Intemperance X - the Life We Choose
Copyright© 2026 by Al Steiner
Chapter 31: Young Lust
Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 31: Young Lust - INTEMPERANCE X is the tenth and final novel in the main Intemperance series. As the band headlines its biggest moment yet, decades of music, loyalty, and hard-earned love converge on one unforgettable night—where everything they’ve built is tested in front of the world.
Caution: This Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Fa/Fa Consensual BiSexual Fiction
Home Hill, California
March 21, 2005
Pa-Ho fluttered onto the low blackberry thicket, gripping one of the thorny canes with practiced ease. The sun had already tipped past its highest place in the sky, beginning the long slide toward the ocean. Today was exactly halfway through Sun-Longer. He could feel it in the angle of the light and in the balance of warmth on his back—light and dark had matched today, and from here forward the days would continue to stretch longer and hotter until Sun-Shorter returned.
He hopped higher along the cane. Fresh berries dotted the vines now—green, tight, hard little things that promised sickness if eaten. Pa-Ho pecked one out of habit, rolled it in his beak, and flicked it away with an irritated click. Too early. Eat one of those and you’d disgorge every bite of food you’d eaten since dawn. A few more moons and they would be dark and soft and good. Not now.
He opened his wings and glided toward the stream. It was the stream that had brought him here, not the underripe berries.
The water ran thin this time of year, just a cold ribbon slipping between rocks, but it was clean. Pa-Ho bent, took three quick gulps, then one more for good measure. The cold settled into his crop pleasantly. He shook droplets from his beak and hopped onto a flat stone to preen a wingtip.
A shadow crossed the ground.
Pa-Ho froze instantly, every feather slicked flat. His head did not move, but his eyes rolled upward.
Hawk.
He slipped off the rock into the tangle of roots beneath it, folding himself small, wings tight, body low. No noises. No clicks. No motions. A crow who moved under a hawk invited death.
The raptor circled overhead—broad wings barely shifting, tail adjusting with lazy confidence. It drifted in slow loops, each one a little farther north. Pa-Ho watched through a slit of branches, heart thudding against his ribs.
He was not afraid of hawks he could see. A crow with air beneath his wings could spin and dart and twist tighter than any hawk could follow. But the ones you didn’t see—the silent dives, the sudden talons—that was how crows died.
The hawk circled one more time, then angled away, riding a rising thread of wind toward the hills.
Pa-Ho stayed hidden until long after the shadow disappeared. Only when the air felt empty again—no predator scent, no heavy wing-draft overhead—did he ease himself out from the roots. Dust clung to his belly feathers. He gave a quick shake, then another, clicking softly in annoyance.
Stupid hawk.
Still, better to hide than be wrong.
He stretched his wings fully once, testing for any snagged feathers, then returned to scanning for food. The day was calm, the light was good, and the sun in the sky had many hours left before sinking into the big water. Plenty of time to forage before the evening’s patterns began.
Pa-Ho flicked a bit of stream water from his beak and leaned forward, peering into a deeper pool where the flow slowed. This time of Sun-Longer was when the swimming frog-hatchlings began to appear—soft-bodied, wriggling things barely bigger than his toe. He scanned the water for movement.
A twitch. A flick. A tiny shiver of shadow.
Pa-Ho jabbed his beak into the pool.
He came up with a tadpole squirming between his mandibles, its tail whipping weakly. A pleased rattle rose in his throat. He tossed the hatchling once to reposition it and then swallowed. It slid cold into his throat, still faintly wiggling.
Good. Very good.
He scanned again.
Another flick in the water. Another dart of his beak. Another swallow.
He hopped closer to the bank and leaned in, watching with increasing excitement as more tiny shapes wriggled along the gravel bed. Frog-hatchlings were like the tender worms that appeared right after the first warm rains—rare, easy to catch, and full of everything a young crow needed.
Pa-Ho stabbed again, this time coming up with two. One slipped free and plopped back into the water, but he secured the other, gulping it quickly.
