Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 70488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Mom had lost her shit when Candice, Hampton’s wife, had come up pregnant a couple of weeks after the wedding. Then, eight months to the day of their wedding, their little girl had been born into the world.
Mom was all about appearances, and she hated more than anything “bastards.”
They weren’t a good look on her family name.
“What are you going to do?” I wondered.
“Have the baby.” Harvey rolled his eyes. “Romina and I were thinking about a quick wedding at the courthouse.”
“You’re really going to piss her off if you do that and don’t say your vows in her church,” I pointed out.
“I know,” he sighed. “And it’ll make Mom hate Romina. But I don’t really care. We’ve been tossing around the wedding idea for a while, and neither one of us really want a big one. She wants her sister there. I want you there. Hell, we aren’t even thinking of inviting our parents.”
“She’ll seriously castrate you if you leave her out of that, too.”
“I know, but Romina can’t stand Mom.”
“Don’t blame her.”
“And Romina’s pregnant, and emotional, and can’t stand when Mom gives her shit.” Harvey sighed.
I settled a look on my brother. “One day, you’re going to have to stop caring what your mother thinks, and start thinking about the rest of your life.”
“Is that what you did?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes at him as I sawed one of the front shoulders off and got to work cutting the meat from the bones. “You mean, when I started to get tattoos every time she pissed me off?”
Harvey laughed. “I swear to God, the first couple of times it happened, I thought I was going to pee myself from laughing so hard. The goat was epic.”
My mom had inserted herself into every facet of our lives.
When I’d asked for space and time to do my own thing, she’d inserted herself harder.
That’d been the first tattoo I got.
A goat.
Stubborn as a damn goat, my mother.
And I’d told her that the goat was her.
She had not been happy.
“Now they’re just for me,” I said. “What’s your plan on telling the parentals? I think you should just tell Dad at work.”
Dad worked at Hooten’s Steel Mill along with Harvey.
Dad worked his ass off, but not because he wanted to make better for his family. Because he couldn’t stand being around Mom all the time.
I didn’t blame him.
Mom was hard to be around even when she was at her best.
When she was at her worst?
A soft knock came at the door that separated my butcher shop from The Mercantile.
Knowing that it was for sure not Mom—Mom would’ve pounded on the locked door—Harvey went to open it.
“Hey,” a soft voice that did things to my dick said. “I was asked to come over here and ask you boys for some help with unloading a truck?”
“Tell our mother that I’m not here and that Hux is cutting into a cow. She’ll have to unload it herself.”
“Oh, okay. I’ll do that.”
The door closed, and then Harvey said, “Ten bucks says that Mom makes the new girl do it.”
I grinned. “She’s in for a surprise working there.”
And why did I feel bad that the new girl, who was getting paid, would have to learn how to drive a forklift? I should feel happy. Excited, even. Mostly because I was free.
But, still, that weird feeling inside of me that felt a whole lot like caring was sitting like a rock in my stomach.
Five
Thou shalt not stress over the opinion of an evil bitch.
—Bernice’s secret thoughts
Bernice
“I’m sorry, what?”
“You’ll have to learn how to run the forklift and get it done.” Vera pointed at the 18-wheeler driver and said, “He should have a list of the product. Compare it with our list as you take it off. If there’s anything missing, that’s on you.”
When I still hesitated, she said, “It’s not that hard.”
If it’s not that hard, then why aren’t you doing it?
“I’m not comfortable with doing this,” I pointed out. “If I mess something up, that’ll be on me. And this also wasn’t in the job description.”
Vera looked at me like I was a major disappointment.
“Listen, this was part of the job description when I hired you,” she pointed out. “I said ‘lift over fifty pounds and be able to handle heavy equipment.’”
“When you said ‘be able to handle heavy equipment,’ I thought you meant ‘be able to lift heavy things.’ Not drive heavy equipment! Can you see how that would be confusing?”
“No,” she said with a resolve that made me realize that she wasn’t going to budge on this.
Great.
Fucking great.
I gritted my teeth and wondered how the hell I was going to do this job.
I mean, seriously, who just threw a person to the wolves on their first day? And she couldn’t come out and at least show me which one was the freakin’ forklift?