“We don't like this song,” Kinzie says, speaking for her brothers as they scream and flail against their booster seats in the back of the minivan. I've taken the liberty of removing Mercedes' iPod and replacing it with my own. I'll die before admitting this, but I want the kids to think I'm cool, so I put on some metal-rock-screaming-loud-whatever music instead of my usual pop tracks. The band that's on right now, Indecency or whatever they're called, has some really angry dude yelling about pain and heartache.
“Don't care,” I say as I follow what few memories I have left of this place and head towards Sequoia Park. It's next to the zoo and a duck pond and all that other kid shit. I figure I can let the little bastards run around here, burn some energy, and then go home and spend a hot, sweaty night sexting with Kitty. There is, like, no privacy with this many kids around. I have no idea when I'm gonna find a private moment to, you know, spank it if I don't get them to fall asleep in their own beds. “I'm the grown-up, and I don't want to listen to the Barney soundtrack.”
“Ugh. You are so old,” Kinzie spits, and I swear to Christ, she sounds like she's sixteen, not seven. “Nobody watches Barney anymore. I like Monster High.”
“Great. Well, too bad. This is what we're listening to. Get over it.”
I breathe a sigh of relief when I see the swing sets and the redwood trees come into view. I cannot wait to get some space to myself. Do babies play at parks? Do I hold it? Leave it in its stroller?
At least I can spend a few hours away from those damn chihuahuas.
“Alright, guys,” I say, trying to be cheerful as I switch off the screaming man on the stereo. At least his yelling sounds melodic. The twins are like, well, like devils or something. I try to pretend that they don't kind of look like I did at that age. “You are going to go play on the slide or whatever, and Uncle Zay is going to play on his phone for a little while. Won't this be fun?”
I let myself out and then start trying to unload brats.
As soon as I set them on the ground, they explode like fireworks, running and screeching and mixing into the other running/screeching monsters in the wood chips. As soon as I get a good hundred feet from them, I'll be cool.
“Okay, Sadie. It's just you and me, I guess.” I get the stroller out and spend a good fifteen minutes trying to figure out how to wrestle it into position. “Are you fucking shitting me? It ain't goddamn rocket science.” I rake my fingers through my hair and glance up to find, like, a dozen moms staring at me. Half of them look like they want me to grab them around the waist and toss them in the back of the mini for a quick fuck; the other half look like they want to call the cops on me.
I flash one of my signature Zay grins and a boy scout salute … eeeeeeven though I've never actually been in the scouts. Well, okay, I was for like one day but I got kicked out for beating up some snot-nosed brat that called me a weirdo.
Standing up, I examine the strange wheeled device before me and then lift the baby's seat out of the car, hooking it into place on top and standing back to admire my handiwork.
Yeah. See that? See it? I got this.
“Fuck yeah,” I say and several of the moms scoff at me. I ignore them and park myself at one of the picnic tables under the trees, whipping out my phone for a little sexy texting with miss pink haired Kitty cakes.
Thirteen days left. Thirteen days and Hubert and I will be back in Vegas.
I've never wanted anything more in my life.
Until I met Brooke Overland.
Incoming: a serious fucking wrench in my life plans. ETA: twenty minutes until my life goes boom.
Thank God today is Saturday. No class for me or the girls, time to keep searching for an alternative to my upcoming job at the strip club.
Just the thought of it gives me chills and I clamp my arms over my chest.
“Are you okay, Aunt Brooke?” Bella asks as I pick up my purse and sling it over my shoulder. I do my best to smile down at my niece, but inside, I'm screaming.
Strip? I'm going to strip?
I never thought I'd find myself at such a point in my life where I'd even consider it. This body … it's my body and my choice and … I really don't want to do this. But Eureka is an economically depressed area, and these girls need me. There's rent to pay and food to buy, and my parents are on a fixed income; my dad is sick. They can't help us, and I can't bear to rip the girls away from their friends and their school to move to a foreign city.
Deep breath.
I have to do this. For them.
“I'm fine, honey,” I say as I reach down and ruffle the dark chocolate color of her hair. We're practically twins, Bella and me. She has the same dusty brown eyes, pointed chin and arched brows as I do. We both take after my grandmother while Ingrid and Grace take after my mom: blond hair, blue eyes, round face and plump cheeks. “Are you ready to head to the park?”
She nods enthusiastically, eyes shining, face bright. That makes it a little easier, that expression. Especially after last night. She tried to hide it from me, but I heard her crying in her room, tears soaking into her pillow. It took me hours to get her to sleep. Fucking Ingrid.
I hate my older sister a little bit right now.