He lost track of time for a bit. The pool kept offering. Over and over he stabbed, swallowed, stabbed again. His crop filled with three, then four, then five hatchlings. One still kicked feebly inside him, its movement rhythmic and strange.
He bent toward the water again—
—and froze.
His feathers prickled. The pool felt too open suddenly, too exposed. His head stayed low to the water, but his eyes shifted upward and sideways. He had been on the ground too long. Too many breaths with his head down. Too many moments when his eyes were full of water and not sky.
That was how snakes killed. How cats killed. Even how hawks killed if you were stupid enough to face the wrong direction.
Enough. Good eating, but too dangerous now.
He bent his head for one last frog-hatchling. This one he did not swallow but kept in his crop. The cold water steadied him a little. Then he flared his wings and launched—a hard beat upward, then another, climbing fast.
The stream wound through the trees toward the big road. Pa-Ho followed it at low height, then rose sharply as he neared the edge of the murder’s territory. He climbed past the treetops, then higher still until he reached safe height—high enough that cats were nothing, snakes were nothing, and only hawks could reach him.
But he would see those.
He crossed the big road at nearly four hundred feet of altitude, wind sliding beneath his wings. A few moving nests barreled past below, roaring and blind to him. He angled down once he passed the far side, curling toward the familiar grove of trees that marked safer ground.
His crop shifted with the movement, the tadpole inside still giving the occasional twitch. Good. Alive meant fresh. Fresh meant a better trade.
Kit-Kat and his family specialized in beetle grubs, and Pa-Ho loved Kit-Kat’s beetle grubs more than tadpoles. A trade was a trade. And a wriggling hatchling carried better weight in negotiation than something already still.
He landed in one of the tall trees at the grove’s edge, gripping the branch firmly. He stayed there a moment, silent, head tilted, letting his eyes sweep the terrain.
No hawks. No cats. No snakes.
Just wind, trees, and safety.
Pa-Ho scanned the grove from his branch, feathers settling as the quiet returned. Movement caught his eye—a familiar dark shape higher in the family tree that belonged to Kit-Kat’s line. Kit-Kat perched beside his mate, the two of them preening each other with slow, practiced strokes. The grooming was thorough, serious—mating-season preening, for birds who were old enough to make something of it.
Pa-Ho waited.
Approaching a paired bird during mutual preening was foolish. You didn’t interrupt that. You didn’t risk the sharp scolding or the flare of wings that came from intruding on instinctive rituals.
Kit-Kat’s mate finally launched into the air with a soft clik, heading deeper into the grove. Kit-Kat watched her go, then shook out his wings once, feathers bright in the light.
Pa-Ho fluttered from his branch to Kit-Kat’s, landing a polite distance away.
Kit-Kat tilted his head. “Why here?”
Pa-Ho kept his voice low, clicking with careful precision. “Hatchling-frog in crop. Still wiggle.”
Kit-Kat stiffened with interest. His eyes widened a fraction. Hatchling-frogs came only once each year, and never in this grove—never in the murder’s territory at all. They lived on the far side of the big road, where few crows dared fly. Pa-Ho was one of the few willing to risk the journey. Therefore, hatchling frogs were valuable. In crow world it was pure capitalism.
“How much?” Kit-Kat asked, feathers flattening as he prepared for trade.
Pa-Ho held himself steady. “Three beaks.”
Kit-Kat snapped a sharp refusal-click. “One beak.”
Pa-Ho clicked back, firm. “Two beaks.”
A pause. Kit-Kat considered, tail flicking once. Then he gave the okey-doke click—one rapid clik followed by a soft throat rattle.
Done.
Pa-Ho leaned forward, tensed his throat muscles, and disgorged the tadpole into his beak. It slid out slick and glistening, its tail giving the faintest possible wiggle—almost gone, but still alive enough to count as fresh. He dropped it on the branch near Kit-Kat’s feet.
Kit-Kat snatched it immediately and swallowed it whole. His feathers lifted in satisfaction. “Good food.”
He hopped to another branch, motioned with his wing, and led Pa-Ho around the trunk to a knothole hidden beneath a curl of bark. Inside, hundreds of beetle grubs writhed in a pale, pulsing cluster—fat, squirming, rich with the taste of moss and decay.
