Page 69 of Totally Fanatic

“Look, how about I take it home with me for now? It can stay hitched to my car for one night, but I have to go into the office in a couple of days, so we need to sort something out. Maybe talk to Tim, tell him what you picked up. He might have a friend with a backyard it can go in or a storage shed or something.”

“Thanks, sis. Hey, can you take my photo with it? If I can’t take it to Tim’s now, I’ll show him the photo of what I scored.”

She snaps a few photos of me in front of the smoker with my phone, then gets this look in her eye like she used to get when we were kids. It normally meant I was about to either have the best time of my life or run away scared.

“You know what would look really fun?” she asks.

“What?”

“If you climbed on the thing, you know, like it’s a bull and you’re a cowboy riding it.”

“It’s a smoker.”

“Come on, it will be fun. I’ll tell you what. If you don’t like the photo, you can delete it.”

I again check the trailer is locked onto her car so that I won’t cause the thing to start rolling back and climb up onto the smoker. I know better than to argue with Mouse, she usually finds a way to get exactly what she wants.

“Perfect, now put one hand on the thing like you are holding the reins and raise the other arm in the air like you’re swinging a cowboy hat.”

I have to admit, this is pretty fun. “Yee Haw,” I say, and she laughs, clicking away.

“Okay, climb down, cowboy. I think we got it.”

I jump to the ground and check them out.

They do look pretty good, except she deleted the shots of me standing in front of it, so either way these are what I will need to show Tim.

“Thanks, Mouse. I’ll message as soon as I know what to do with it.”

“No worries. Chat soon,” she says, jumping up to kiss my cheek. “Love you.”

“Love you more.”

***

I change the sheets on my bed while I wait for Tim to get here. The cats have been in my bed the last few nights without me and have had a good time covering it in their fur. Before I head back to the living room, I grab out the treasure box and set it on the end of the bed.

Hopefully, this smoker will get Tim focused on something exciting and he can stop stressing about what other people are saying about us online. I hardly ever went into my direct messages before this drama started, but the comments were always a place where I could spread good vibes, share awesome fun facts about Tim and the game. Now, it’s become something else. Enzo told me to not click them, and I stopped right away.

I send Mary Beth the photo’s Mouse took of me and the smoker, and she calls me a minute later.

“Oh, my stars, that is hilarious,” she says by way of greeting when I answer the call. “You’re like a kid on vacation climbing everything he sees for a photo.”

“It was Mouse’s idea.”

“I’m sure it was, but you don’t exactly look like she had to twist your arm too far to get you up there.”

“Hey, you’ve heard all the stories, you know there is no point arguing with her. She always gets what she wants one way or another.”

“I’d love to have that superpower.”

“Me, too.”

“So, how’d you score the smoker?”

“The old lady I helped today was just going to put it out the front of her house for free for anyone who wanted it. It was her late husband’s.”

“Well, that’s lucky. Lucky that you were there helping her, not that her husband died. You know what I mean.”

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