Chapter 8
Eight
Fucking hamburger help me.
—Jasper’s secret thoughts
JASPER
I groaned and got out of bed, disbelieving that my doorbell was ringing and I had to get up when I’d only had two hours of sleep.
The bed groaned as I slung my legs over the side and stood up. My hands went to my eyes as I walked tiredly to the front door where my doorbell was going off for a third time.
“I’m comin’!” I hollered. “Hold your fuckin’ horses.”
The doorbell continued to ring, and I yanked open the door, hesitating when I saw who it was.
“What the fuck?”
Harlow stood on my doorstep, looking like a freakin’ weirdo with her head-to-toe elf costume and Christmas everything.
She had trees hanging from her ears. A Santa hat. A pair of Hey Dudes that were also Christmas themed.
She looked like she’d walked into a bargain Christmas store and come out with everything that was wearable.
“What are you doing here?” I yawned.
She eyed me up and down. “We were supposed to have breakfast and then shopping.”
I winced. “Oh, yeah.”
Because her piece of shit boyfriend who “she loved and loved her back” wasn’t willing to come to Dallas to take her shopping. So she’d asked me.
A truck started up and I turned to see my neighbor coming out of her front door.
“Competition still healthy?” Harlow joked.
I sighed. “Sure is. The only problem is that I’m running out of time to add anymore. I think she’ll win the contest.”
“I think your niece and nephews will be okay with you coming in a close runner up.”
She had a point.
“Plus, I think you get bonus points for cutting all this out of wood and decorating it.” She bumped me with her shoulder. “Can you take me now?”
My gaze once again went to the woman that was idling in the driveway, and an irrational urge to ask her to come with us almost overtook me.
No.
No, I couldn’t.
I couldn’t ask her that.
Not that she’d come.
She was going to work.
She had better things to do than spend any time with us…
Then I remembered what I’d told her last night, and anger started up in my chest.
“Hold on,” I said as I hurried toward the woman who had just bailed out of her car to get a coffee cup that was sitting on her hood.
She picked up the coffee cup, and it was almost comically large as she held it suspended by the handle.
My bare feet hit the cold concrete, and I groaned as I switched over to the grass.
“Calli, what are you doing?” I called out, causing her to look my way.
Her eyes flicked from me to Harlow and back before she said, “Going to work?”
“I told you to leave it in your garage for a bit,” I pointed out, trying to keep my voice calm.
I didn’t like having my orders disobeyed.
Job hazard.
But usually when I gave an order, it was for a damn good reason.
It’s not like I gave them out just to piss them off for the hell of it.
“Well, I’m not really willing to pay twenty-five dollars for a ride share right now,” she grumbled. “I guess I’ll have to see how it goes and hope for the best.”
“But you’re willing to take the truck to the same place, for it to happen again, because that makes a whole lot of sense.” I rolled my eyes.
She rested the coffee cup on the hood of her truck and narrowed her eyes at me.
“What, exactly, do you want me to do here? My sister’s busy.
My brother’s bike won’t fit both of us. Doc is at the fire station.
Koda is in fucking Afghanistan. And the rest of the Truth Tellers don’t freakin’ like me!
So who the hell am I supposed to be calling for a ride?
I literally have four hundred dollars in my bank account right now until after Christmas.
Why do you think I took this random job? ”
I rolled my eyes. “Dramatic much? I know for a fact your sister has enough money to fund a small country. I also know that she gave you some money, which I overheard you’re not touching for some high and mighty reason. You have the money.”
“She has money,” she said fiercely. “I don’t. I am not a fucking charity case. I’ll pay my own way even if it kills me.”
On that parting comment, she stormed to her truck and got inside.
She put it in reverse, and I had just enough time to pull her coffee off the hood of her truck before she peeled out of the driveway.
I waited to see if she’d look back at me, but she never turned around or acknowledged me at all.
So I took a sip and headed back to my house, where Harlow was still waiting.
“She doesn’t like you,” Harlow pointed out.
“She doesn’t like anybody,” I said as I took another sip of coffee. It was shit, but it would do. “What are we doing today again?”
Harlow sighed. “You’re taking me shopping so I can get the rest of my Christmas presents.”
“Oh, yeah,” I grumbled. “Yay.”
Because that was exactly what I wanted to do—drive around Dallas last-minute Christmas shopping when I fucking hated shopping. Great.
“You need to suck it up,” she said. “And I know what you’re thinking.
Why did she wait until the last minute to shop?
Well, I didn’t. Christmas is literally ten days away.
Last minute would mean that I’d waited until the day before.
Heck, this is still plenty of time to get stuff delivered from actual stores. ”
She had a point.
“Let me get dressed, then we can go.”
She eyed me. “Don’t get dressed on my account.”
I flipped her off and headed to my bedroom.
When I came out, I found her helping herself to my cookies.
“Don’t,” I said. “They have nuts in them, and you don’t like nuts.”
She immediately put the cookie back.
I also felt slightly bad that I’d told her the cookie had nuts when it didn’t.
I just didn’t like the idea of sharing the cookies that Calli had gotten for me with her.
Which was weird, since I didn’t mind sharing anything with Harlow.
She was my best friend for a reason.
I shared more with her than I did with my own sister at times, which truly made Sophia pissy.
But Harlow was there when no one else was.
She was my ride or die.
I still wasn’t going to share my cookies with her, though.