Page 73 of Outlaw

“Hopscotch is an old mare. I don’t wanna ride her.” He sounded so insulted that I almost laughed.

“Then, get down,” Blaise said, grabbing ahold of the reins as he reached a hand up for his son to take. “Off. Now.”

“Okay.” He sulked. “But I don’t wanna play with a girl. I wanna ride.”

I pressed my lips together to keep from smiling in case he looked my way.

“You will feel differently about that soon enough. Trust me, you don’t want to get on the pretty ones’ shit list at this young of an age. They remember and will hold it against you.”

Cree tilted his head up and looked at his father, scrunching his nose. “Why do they got a shit list?”

“Because guys can be shits. Now, come on over here and act sane for ten minutes, would you?”

Levi walked over to them with Stevie, who was studying Cree with interest. Poor girl thought she was going to have a playmate, but seemed like Cree wasn’t on board with that idea.

“You gonna shoot me if I say he looked good up there? Had complete control of Shakespeare,” Levi said.

Blaise sighed and took off his hat to reveal blond hair that was long enough to tuck behind his ears. He ran a hand over it to smooth it back and shook his head. “Yeah, well, his momma doesn’t like him on the faster ones,” Blaise said, then looked down. “You must be Stevie,” he said in a softer tone than he’d been using.

She nodded her head, not sure what to think about the overwhelming man in front of her.

“Stevie, this is Cree. Y’all are about the same age.”

She nodded and tucked herself back behind Levi’s leg some. The fact that she was using him as her security made me smile. I’d almost caused her to miss out on that. Having a big brother. Another fail for me.

“I like your hair,” Cree told her.

She smiled bashfully at him.

“It might take her a minute to warm up,” Levi told him. “She’s met a lot of new people the past two days.”

Cree shrugged. “I ain’t gonna hurt her. You wanna go get some cookies from Ms. Jimmie? She said she was making my favorite chocolate chip ones.”

Levi looked over at me.

I nodded my head that it was fine.

He patted her head. “You can go if you want. Your momma said it was okay.”

She smiled then. Chocolate chip cookies could bribe her to do just about anything. “Okay,” she agreed.

“Come on then,” he told her, acting as if he were older and maturer. It was cute.

When he broke into a run, she took off after him.

“Don’t run off and leave her like a little shit!” Blaise called after him.

I was going to have to go over all these curse words with her and what not to say when we left here.

Cree stopped, and she caught up to him.

Blaise swung his gaze over to me, then started in my direction. Levi fell into step beside him. I wondered if they had any idea how much they looked like their fathers back then. It was like watching a replay of my childhood.

Blaise put his hat back on his head and smirked at me. “Well, Ringlets, did you miss us?”

Thirty-Four

Branwen

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