectful, unlike someone else I know.” I give her a pointed look.
“I’m very respectful to your mom.”
“You walked into my house and yelled, ‘I’m here bitches, bow down before me.’”
“In my defense, I didn’t think she would beright there. That was just for you.”
“You also said ‘word brochacho’ to her once.”
“I was testing it out, definitely not for me.”
I chuckle; fuck, I love her.
Jerry Lee greets me as he always does once again when I walk past him on my way to go find Lily. I really enjoy that he learned to say, “asshole Aaron.” I enjoy it even more that he hasn’t said it recently.
When I walk toward the barn I look around to see if Lily is still out riding, but don’t see or hear her. I do find her in the barn; she has Boone back in her stall, feeding her treats and petting her neck.
I lean against the open stall door, crossing my arms and just watch her. Her hair is back into a ponytail, exposing the soft skin of her neck and the sensitive spot there I know makes her melt if I kiss it.
She doesn’t even turn around before speaking. “I can feel you staring at me.”
“Yeah, because I like what I see.”
Lily turns around with an amused grin. “Oh do you? The dirt really doing it for you?”
I shake my head. “No, that’s all you.”
She walks forward, nudging me out of the way so she can exit the stall, sliding the door closed behind her while I don’t dare look away.
“You’re freaking me out. What’re you doing? Where’s my brother?” She strides over to the small bench that’s in here and starts to kick her boots off. I get there before she’s able to, and kneel onto the concrete, gripping her boots like I used to.
“Remember how sore your feet would be when you got new boots?” I ask.
“Ugh, the blisters were awful,” she complains.
“You insisted on pushing through, every time, though.”
“Yeah, my mom didn’t raise a quitter.”
“She sure didn’t,” I agree.
Lily wiggles her foot around. “Are you going to help me or just stay there?”
“I’m just enjoying the view. Especially since we were interrupted.”