Page 12 of Claim Me

“Who’s Hunter?” Chef asks from the doorway.

“My woman,” Tack tells the girl. “We’re talking about gross man stuff. Best run off before you’re scarred for life.”

Chef glances back at someone. I assume Vanilla is trying to talk her into fleeing. He isn’t curious about drama like his sister.

Once she disappears back down the hallway, I frown at Bear. “Don’t talk about nasty shit around those kids.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he asks with complete sincerity. “They spend time around Caveman and Dot. Nothing I say will faze them.”

“Whatever,” I mumble and wish I could hide in the bathroom again. “Just go away and don’t come back unless you have my dogs.”

“How about Bear stands outside alone while you and I talk?” Tack offers and gestures for Bear to leave. “We’ve gotten down to brass tacks before. We can hash this shit out so you can come home.”

Bear narrows his eyes and growls, “Why am I not involved in this?”

“You moved away from the farm,” Tack says dismissively. “You abandoned your family. We don’t trust you anymore.”

Bear nearly looks upset before catching on to Tack’s bullshit. We were always tight, along with Sync, Pork Chop, and Golden. I miss when we all lived on the farm together. Sync left first. Then, Bear bought his big house, even though he lived alone. Now, Tack lives in a Tim Burton monstrosity. I’ve sometimes tried to imagine myself living in their neighborhood with Siobhan. I like her house since it feels like the kind of place my brother got to live in once he was adopted.

“I did everything wrong with Siobhan,” I admit when Tack and Bear start frowning at each other just to fill the time. “I was going to ask her out like you said I should, but I got all messed up in the head and did everything wrong. She’s never going to forgive me. I need to stay away from the farm, so she can visit her family without feeling weird. That’s the end of it. No more talking.”

“Fair enough,” Bear says.

Tack shakes his head. “No way. Hunter said she thinks Siobhan and you have a shot.”

“Wait, so your woman knows, but mine doesn’t?” Bear demands.

“Maybe Natasha knows but didn’t tell you, Tack suggests. “How close are you two? Do you and Natasha talk often?”

Bear narrows his blue eyes again while Tack’s gaze turns amused. I watch them and wonder why they aren’t angry at me.

The men glance in my direction at the same time. I frown at them, wishing they would leave. I liked feeling distracted yesterday. I barely thought of Siobhan at all.

“You have one week,” Bear says.

“No.”

“Fine, two weeks, and then you have to get over this shit.”

“No.”

“You aren’t a little kid,” my road captain insists. “You can’t just say ‘no.’”

“Are you sure because I just fucking said ‘no,’ and I meant ‘no,’ and I’m sticking to ‘no.’”

“Dumbass motherfucker.”

“Ooh,” Chef says from the doorway. “You have an angry leprechaun in your mouth.”

I smirk at Caveman’s excuse for cussing so much. He used to tell us all the time, “I want to speak to you little shits like a Sunday school teacher, but the angry leprechaun in my mouth overrides my genteel intentions.”

“Why are you spying on us, kid?” Bear asks, sounding growly and intimidating.

Chef loses her smile before looking to me for reassurance.

“He growls like a grizzly, but he’s a teddy bear inside,” I say, winning a smile from Chef.

Vanilla appears next to his sister. “We’re supposed to cook for you.”

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