At hearing the first sound, Ariya spun on her heels, scooped the little girl up in her arms, and took her inside.
Confused at her words, and sudden departure, I walked to the truck and got in, thinking for the life of me that I wished I knew that particular back story.
Ariya had always been an odd girl to me, and always would be.
That’d been partially why I couldn’t find any common ground with her.
Everything that I liked, she loathed.
Slamming the door to the truck, I belted my buckle in place and headed off to my second appointment for the day—my parole officer.
***
Four hours later, I was knee deep in mud that felt like I was stepping in warm shit.
It smelled like shit, too.
“Why the hell would you drive in here?” I muttered. “Sometimes it’s good to use common sense.”
Baylor looked at me like I had a screw loose.
“It wasn’t mud when I drove on it, dumbass,” he shot back. “And that fucking man over there is the dumb one. Who the hell would think that they can drive on fucking water?”
I didn’t have an answer to that. Not a single one.
Hooking the last of the chains in place, I slugged through the knee-deep mud to the back of the truck, pressed the button for the winch to start pulling forward, and hoped that this would work.
We were in luck. It did.
Ten minutes later, I was calling in to dispatch and relaying my location.
“I’m not going to be back until I can get a shower,” I told dispatch. “And lunch.”
“10-4.”
Instead of driving all the way home, I drove to the gas station to get some chicken, and nearly ran straight into Hennessey the moment I opened the door.
“Jesus, you scared the shit out of me,” she declared, placing one hand over her heart.
I grinned. “Just openin’ the door, darlin’.”
She rolled her eyes and stepped to the side, but instead of taking her order, I made one of my own.
“You might as well come out so I don’t accidentally brush up against you.” I gestured to my clothes.
She blinked. “How the hell…”
I snorted. “Baylor tried to pull someone out, and in the process, got his own truck stuck. I had to go get him out, and this was the result.”
“I hope you got paid enough for towing them,” she mentioned.
I nodded. “He got charged for two tows.”
She snorted out a laugh and stepped outside.
“Wow, it’s even worse from the back,” she mentioned once she was behind me.
I laughed and walked inside without another word.
When I came back out, it was to find her leaning against her car, watching me.
She was snacking on a chicken taquito, a lovely fried morsel that I would forever love due to its deliciousness, and obviously waiting for me to come out.
“You mind?” I gestured to the hood where she was leaning.
She shook her head and gestured with her taquito.
“Help yourself,” she said. “Car’s already pretty dirty.”
It was.
“You should wash it,” I teased.
She snorted.
“I would if we weren’t supposed to get two weeks of rain,” she explained. “Starting tomorrow, we’re supposed to have at least a fifty percent chance of rain every single day.”
I grimaced.
Rain meant work. Work meant I’d never get to work on the house.
Wonderful.
The house would never get done at this point.
“Why the long face?” she asked, taking a drink from her cup.
The way she hovered over the straw had my dick stirring in my pants.
It was the familiar voice calling my name; however, that had that deflating in seconds.
“Tate!”
I looked toward the sound of the voice, and found my smile growing.
“Rosemary!” I grinned and stood up from my lean against Hennessy’s car, fully facing the woman.
Rosemary was Ariya’s sister. She was the one good thing that Ariya had, yet continued to treat like utter shit.
“I didn’t know you were back!” she cried out. “How the hell are you?”
I shrugged. “Doing good I guess. Working. Seeing Ms. Hanes here.”
Rosemary’s eyes went from me to Hennessy, who was still leaning against her car, munching on her lunch.
“Hennessy!”
Hennessy grinned at Rosemary.
“I didn’t know if you’d recognize me,” Hennessy offered a huge smile. “You’re looking well.”
Rosemary looked down at her body.
She was in tight black yoga pants, a black t-shirt that had a suspicious white stain on it that resembled baby puke, and tennis shoes.
“I had to run to the store for chocolate milk,” she held up the bag. “My daughter doesn’t function well without her daily dose of chocolate.”
“If I remember correctly, neither does her mother,” I teased.
Rosemary grinned for a few seconds, then that grin faded. “Have you spoken with Ariya yet?”
I nodded. “Had dinner with her a few days ago. Saw her at the pediatrician’s office this morning. That your little girl with all that red hair?”
Rosemary’s face went ashen.
“Uhhh, no.” She smiled. “I gotta go. It was good seeing you, though.”
With that, she practically ran toward her car that was parked behind Hennessy’s.
She jumped in, slammed the door, and backed out all within a few short seconds.
“Well, that wasn’t weird at all,” Hennessy drawled. “One mention of her sister and she’s out.”
I shrugged. “Rosemary and Ariya go together like a vagina and herpes.”
Hennessy gagged on her taquito—her third if my count was right—and stared at me in horror. “That’s just wrong.”
I shrugged.
“The two of them have hated each other since they were old enough to realize that they had the same mom but different dads. Seriously the two of them couldn’t hate each other more if they tried,” I expounded. “It’s amazing what good genes will do for a person.”
“You’re saying that Ariya has bad genes?” she questioned, licking her fingers.
One at a time.
Slowly.
Shit!
I shifted my stance, trying to alleviate the bulge that I knew I wasn’t hiding very well, and nodded.
“Not bad genes…” I hesitated. “Ariya and Rosemary’s mother was a good woman. She died of cancer when both of them were still teenagers. Each of them went to live with their respective fathers after that. One was good—Rosemary’s. The other was indifferent—Ariya’s.”
Hennessy brought her drink back up to her lips. “What happened?”
I shrugged. “The usual. He treated her like utter shit. Never any new clothes to wear. Forced her to work, and then took the money that she worked for.”
“And Rosemary?”
I smiled. “Rosemary has always been a sweet girl. Her dad had always been in the picture. Ariya, though? Rosemary’s father didn’t like Ariya. She was a bad influence on his child, and he disliked that. The moment that he got a chance to change it, Rosemary’s father took her away and made sure that Rosemary kept her nose clean. Which in turn pissed Ariya off because it was as if Rosemary was too good for her.” I sighed. “Instead of the two of them talking, Ariya just sniped at her sister, and Rosemary sniped back because Ariya was so vicious.”
Hennessy snorted.
“I could’ve deduced that.” She laughed.
There was no humor in it, though.