Total pages in book: 27
Estimated words: 26721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 134(@200wpm)___ 107(@250wpm)___ 89(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 134(@200wpm)___ 107(@250wpm)___ 89(@300wpm)
Brody couldn’t blame her. He’d run if he could too. Instead, Autumn grabbed him and drew him under the table.
She was breathing heavily and holding her cupcake safely in two hands. “You okay?”
Brody straightened his glasses with a nod. “Are you?”
There were whoops and hollers and laughter as well as some deep shouts.
“I didn’t want anyone getting my cupcake. It’s mine.” She cradled it close.
“Well, it’s a mess out there,” Royal said as he slid under the table and sat with his legs crossed. “Ma just got Ink in the chest with a cupcake. So he’s down. Cupcake war rules. Pretty sure she intended to get him in the face but she’s always been terrible with her aim.”
To Brody’s amazement, Royal didn’t seem to have a single crumb of cupcake on him. How did he do that? Brody was covered in icing and bits of cupcake, and he didn’t even know how he’d gotten some of the stains.
Someone else slid under the table with a whoop and a laugh.
Baron.
“That is one heck of a cupcake fight going on out there.”
Unlike his brother, Baron was covered in cupcake and icing. It was all over his face, in his hair, and down his T-shirt.
“Good job, brother,” Royal said as he took a bite out of his spectacular cupcake.
“I thought so,” Baron answered. “Shall we get going?”
“We really should, or Zippy is going to start getting impatient,” Royal replied as he handed the cupcake over to his brother to take a bite.
“See you later,” Baron said with a wink as they moved to the other side of the table and then disappeared.
Brody stared at Autumn with wide eyes. “What do you think that was all about?”
“I don’t know, and I’m not sure I want to know,” she said.
Someone else crawled under the table and ran his gaze over them both.
“Daddy!” Autumn said, moving to him.
“What are you two doing in here?” he asked as he drew her against him.
“Avoiding the food war going on outside,” Brody told him. “Who’s winning?”
“Oh, definitely the Littles. I just saw Sunny get Duke right in the face. Twice.”
“Twice?” Brody asked.
“Oh, all right, the second one might have come from an interested third party who noticed that she wasn’t sitting comfortably.”
“Wait, you got Duke in the face with a cupcake for spanking Sunny when you spanked both of us this morning?” Autumn asked.
“Hmm. Yes.”
“Don’t you see the hypocrisy in that?” Brody asked.
“Sure. But it was fun. Sounds like things are quieting down. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
They all crawled out from under the table with the Fox holding out a hand to each of them.
Autumn was still holding onto her cupcake to keep it safe.
“Whoa, this place is a mess,” Autumn said, glancing around. There were pieces of cupcake, sprinkles, and glitter everywhere.
And when he said everywhere, he meant it. Because it wasn’t just on the ground or all over the table.
It was all over everyone.
Well, with a couple of exceptions. There was very little on him or Autumn. And there was nothing on the Fox. Butch also seemed to have escaped being pounded by cupcakes. But not Cash or Ralen. They were both covered. Although Ralen was grinning manically, so maybe he’d liked the cupcake war.
“Right, how about we clean this all up?” Ink said with a warning look at Betsy. He had some glitter on his nose, which was sparkling under the late-afternoon sun. “And then we can eat.”
Everyone got to work cleaning up. He was next to Sunny when Betsy walked over to her. “You’re not upset about the cupcake war, are you?”
Shit. That hadn’t even occurred to Brody.
But Sunny just grinned. “Are you kidding? Did you see me smack Duke right in the face? It was epic. And then the Fox got him. I don’t think he saw who got him the second time. That wily Fox.”
That wily Fox, indeed.
Come to think of it . . . where was the Fox? He hadn’t seen him since they’d climbed out from under the table.
That wasn’t suspicious or anything . . .
8
FOX, BRODY, AND AUTUMN
The Fox watched the two boys and the small girl.
What were they up to?
Both boys were carrying boxes. On the side of one box was written ‘kitchen supplies’ and on the other one was ‘underwear.’
Kitchen supplies and underwear, huh?
That didn’t sound suspicious at all, now, did it?
He followed them through the forest. They didn’t notice that he was behind them, not that he expected them to. Perhaps the boys would have noticed somebody else creeping along, but the Fox didn’t make any noise.
They came to a clearing and left the boxes under a tree. They hadn’t actually walked too far from the house, they’d headed through the woods down toward the bottom of the backyard. Wanting to be hidden, but not going too far away.