Page 29 of Come Back to Me

I don’t think I’ll ever stop paying it.

Honestly, I’m not sure if the kid I was knew what it’d mean to fly. Where I’m from, there are a lot of expectations, so I’d look up at the sky rather than at what’s on the ground because I didn’t want anything to do with it. I’m not sure if that makes sense, but if I could talk to my kid self, I’d probably tell him to keep his eyes on the earth.

Sorry if that was really gloomy. I’ll be more cheerful next time. :)

Yours,

Butch Cassidy

Cody

“The town’s abuzz,” Mrs. Abelman informs us as she plops more mashed potatoes onto her plate. “You won’t hear the end of it until you deal with it, Cody.”

Zee, who was the last to arrive at the dinner table, inquires, “Deal with what?”

“Bunch of bikers, babe,” Tee answers, complete with a quite accurate rendition of a bike engine revving. “Making a shit ton of noise whenever they go into town. Mom went on and on and on about it during lunch.”

Zee’s brows lift. “Bikers? Like the ones who were growing weed on the Bar 9?”

I reach for my glass of ice water. “Rabid Wolves.”

“According to Nonna, they’re sexy.”

I grimace. “Hardly.”

“How’s she doing?” Zee asks.

“She’s pissed. At you.”

“What did I do?!”

“You haven’t visited her.”

“Oh.” My sister-in-law flushes. “I didn’t think she’d want to see me without you.”

Tee drops her knife and fork on her plate with a clatter. “Oh, no! I thought Colton had fucked your inferiority complex out of you, babe!”

“Christy!” Mum splutters, but Mrs. Abelman guffaws.

“Don’t be a prude, Lindsay,” is our surrogate mother-cum-housekeeper’s reprimand.

“Tee, my younger brother is at the table.” Colt groans.

She sniffs. “I’ve already had a conversation about the birds and the bees with Callan.”

As Colt chokes on his meatloaf, I smirk at my youngest brother, who’s eyeing the gravy boat with all the desperation of a man contemplating death via drowning. “I had that talk with you at thirteen.”

“I beat you to it,” Colt argues as he pats his mouth with a napkin. “I talked to him about sex when he saw Thor mounting Freya when he was eleven.”

“Cole got to me first.” Callan ducks his head. “He shared the many and varied disturbing details of sex with me when I was ten.”

“I’ll clip his ear for that,” Mum vows. “What was he telling you about that for?”

“Mostly, he was telling me what he did to his cheerleader of the day.”

Her nose wrinkles. “Thank God he’s the only playboy in the bunch. I wouldn’t have been able to cope with all of you looking the way you do and getting girls pregnant left, right, and center.”

“You were cursed with delicious sons,” Tee agrees. “You’re very lucky.”

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