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Heworked on his second round of breakfast while Mollie grabbed the old Folger’s tub. “That’s ...”
“I’ll pay you back. Can you be nice this once and show me where the pot is?”
“Chicken grounds,” I finished.
“They’rewhat?”
“They’re old coffee grounds from the diner near here. It’s for the chickens to poop on.”
She slammed the container on the counter. “Poop coffee?”
“They haven’t pooped in ityet.I haven’t taken it out to the coop.”
She looked bewildered for all of a second before she restrained herself. “Do you have regular coffee?”
“Nope.”
She let out a near cry. “Why?”
“Don’t need it.”
“That’s so unfair,” she grumbled and turned around. “Do you have Papa Bennie’s coffee pot at the very least?”
“In the closet.”
“All right, that’s another thing on my list to do. Get that working. I didn’t know peopletorturedthemselves out here.”
I eyed her up and down. No matter how many fucking times she opened her mouth and said something that pissed me off, I still found her fucking beautiful.
“Princess.” I let my disdain slip into my voice. “You have no idea.”
By the time Eric was loaded in the car, I knew there was no way Mollie would be unnoticeable in the house. Partially because Eric wanted to tell her every single part of his last two days ofschool up until we left. She listened with rapt attention while I wished she would vanish into thin air.
Whatever peace I’d had in the farmhouse was gone. She would be filling the space with her annoyingly bright smiles and happy voice.
“I want to show Mollie Hennifer. And Moosley!” Eric was saying as we got to the school. All he could talk about was her.
I didn’t blame him. All I couldthinkabout was her.
“She might be nice, but it doesn’t mean she’s gonna love everything we do.”
“Who doesn’t love animals?”
“Some people don’t.”
Eric hummed. “I don’t think she’s like that.”
We didn’t know anything about her. Only that Bennie had liked her. But that had been over a decade ago. She had obviously changed since then.
I still walked Eric to class, even though I had a mountain of things to do at home. He gripped my hand tightly each time, but he was getting better and better about letting go when he saw his table.
“Morning, Eric,” Ms. Rudder said. “How are you feeling?”
“Good!” he said, high-fiving her. “Hey, Tommy!”
And that was another thing. Every day, he ran to the boy who was quickly becoming his first friend.
Ms. Rudder turned to another kid, and I watched Eric, debating if he needed anything else from me.