“No on that one,” I said. “I go as I go, and you don’t throw a fit. But, just sayin’, you’re making me really not want to go… not even a squishy will make me want to go soon.”
“Fine.” She paused. “But can you leave the shit-covered muck boots at home?”
I could. But why would I want to?
They were the most comfortable shoes in the world.
And if I was going somewhere uncomfortable, wouldn’t I want to be as comfortable as I could make myself?
“We’ll see,” I said. “See you in an hour.”
“Make it a half an hour, and I’ll braid your hair,” she countered.
I sighed. “I think you get just as much enjoyment out of braiding my hair as I do out of letting you braid my hair. Last week, you tried all of those viral braid tutorials on my hair. And you had a lot of fun doing it.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” She paused. “Bonus points if you can stop by the store and get some of those little rubber bands. I’m almost out.”
“Okay, I’ll see what I can do,” I told her. “But you’re already pushing it when you expect me to find something new to wear on my feet.”
I was in a somewhat baggy t-shirt that said, “I’m a virgin. (This is an old shirt)” and a pair of jean shorts that were on the shorter side of short. And a pair of short socks that you wouldn’t be able to see if I put on a pair of tennis shoes.
Tennis shoes annoyed me, though. Either they were too tight, or too loose. I never found a happy medium with them.
Maybe my Crocs.
However, I could practically see the sneer on Diana’s face now.
Deciding that it would have to be my other boots, the ones not covered in horse shit, I headed to my room to get them.
After slipping my feet into them, I headed for the bathroom, looked at my complexion, and wondered if I should bother with trying to put on makeup.
I didn’t really know how to put makeup on.
I had all the stuff—blush, concealer, eyeshadow, eyeliner, blah, blah, blah—but I only knew how to put on mascara.
Deciding that would be enough, I swiped on mascara and headed out.
“Hey, you got that lease agreement?” I heard the moment I stepped outside the door.
“Yes,” I replied to my landlord. “But I haven’t signed it yet.”
My landlord wasn’t a bad guy. He was actually pretty decent, but he’d gone up about double on my rent. And since I would have living quarters on the back of the clinic, I saw no reason to sign a year lease when I wouldn’t need it but for another month, tops.
“Well you need to get it in soon if you’re not going to go. We can’t do month to month, either. I’m sorry,” he apologized.
I nodded and said, “I understand. You’ll have my final decision by Friday when it’s due.”
With that, I headed outside to my car.
I’d gotten it when I turned eighteen.
It wouldn’t do for me to not get a shiny new car for my birthday when all of my other siblings did. And only because they wanted to save face with their family and friends who’d been there, and who’d been at all the other kids’ eighteenth birthdays.
Pretty much, it wouldn’t have gone unnoticed, and Deverauxs didn’t draw attention to the fact that they didn’t treat their youngest daughter like they did all their other children. That would be a big no-no.
Maybe I could live out of my car.
It wasn’t a car, actually.
It was one of those Mercedes Sprinter vans.
Why I’d gotten that, I didn’t know.
My stepmother probably thought she was being funny, that I would hate it.
But I actually loved the hell out of it.
Even better, it gave me plenty of room to carry the vet clinic’s supplies around seeing as we’d been doing mobile vet clinic things since Diana and I had graduated months ago.
At first, I’d started doing it because I couldn’t stand to work at a job where I’d have to see Ellen anymore.
Diana followed suit because it worked well for us.
But the moment we had that clinic handed over… I would drop the mobile vet thing like a hot potato.
It was paying the bills—handsomely, because people would much rather hang out in the comfort of their own house than at a vet clinic—and that was all I could ask for right then. However, it was exhausting. If I could never drive again, that would be great.
I started my Sprinter van and headed toward Diana’s place. Which, in actuality, was Bain’s place originally. Once upon a time, she lived in the same apartment complex as I did.
Now she lived with Bain.
“Speaking of the devil,” I murmured as I pulled my van up to Bain’s house and shut it off.