Barber groaned. “You need to come in for a cut.”
“Buzz off.” Errol swatted in his direction like he was a fly.
“Wait!” Ren raised his hand. “I want to change mine.”
“Hey!” Barber leaned forward to glare at him.
Everyone started talking at once, and I chuckled, leaning back in my chair. The last of my bad mood was burned away by the glow of the fire. Yeah, what happened today sucked, but what I had right here was pretty damned good.
“They all have fireworks!” Errol shot to his feet and bounced on his toes. “There you go!”
Everyone groaned.
“Cheater,” Sophie called.
“Go to hell, Uncle Errol,” Barber called.
Errol pulled three small black controls out of his pockets, and they were a lot smaller than the last ones he’d used when I was here.
Quain leaned forward with interest. “You got new toys.”
“Yep! Now, you all get to arm wrestle, you shits.” He chuckled.
I grinned as Barber, Ren, and KC all eyed each other up. “I’ll be on fire extinguisher duty.”
“No, you had a bad day. You get to blow shit up,” Barber said, giving me a hard look that made me feel seen, even though he’d said it in a joking tone. He hopped up and came over to ruffle my curls, and instead of swatting him away, I enjoyed every second of it.
Maybe my real dad fucking sucked, but Barber had stepped in and done all he could to help me out when I was floundering as a teenager.AndI was here with the rest of his family. I’d never once questioned whether or not he thought I was good enough to be his friend or whatever the hell I happened to be to him.
This was good.
This wasreal.
When I opened my eyes, I had all three detonators sitting in my lap. It was so stupid to get emotional over this, but tears made my vision watery. “Really, Ren’s never blown anything up. We should let him have a shot.”
Ren snorted. “Says who? Let’s go!”
“Actually, I do want to see Ren and KC arm wrestle. It would make me feel a lot better.” I stuck my tongue out at him.
Quain chuckled. “KC will kill him. No contest.”
“Well, I wouldn’t count Ren out.” Barber huffed in his boyfriend’s direction.
All I could do was grin as I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand.
8
KC
The meat I’d eaten was a rock in my stomach, causing my insides to churn with nausea. I kept the food down, but there was a close call where it crept back up my throat and I had to swallow again. With Ren bending down to rest his elbow on the table in front of us, I had something different to focus on. We’d returned to the picnic table, giving us a solid surface to have serious arm wrestling.
The excitement in Ren’s eyes made me feel all warm and gooey. He’d been so nervous about coming to Errol’s house, twitching in the front seat of my Jeep the entire way, but now that he was having fun, the tension in his muscles had melted away. Even with Pa eyeing him with suspicion, he took the night in stride.
Out of my boyfriends, Oli was the one I was most concerned about. He’d been avoiding the topic of his dad, and I didn’t blame him. From what Ren had said, it’d been far from a pleasant encounter. Like Ren, I was used to disappointing parents. My biological mother left me to fend for myself and I’dresorted to pickpocketing. If Pa hadn’t caught me and adopted me, I would still be out there fighting to survive—or worse.
But if making Oli happy meant arm wrestling with Ren, then who was I to say no? Plus, there was something extra hot about any kind of wrestling when it came to one of my boyfriends.
“Are you ready to get your ass whooped?” I grinned widely at Ren as I settled on the seat and rested my elbow on the table. I gripped his hand, which was a bit bigger than mine. He had long, thick fingers that I’d seen do very sexy things, such as stretch me or Oli open.