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Tiller doesn’t say anything at first, but then he stares at his empty plate. Camden ate his banana bread too. “Do you have a tapeworm? Why are you eating so much?”
“I’m growing. I’m eleven, and soon I’ll be going to puberty. Now what’s really in her hair?”
“You don’tgoto it. It just happens. And the fact that you don’t know that, makes me question whether you know what the word ‘cum’ actually means.”
“Come, come, come!” Berlin squeals from her chair, tossing bits of banana bread at Ricky who’s trying to feed her.
Willa scowls at Tiller, yanking her kid out of her high chair. “Goddamn you.”
Tiller looks at her like she’s crazy and yells after her, “Like you’re any better, Willz.”
Beside me still, Camden pulls out a note from his pocket. “I cancomewith you.” Like how he grins and puts emphasis on the word come? Tiller finds humor in it. “My dad said so.”
Shade reaches over the kitchen island and takes the note. I notice his arms, inked to the point you can no longer see the color of his tan skin; it’s strangely glittery pink. River got him last night. I recognize the attempt at stars because she draws them constantly on everything from the walls to my car windows.
Laughing, Shade sets the note down. Tiller picks it up and smiles at Camden. “You wrote that.”
“Not true.” Camden reaches for what was left on Berlin’s high chair of the banana bread and eats that too. “He said I could go.”
“What would make you think we’d believe a handwritten note that we could take you to Vegas with us?” Scarlet asks, returning to the kitchen. I hadn’t even realized she’d left, but she’s dressed in jeans and a hoodie now, her bag on the floor beside her.
River moves from her stool to sit on Tiller’s lap with a handful of her gel tattoo pens. “Good,” Shade notes. “Draw on him for a while.”
She does. He lets her, while smiling and kissing her temple.
Camden groans, his head falling into his hands. “Come on! Please take me. I’m on Thanksgiving break.”
I hadn’t even noticed Thanksgiving was this weekend, but yet here we are going to be in Vegas for the week for the final two-night round of After Dark.
“Which makes sense that you should stay home with your mom and dad,” Shade adds, laughing. He knows they’re frustrating Camden.
“Stepmom,” Camden points out. “And my dad’s out of town.”
“Wouldn’t you want to spend it with yourmom?” Scarlet asks, intentionally teasing him with the use of mom.
“Stepmom.” He slaps his hand on the counter. River takes a pen and leans over to draw a star on Camden’s hand. “And no. I hate her. She made me clean the bathroom yesterday.”
No definite answer is given to Camden, but I have a feeling they’re going to let him come. Everyone else is going so I wouldn’t expect them to leave him behind. But there is the fact of the matter he’s not family and technically they have no business taking him.
Scarlet nudges me. “Time for our spa day, girl.”
River jumps down at the mention of a spa day and runs. She hates them.
“Fuck off, Northwest.” Tiller wraps his arm around my shoulder. “No way. You’re not taking my girl.”
I smile and kiss the top of his crazy mess of hair. “You’re supposed to be practicing today.”
“I’d probably do a lot better if you’d—”
I shake my hand, untangling his hands. “Don’t give me that sex pout. I have to go get my hair done today. No time for sex pout.”
He frowns. “That’s just my face.”
“Your “fuck me” face.”
“I can’t help it.” He grins. “Say fuck me again.”
“No.”