Page 3 of Roundabout

Blaze gives me a questioning look, but I just shake my head, reminding her that Funcle Beck is silly with the same sign my friends just used.

I press a single kiss to my niece’s forehead before putting her on the ground, giving her the bag of apple chunks from my pocket, and telling her to share them with the others.

“No luck getting Jace to take a bath?” Marc asks as we turn to watch our kids at the pen, this time on the outside of it. I don’t see Hunter anywhere otherwise they’d all be inside the pen, “helping” him take care of the goats.

Beck was right, my kid stinks, but he didn’t have to be a dick about it.

“No. No luck,” I say, still signing, too, even though none of the kids are paying attention to us. It’s easier that way, in case Blaze turns around.

“Bring Jace over to my house and stick him in my pool,” Beck suggests. “I just gotta crank the heater for a day or two first.”

“He’s scared of a tub drain. How do you think he’ll handle your pool’s skimmers?” I ask Beck, because I know there’s at least three on that beast.

“We can take him through the car wash in Angie’s old Jeep like we did that one time.”

“Does it even run still?” Marc frowns as he lifts a bucket full of pellets and deposits it next to the kids since the apples are gone already. I knew they’d go quick.

Once we started fostering kids, Angela finally upgraded to a new Jeep Grand Cherokee, this one with actual doors and windows, putting her 1986 CJ-7 out of commission for good. It’s still at our house. I just haven’t started it up in a long time. I’ve had my hands full with running my own design company as well as keeping up with the many kids we’ve had in and out of our house. Oh, and tending to the acres of crops I planted before our life started taking one busy turn after another.

“I can get it running long enough,” Beck says before rubbing his hands together.

“We’re not using the car wash.” Angela didn’t exactly appreciate the first time we did it, and that was just the three of us, not her son.

“If it wasn’t so cold, we could just hose him down out here like we used to do to Hunter,” Marc offers.

Some of our falls are warm, but this year isn’t one of them. For it being only October, it’s already cold as shit out.

“Where is your boy, by the way?” I ask him. Hunter basically lives with his goats, so I’m surprised he’s not out here now.

“Fall Fest, setting up for this weekend. Want me to call Rebel? See if she’s around?”

“No. Wouldn’t want to impose.”

We all share a laugh. Even when Rebel’s not on her dad’s racetrack, beating anyone dumb enough to challenge her, she’s still going full speed, never easing up on the gas for even a second. We used to think our trio was crazy…’til Rebel’s trio came along.

“Shit, I’ll impose,” Beck mumbles under his breath, his phone pulled out with his thumb already flying across the screen. “I’ll text that little shit right now and tell her to get home to help feed these four-legged zombies.”

Along with one of the biggest fucking hearts, dude’s also got the biggest fucking head.

Terra turns around to tell her father, “That’s fifty cents in the swear jar, Dad.”

Sticking his phone between his ribcage and his bicep, he says, “What? I just put twenty bucks in that thing yesterday.”

“You used it up already,” Harley says.

To us, Beck mouths, “Fuck,” all over again, this time making us chuckle. The way he cusses, that jar’s gonna pay for both twins to go to college.

Back to using sign language, he asks, “Why is one looking at me while licking his lips?”

“Which one? Vincent van Goat?”

Marc chips in, mocking, “Or is it Chewy?”

“Neither, man. It’s Stewart. Dude’s a mess. Look at him.” Beck points at Stewart, the white goat with his head sticking out of the fence, eyeballing us with those creepy-ass rectangular pupils.

“He’s not a mess. That’s literally what all the goats do. They stand there and eat and stare at anyone who comes out here.”

Marc nods, adding, “And faint,” since the goats he bought his stepson are the fainting kind.