Fourteen | Cole
Fourteen
Cole
“Try cutting it at a forty-five-degree angle, and it should slide right in,” I said to Jeremy, one of my new employees.
He’d been on the job with us for a week and was still struggling with the basics, but he was the grandson of my mother’s best friend, so I agreed to bring him on.
He didn’t know the difference between a Phillips and a flathead screwdriver, but at least he wasn’t afraid of heights and did alright on the scaffolding.
He nodded, walking off with the board that he would likely fuck up and call me to fix in a few minutes.
I shoved a hand through my hair and looked around, admiring the work that we’d gotten done last week.
It was an old house that had been abandoned when I was a kid and left to rot.
The town recently got in touch with the family, and they agreed to sell it to a local investor who wanted to flip it.
We had been working on it for almost a month, having gutted the entire house and corrected structural issues to ensure it would be safe for whoever purchased it. Now that all the hard work was done, we were able to start on the fun part: making it not only functional but beautiful.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket, glancing at my mom’s name on the caller ID.
“Hey,” I answered. “Everything okay?”
“Why does something have to be wrong for me to call you?”
“It doesn’t, but I also know that you’ve been by yourself with Chloe for three hours and haven’t called before now—which means things are either going super good, and she’s down for a nap, or...” I let my thoughts trail as I heard my mom laugh on the other side.
“Nap? What’s a nap? This child doesn’t sleep no matter what I do.”
I chuckled as I shook my head.
“Well, if she hasn’t napped then that means she’s currently throwing a fit about something, and it must be pretty big if you called me...”
“It’s a goat.”
“What?” I frowned, arching an eyebrow in confusion. “What’s a goat?”
“The fit she’s throwing is over a goat.”
“Like a goat on TV? Or is she trying to find one of her stuffies? I don’t think she even has a goat stuffie.”
“Nope. A real goat.”
“Okay,” I said hesitantly. “I’ll bite. Why is she throwing a fit over a real goat?”
“Well,” my mother replied slowly with a hint of amusement in her voice.
“I needed to run into town to pick up a few things for dinner, and thought maybe the drive would help her fall asleep. When we got to the store, she was wide awake. I figured I could be quick and get in and out before any tantrums could start. She seemed fine...”
“But?”
“But Ol’ Man Stampson was having a pet adoption in front of the store.”
I tipped my head back, closed my eyes, and groaned. Of course he was.
“I tried to steer her away from them, Cole, I swear. She’s stronger than she looks. Once she saw them, she was obsessed. She dragged me over and begged until I let her pet one. Once she touched it...”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that when you get home, you’ll have to figure out where Rufus is going to live.”
“Rufus?”
“Yep. That’s the name she insisted she needed.”
“It’s a girl goat?”
“That’s what Mr. Stampson said. She’s ten weeks old and actually pretty cute, even if she tried to eat my blanket on the way home from the store.”
“You’re telling me that you allowed Chloe to adopt a baby goat and name her Rufus?”
“I didn’t have much of a choice,” my mom said through gritted teeth. “She wouldn’t stop crying, Cole. It broke my heart. I finally just agreed to it because I was worried that if I didn’t, she would convince me to adopt the other one, too.”
“Well, gee, I’m so glad we dodged that bullet,” I teased dryly. “One goat is bad enough.”
“Tell that to your dad,” she muttered under her breath, but I still heard her. “He’s currently out feeding Rufus and already picked out a name for the other one.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I wish I were. But he had a good point that it wasn’t fair to separate siblings, and Rufus’s sister was still there when he went to the store earlier. He was nearly in tears, Cole. How could I tell him no?”
“I don’t know,” I said, throwing my hands in the air. “I imagine the same way you should have said no to Chloe when she asked for a goat in the first place.”
“You weren’t there,” she whined. “You don’t know how hard it was.”
I rolled my eyes and tried to fight the smile that played across my lips. I knew exactly how hard it was to say no to Chloe and how impossible it was when we left the store yesterday with seven baby dolls.
“Does Chloe know Dad’s getting the other goat?”
“No, not yet. She had finally fallen asleep when he told me. Mr. Stampson is bringing Magnolia over later. We thought it would be a fun surprise for Chloe to find her at home when we took her home after her nap.”
“Did you call Lyric and tell her?”
“That’s umm... that’s what I was calling for,” my mom said nervously. “I thought maybe you could call and give her a heads up. Your dad said he can go over now and get the pen set up before Magnolia gets here.”
“You’re going to be the death of me,” I murmured. “Fine. I’ll call her and deal with this, but you owe me.”
“I know. But you know the kids will love this, so you can’t be too mad about it.”
“We’ll see about that...”
I hung up with my mom and contemplated what I was going to say to Lyric as I dialed her number and pressed send.