Page 66 of Surviving in Everton

“Uh huh.” She squints her eyes, clearly not believing me.

“It’s true, Mom! I test him all the time!” Violet contends with a giggle.

“Okay, first of all… Mom? What’s that nonsense about? What happened to Mommy?” Rowe crosses her arms as she waits indignantly for Violet’s response.

“Logan calls Declan Dad not Daddy,” she states simply.

“And? You’re not Logan, and I’m not Declan. You’re only five, I get to be called Mommy for a little longer. Besides, if that’s how it’s gonna be, maybe I’ll just make Logan start calling Declan, Daddy, again.” She cocks a brow thinking that was a good argument. But she’s clearly forgotten I already have someone that calls me Daddy and I’m not about to get another one.

Logan looks at me with his eyes bugging out of his head.Please tell me I don’t have to call you Daddy. I’m too big for that!

Would you call me that if Rowen asked you to?I’m curious to know his answer. Obviously I wouldn’t make him call me anything, but I want to know how he would react if she actually asked him to do that.

He sighs internally and it’s so loud in my head he clearly projected that sigh for serious emphasis.Of course I would. She deserves to be happy, Dad. If it would make her happy for me to call you Daddy,he sneers the word.Then I would, but you would hear me mentally complaining every time.

I pull Logan into my arms and give him a big hug. “You’re a good kid, you know that?”

“You did it again!” Rowen scowls at me.

“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,A Stor.”

She stands there with her arms crossed, glaring at me until Ayden finally can’t take anymore and interrupts our stare off.

“I’m on Rowe’s team!” he cheers. “That means you have Kay,” he says to me with a snicker.

“Nah, I’m gonna help Violet this time. Kay can have Logan.”

Dad! What are you doing?

What? I just want to spend some more time with her, that's all. We won’t talk about you at all.

He just glares at me in response.

“Alright, let’s go turn the tickets in and get geared up!” I take Rowen’s hand and lead the way to the ticket counter.

Chapter 27

Logan

Ican’t believe my dad did that. HeknowsI don’t have a problem playing with Violet all of the time. Ilikeplaying with her. Really… She's my favorite person to spend time with. I spend time with my other friends at school, but out of school? There’s no one I’d rather be with.

“Hey bud, you okay to be on my team?” Uncle Kayden asks me.

I really don’t like the pitying look he’s giving me. “Yeah! We’re gonna kick all their butts!” I cheer.

“Damn straight! Now let's get suited up and talk strategy.”

We buckle up our vests and rush into the room before anyone else, giving our eyes more time to adjust to the darkness. We’ve only got a few minutes before the game starts, so once our eyes are adjusted and we can see, we make our way through the maze, weaving between columns. The theme of the game is intergalactic war and we have twenty minutes to record as many hits as we can. The playing field is set up with walls of various heights and columns with neon lighting circling them. There’s a glamour on the ceiling and walls so it looks like you’reinspace. There’s even different aliens hanging from them. It’s really cool. We finally stop in some random corner to go over our approach.

“Okay, what’s the plan? I have a feeling my dad’s gonna try to use Violet against us.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. That would be the best strategy. Alright, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll cause a distraction over here.” He points to the spot in front and to the left of him. “When you see someone coming, you sneak up from the floor and shoot them. If I hear or see anyone coming for you, I’ll shout it at you. So don’t freak out if you hear screaming in your head.” He chuckles and winks at me.

“Yeah, I think I’m used to you randomly screaming in my head, Uncle K.” Some days I wish they never would have figured out that I can hear their thoughts if they direct them at me. Uncle Ayden is the worst. I’ll be playing in my room minding my own business and he’ll startsingingin my head. The most ridiculous songs. It drives me crazy!

He doesn’t eventryto suppress his laughter. The start alarm goes off and we get into position. It’s really quiet, everyone sneaking around, trying not to be seen. Until I start to hear whispers. Looking around to see where it’s coming from so I can shoot them, I finally realize it’s Uncle Ayden talking in my head! I try to block him, but he knew that was coming, so he just talks louder. In typical Ayden fashion, he’s not actually talkingtome. He’s just saying random nonsense trying to keep me distracted.

I like tomatoes but not ketchup… no wait I like ketchup but not tomatoes. Did you know kangaroos can’t walk backwards? Or a lion walks on its tippy-toes? Oh! I bet you didn’t know a giraffe can clean its ears with its tongue!

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