His gold eye flashed bright. “In a month you won’t question that anymore. I’ll be understanding because you were just burned, but you’ll stop questioning if I want you by my side. Just as you are. No sacrificing yourself, just be your badass, independent, ATV-ripping, truck-thieving, mouthy, beautiful-soul self. You’ll see how addicted you got me. I wish you could spend a second in my head. One second, and you would feel my lion just staring at you in wonder.”
She giggled. “I’m a mess, I have hair dye on my forehead, I cried a little today so my makeup is all smeared, the lady at the salon found two leaves in my hair from all the ATV-ripping, and I bought you a silly present, but I’m too embarrassed to give it to you.”
He grinned. “You got me a present?”
“Yes! It’s a beer pong table. I want to put the Pen15 Juice logo on it. I kind of got it for the whole Crew, but mostly for you.”
He shook his head like he didn’t understand, so she explained. “You’ll be steady if you have a Crew. I can’t fix what went wrong with your custody of your son or the bad time you went through before I came along. But I can try to give your life balance and make it happy now. Rhett and Grim play a part in that. So…beer pong. For bonding.”
His eyes were huge as her words tumbled end over end. He blinked slowly. “Okaaay. And Cornhole,” he said, looking over at the bean-bag tossing game in front of the trailers.
“Yes! And I’ll keep getting us fun shit until everyone can go a day without bleeding each other. I’m not even asking you three to get along. Just…stop hating each other so we can turn this mountain into the most productive motherfuckin’ logging mountain in the world! I know the numbers they put up in Damon’s Mountains. I want us to give the Gray Backs and the Boarlanders and the Ashe Crew some competition!”
“Woman, we just finished our first day of actual work, and Grim didn’t even show up for the shift. Those are some big goals to put on a trio of utter fuck-ups.”
“Well, that’s what I want, and I’m pretty determined to get there. Even if it takes us fifty years.”
“And it will. Fifty years. Because we are literally the shittiest Crew I’ve ever heard of.”
Remi pointed her finger to the sky and exclaimed, “Not anymore! You have child support to pay, beer to make, and logs to chop like a sexy, bitey, scratchy Paul Bunyan.”
“Paul Bunyan had a lucky blue ox.”
“And you have a lucky Novak Grizzly. Yes, I’m full of myself today. You may rub my boobs for good luck if you want.”
Eyes dancing, he put both hands on her boobs and squeezed.
“Feel that, Kamp? That’s luck flowing from my teets into your hands.”
“Mostly I feel my dick getting hard.”
“Lucky,” she whispered.
He snorted and burst out laughing, then dragged her against him and hugged her up tight. “You’re going to ruin this Crew’s plans, aren’t you?”
“What plans? To fail and suck and eventually kill each other off? Yes. Fuck that plan. I have new plans for you.”
“Okay, I’ll play beer pong and Cornhole and push the Crew in the field if you do one thing for me.”
“Anything. Except anal. That’s an exit-only hole for me. Sorry, dirty boy.”
“Oh my God, not what I was going to ask at all in any way.”
She grinned brightly. “Bored of me yet?”
“That’s the compromise. I’ll work on my baggage if you work on yours. No questioning if I’m going to leave or if you’re unlovable. You aren’t leave-able, Remi. You gotta turn your head around on that stuff. Deal?”
She leaned forward, rested her forehead on his chest, and sighed. Kamp didn’t realize it, but he was a fixer, too. It was going to be hard letting go of all the things she’d been taught over the last few years, but Kamp was right. She couldn’t just ask him to fix his shit without working on hers. And she loved that he cared enough to want better for her.
So now the hard part began.
“Deal,” she whispered.
Chapter Sixteen
Remi slid the metal spatula under the hamburger patty and flipped it. The air was getting colder with every week that passed, and their barbecue days were numbered. The snow would hit these mountains in a month. But for now, evenings suited her warm-natured bear just fine. The boys seemed good, too, if their T-shirts and holey-kneed jeans were anything to go by.
She hoped they got back soon. The burgers were almost done, and the homemade French fries she’d made were sitting in a covered bowl waiting to be devoured already. They were getting cold. The Crew was unloading a truck of lumber at the lumberyard a couple mountains over. Usually, it didn’t take them this long to return, though.
She was hoping tonight’s barbecue went better than the others.
The first one, Kamp and Rhett tried to play Cornhole, but Rhett got pissed at losing, Changed into a lion, and during a huge Crew fight, they broke one of the Cornhole boards. Remi had left her grilling station where she was supposed to be flipping the steaks to break up the fight, but Rhett clawed her, so she punched him in his stupid lion face, which hurt her hand, and then Kamp latched onto his throat to defend Remi and nearly killed him. When she finally got them Changed back and out of murder-mode, she returned to the grill to find the steaks burnt to a crispy-crisp, and the only thing that was edible was the macaroni and cheese she’d made. Grim showed up just in time for dinner and chewed on one of the burnt steaks while he stared at them, unspeaking. And when Remi had tried to play twenty questions so everyone could get to know each other better, Rhett only answered with perverted words, Grim had answered “pass” to every question, and Kamp closed up like the little violent, ornery, standoffish clam he was with the boys.
Progress on the first barbecue: 0%.
The second week, it went a little better. No one broke the newly duct-taped Cornhole game. Kamp made some hella delicious ribs that weren’t burnt to ashes, and Remi had braved bringing out the new beer pong table.
Kamp and Grim had made it through three tosses of their ping-pong balls before they Changed and got in a fight that dragged out to the woods. Used to their shenanigans now, Remi had shot-gunned a beer and sank into one of the plastic lawn chairs beside Rhett, who was scrolling on his phone as if he couldn’t care less that his Crew was out in the woods trying to kill each other.
But the ribs had tasted delicious.
So…progress on the second barbecue: 4%.
This week, Remi was bound and determined to make this barbecue the best yet. Why? Because they had big reasons to celebrate.
One, all three boys had finished a shift, even Grim. And yes, he probably did it just to avoid her pestering and frozen marbles and the early morning call from Vyr that had made his face go pale, but it counted.
Two, with Juno’s help, she’d gotten a moving company to pack up her belongings in the city and ship it all to the mountains.
Three, she’d come up with a Crew name she was pretty sure the boys would approve of. And no, it wasn’t the Penis Juice Crew, as Rhett kept suggesting.
Four, she’d slept over at Kamp’s place three nights in a row so he hadn’t Changed or fought the Reaper since Wednesday.
Five, this morning her dad had messaged her four words that had filled her heart and pushed out any lingering disdain she had for herself. I’m proud of you.
Six, it was hamburger night. She freaking loved hamburger night, and hamburgers deserved their own celebration day.
Seven…she couldn’t remember being happier than she was here. Sure, the boys were a mess, and they fought all the time. They were crass and rude. She wanted to turn grizzly and maim them at least three times a day, but as time went on, she’d opened up here. She’d begun to trust.
A month ago, she’d been so ready to hate men for the rest of her life. She’d been prepared to be bitter forever and never trust anyone with her heart again. And then she’d met Kamp, and he had opened her eyes and heart. And then Grim and Rhett had surprised her, too. It was a different relationship. It was fighting and clawing and debating every single sentence, but if one of them pushed her too far, you bet your ass the other two lit him up. They were protective of her in their own ways, and she knew that if push came to shove, they would have her back, even if she was wrong. They would aim that horrid behavior at anyone who ever tried to hurt her.
