CHAPTER NINE #2
Her drink sloshes over the glass and onto her hands when she slams it down on the table, earning attention from a few others around us.
People still don’t quite know how to handle this new development between us and the Carters.
Whilst half are expecting a brawl to break out any minute, the other half believe we’ve called a truce to take down another family we are feuding with.
I guess Lily being with Jaxon and Paisley with Landon went over their heads as a reason.
Hayden growls low in her throat. “Yes. He knew I was going today. He fucking knew, Clay. He knew she was running low. It’s unforgiveable what he’s done.”
“As amusing as it is seeing you all riled up, what on earth are you talking about?” I ask. When her glare falls on me, I wish I kept my mouth shut. I slide a little away from her, in case she gets the urge to punch my balls.
“There’s a woman who has a cake shed,” Clay begins.
“Cake shed?” Isaac asks, his interest piqued. “What’s a cake shed?”
Hayden narrows her eyes on her guy. “Don’t even think about telling them where it is.”
Clay chuckles. “You know all those small businesses people are doing right now from their house? Some sell fresh eggs, homemade bread, flowers, or have a bird house library outside their front doors. Well, this one sells homemade desserts.”
I lean forward. “Wait, that’s a thing? Paisley was talking to the cook about doing one outside the bed and breakfast for guests.”
“Really?” Hayden asks, her entire face lighting up. “Would the cook be baking them?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I didn’t know it was a real thing.”
“Well, it is,” Clay responds, peeking at Hayden. “Hayden and Max thought someone was giving out free food when they first stumbled upon it.”
Hayden nods, her sigh wistful. “We really did. We thought we’d reached the end of a rainbow the day we found that shed.”
“You stole baked goods?” Isaac asks. “Why am I not surprised?”
“Because she’s a Carter,” I reply, silently contemplating whether or not to take that last pint off him since he’s clearly had too much.
Hayden holds her hands up. “Look, once the owner tracked us down, we paid for everything.”
“Wait, you stole on multiple occasions?” Isaac asks, grinning now.
Hayden’s shoulders slump. “We didn’t know we had to pay.”
“There were signs,” Clay reminds her.
She narrows her gaze. “We didn’t see it.”
“It? There was more than one,” he argues.
“There was chocolate fudge cake, Clay. Chocolate fudge cake. The only thing that got my attention after that was the other desserts.”
I chuckle, my earlier distress moving to the back of my mind. “What did the owner do?”
“We paid for what we took and promised to pay from then on, but it worked out great for all of us. She got the free promotion since the videos she posted of us stealing them went viral, and she bakes us extras every day. However, today she gave us the heads up that there was only one slice of fudge cake left. Apparently, all the fucking school mums got told about it being two Carters in the viral video, so instead of stopping by after school, they go there in the morning on the way to school. I’m not up that fucking early.
But Dad knew I wanted that cake. We had an agreement that we could pick five desserts and the other wasn’t allowed to trespass on what the other chose. ”
“Woah, only five?” I ask.
Clay clears his throat. “Not five as in five singular pieces. They take whatever she has in stock for each of those five.”
“Chocolate fudge was mine today. He had it Friday. It was my day.” She folds her arms across her chest, pushing her tits together.
“Eyes!” Clay warns.
Shit. I glance away from her tits. “Sorry.”
“So what’s this about needing to get laid? You going celibate or something?”
Isaac was taking a gulp of his pint when she spoke, so Carling shoots out of his nose when he tries to gasp at her question.
I roll my eyes. “No. I’m just feeling weird. I think getting laid will sort that out.”
“Would this happen to have something to do with a certain person named after a season?”
I narrow my gaze. “Liam!” I growl. “Fucking Chatty Cathy.”
“Wait, what’s going on?” Isaac asks, and I can see the hurt in his gaze at being out of the loop.
Hayden jabs her thumb toward me. “He has a boner for Summer, one of your new neighbours.”
“You do?” he asks.
My eyebrows pinch together as I stare at the woman who is enjoying this. “No. Yes. No. I don’t fucking know. She knows me.”
“She does?” Isaac asks, but I shrug.
Hayden snorts. “I’m pretty sure wanting to put your dick in a blender means she really knows you.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” he asks, but it comes out like an accusation.
I shrug at Isaac. “I don’t remember her. I clearly did something to piss her off, but I swear, I don’t remember her. Like at all. And I’m pretty sure I’d remember those legs, arse, tits...” my head jerks forward from Hayden’s smack. “Hey!”
“You were going off track,” she states, then points to my mouth. “And you were drooling.”
I scrub a hand down my face, feeling nothing but the stubble from not shaving this morning. “Fucking hell. Why are you even here?”
She tilts her head to the side as her finger twirls in a circle. “On Earth or in this pub?”
I shake my head when I realise I’m watching the tip of her finger press into the table. I give Isaac my attention. “Did you recognise her?”
“Which one? I only tried speaking to one, but she just kept staring at me. I thought she was star-struck at first, but then she didn’t talk back at all. She didn’t even blink. Kind of freaked me out, so I left.”
I go to describe Summer but then remember Hayden is next to me. “Fuck knows then.”
As the conversation moves on to something random, my mind drifts back to the leggy girl I can’t seem to shake off.
The longest I’ve ever thought about one thing was when the Carters had our truck put on a pole.
And it was only because half of the time I was thinking about how they did it, and the other half I spent wondering what we could do to get payback.
As for chicks, I never think about them once we’ve both got off or they’ve brushed me off. When the latter happens, I just find another chick and move on.
Yet I can’t seem to shake this one off, and no other woman has appealed to me.
Which is bad.
Especially when she walks in with her cousin. Because every guy’s head in here turns to watch them and I have the urge to start smashing faces into tables.