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“Good deal,” Sweetie said. “I’m pretty stoked I get a free vacation.”

Now Brand snorted. “Vacation? You’ll work harder here than you ever have in Sheridan.”

“Hey! Where’s everybody at?” Bax called from the living room in a groggy voice.

“Kitchen,” I answered. I couldn’t help myself. I turned Aubrey and planted a kiss on her lips.

“Get a room,” Brand said, and Aubrey blushed. I felt the heat from her cheeks warm mine, but she didn’t stop kissing me. She reached up on her tiptoes to wrap her arms around my neck, careful not to touch me ’cause her hands were covered in tomato sauce.

Bax whined, “Somebody come help me. I gotta take a piss.”

Brand laughed. “I’ll bring you a bucket.”

“I ain’t pissin’ in a bucket!”

“Empty beer bottle?” I offered between kisses.

“Guys, c’mon!”

Aubrey laughed and moved out of my embrace, and Brand grinned at me.

“Just like old times?” he said.

“Oh yeah.”

Aubrey and I followed Brand as he carried his laptop into the living room and handed it to Athena, who’d just plopped down on the couch next to her dad when she heard him bellyaching.

She studied the little box on the screen with Sweetie’s face in it. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Sweetie said. “Is Bax your dad?”

“Yep.”

Bax peered over Athena’s shoulder and groaned when he saw his brother’s forewoman.

“You look like sh—crap,” Sweetie said to Bax.

“You’re really pretty,” Athena told Sweetie. “Why does Uncle Brand call you Sweetie?”

Sweetie didn’t respond to Athena’s compliment. There was an awkward pause, but she collected herself. “Because he’s dumb. My name is Bea.”

“Bee, like buzz buzz?” Athena asked. “That’s weirder than Sweetie.”

“No, B-E-A as in Beatrice Baker.”

“BB,” Athena said. “But I still don’t get why they call you Sweetie.”

“Because I’mnotsweet, but your uncle thinks it’s funny.”

“Why aren’t you sweet?”

“Because I don’t let whiny men off the hook.”

“Huh?”

“She’s a battle axe,” Bax said, “and she’s mean.”

Sweetie’s bark of indignation echoed out of the computer. “Ha!”

Athena rolled her eyes. “Y’all make no sense. I’m more confused now than I was when we started this conversation.”

“Never mind,” Brand said. “Sweetie, I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Fine,” she replied, and we heard the littlebeepwhen she closed out the video call.

Bax’s leg had been wrapped groin to ankle in an unbendable brace. The doctors wouldn’t cast it until the stitches above his knee came out, so Brand and I converged on Bax. We both held out a hand, he pulled himself up onto one foot, and then we lifted and carried him toward his downstairs bathroom like the time he’d rolled his ankle on the football field and we had to lug his ass to the Wisper High locker room.

“If Sweetie’s stayin’ here,” Bax said, “you better tell that woman I got me a deck of cards with her name on it. I’m gonna whip her ass.”

“Yeah, that’s the pain pills talkin’,” Brand said under his breath, grunting under his brother’s weight. “Although, maybe if it’sstrippoker…”