Aaron walks around the corner of the house and stops when he sees me. “Have you seen my van?” he asks as he jerks a thumb in that direction.
“Eli borrowed it.” I start to remove the chemicals from the shelves so I can set up my trays. But the jugs are old and nearly empty, and some of them are rusty. I’ll need to order more if I want to develop my pictures.
“Why didn’t he take your car?”
“Yours had the car seat.”
He scrubs a hand down his face. “Why did he need the car seat?”
I finally stop what I’m doing so I can concentrate on him. “For the baby. Duh.”
His eyebrows fly up toward his hairline. “Did you seriously just duh me?”
“I seriously did.” I glare at him for a second, then I can’t fight back my smile. “Eli and Sam needed to go get kitten supplies, and they needed a car seat so they could take Miles, so they just took your car. You don’t mind, do you?”
He huffs out a breath. “Would it matter if I did?”
“Everything okay, Aaron?”
He runs a frustrated hand through his hair. “No, everything is not okay.” He starts t
o tick items off on his fingers. “I can’t find my kids. There are supposed to be three of them.” He touches his second finger. “My van is gone.” He touches another finger. “I slept late.” He touches a fourth finger. “Jake drew titties on my hand in permanent marker while I was sleeping last night.”
I bite back a snort, only half-successfully. “At least it wasn’t a dick on your forehead this time.”
He rocks his head to the side. “True,” he finally admits. “Today just feels…weird. I don’t know why.”
I jerk a thumb toward my shack. “Did you clean out my little building?”
“When would I have done that?”
“Hmm. I wonder who did it.”
“Eli did it this morning,” a voice calls out from the yard next door.
I spin and find Jake standing there. He’s holding the hand of one of his kids and the other kid he’s wearing like Eli was.
“Eli was up with the baby, so he just came outside and started working. He found the baby carrier in your stuff,” Jake explains to Aaron.
“I slept through all this,” Aaron says in disbelief.
“You needed some rest,” Jake says.
“Thanks for the titties, by the way.” Aaron shoots Jake a look.
Jake chuckles. “Wasn’t me. That was all Pop.”
Aaron’s eyes nearly bug out of their sockets, but finally he laughs. “I’ll have to thank him.”
“Don’t encourage him,” Jake warns. “It’s best if you ignore his bad behavior.” He points toward the side of the house. “Eli leaned your bikes up against the side of the house after he gave them a good washing.”
“Bikes?” I walk in that direction. My old red bike with the wicker basket on the front is leaning against the side of the house. And my dad’s old ten-speed is right next to it. And my mom’s three-speed, with the wide seat because she didn’t like her shorts getting shoved up her butt crack by a narrow seat, leans right behind them. A box sits on the ground that’s filled with buckets, pails, deflated floats, and other lake toys. There are discarded items from years past in the box next to it. It holds toys we outgrew and things we didn’t want anymore.
“Eli has been busy,” Aaron says, hands on hips.
“Very,” I reply, still a little shocked at how things are going today.
The crunch of gravel signals Mr. Jacobson’s arrival. He comes around the corner on his red cart, driving across the grass, and stops in front of Jake. “Katie sent me to get you.”