Page 72 of Big Nick Energy

“She colored the word ‘C*nt,’” he told me. “You should send this to your dad. He’ll love it.”

He was right. My dad did love it. Who did not love it was my stepmother, Shiloh.

Shiloh: I will murder you when I get to see you again.

Me: You won’t. You know you love me.

Shiloh: If that baby starts saying that word, I’ll beat you.

Me: Child abuse is frowned upon. Don’t make me tell my daddy on you.

Shiloh: Your dad likes my abilities too much to ever side with you about this.

Me: lalalaalalalala. I can’t hear you.

Shiloh: **Laughing Emojis**

Me: You’re so not funny. The next time I see you, you’re dead to me.

Shiloh: I’ll just bring you a Snickers bar. Problem solved.

“Your stepmother knows you as well as I do.” Rafe shook his head. “And she’s right. You could be mad as hades, and all it would take is a Snickers to calm you down.”

The sad thing is, they were right.

I was easy.

Book:Kinda Don’t Care

CHAPTER 10

Is fucktastrophy a word? Because I feel like it would be used.

-Dixie’s secret thoughts

DIXIE

“Listen, old man.”

I turned to look at my grandson.

“Bayou, swear to Christ, if you don’t get the hell away from me, I’m going to light you up with this.” I pointed the weapon at his face.

It was a branding iron, and I was branding the leather I planned to make into a seat for my new bike.

“You could try,” Bayou jeered.

Hoax, my other grandass, chuckled from where he was sitting on his bike drinking a beer.

“I’m an adult male,” I told them both. “If I want to go to Walmart, then I go to Walmart. Y’all can’t stop me.”

“We can stop you,” Hoax disagreed. “And, sorry to say, but you’re not a spring chicken anymore. You’re well into your eighties.”

I was, which was beside the point.

“I already told you I had this back in November,” I told them both. “Remember when I had to carry an oxygen tank around with me for two weeks?”

That’d been bad. For the first time in a long time, I thought I really was going to die.

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