Kit-Kat dipped his head once, granting permission.
Pa-Ho leaned in and swallowed a beakful. Then another.
Warm, perfect grubs ground through his crop and filled his belly, pushing aside the lingering cold of stream water. He clicked once in satisfaction.
A good trade.
Pa-Ho left Kit-Kat’s branch. The grove was familiar, thick with pine scent and the layered voices of the murder. He glided down one row of branches and then up another, weaving easily through the territory’s heart until he reached the tall tree his bloodline used.
His family tree stood a little apart from the noisier clusters, sturdy and full of old nesting scars. Pa-Ho didn’t sleep here anymore—he was a strong flyer now—but his parents still did, and so did last season’s brood. Not for much longer. His mother carried the next clutch; he could tell by the change in her posture and by the quiet between her and his father. No more mating season displays. That stage was done.
Pa-Ho landed on a middle branch and gave a soft greeting click.
His mother turned, feathers smoothing with recognition. She gave him a warm throat-rattle. “Bread good.”
Pa-Ho lifted his head slightly in pride. He had delivered a small bounty to the family nest earlier that day. “Found extra. Gave sibs.”
She preened the edge of her wing, approving. “Good. Good brood.”
He stepped closer along the branch, keeping his voice low. “Hatchling-frogs in stream again. Can’t store. Tasty.”
Her feathers rustled with interest. “Tell father. He go later.”
Pa-Ho clicked once in acknowledgment. The food in his belly already felt half-gone. That was the problem with hatchling-frogs—they filled you up fast and emptied just as quickly. His hunger curled back into him, faint but rising.
Walnuts, then. The squirrels kept good stores this time of Sun-Longer. Maybe they had dropped something he could steal.
Pa-Ho crouched, ready to take flight—
A rush of wings brushed the air beside him.
Flik-Clik swept into the tree, banking neatly and landing on the same branch he perched on—so close her wingtip nearly touched his. She settled with bright eyes and a confident flick of her tail.
She greeted his mother first with a polite clik.
Then she turned to Pa-Ho and clicked again, softer, more directed.
Pa-Ho felt his feathers lift in surprise before he forced them flat. He answered her with a careful click of his own, trying to sound normal.
But she was here. In his family tree. On his branch.
And his mother was watching.
Flik-Clik clicked her greeting a second time, brighter than the first. Pa-Ho felt his chest tighten the way it always did when she appeared—like his crop had suddenly filled with warm air. His feathers fought between fluffing and staying smooth. He wished they would pick one.
Flik-Clik did not wait for him to settle. She never did. She launched straight into chatter, words tumbling out with the urgency of a bird who might burst if she didn’t talk enough.
“Sun warm. Wind mild. Mid–Sun-Longer today. Days warm soon. Bugs many. Nestlings loud. Murder busy.”
Pa-Ho, as always, blurted the first thing that came into his mind.
“Sun warm,” he echoed.
Immediately he regretted it. Lame. Lame. He could have said something better—Sun strong or Wind good or even Sky clear. But no. He had to repeat her words like a fledgling who’d only learned language last week.
If Matt Tisdale had been a crow, he would have mocked Pa-Ho until the pines fell over. “How you ever gonna get some fuckin’ cloaca if you can’t even talk to a bitch?” he would undoubtedly enquire. Pa-Ho, perhaps mercifully, had no idea who Matt Tisdale was and there was no crow analogue to him. Crows could likely not even conceive of a Matt outlook on life and sexuality.
Flik-Clik didn’t seem to mind. She clicked again, dancing sideways along the branch. “Wind mild. Bugs many. Day good.”
Pa-Ho winced internally and parroted her again. “Wind mild.”
He hated himself a little.
But she was close—wing-close—and her chatter always hit him like a gust of warm air. He managed, through the static of embarrassment, to realize he had something worth saying.
“Hatchling-frogs in stream,” he told her. “Very many. Good food.”
Flik-Clik’s feathers lifted in excitement. “Want eat one.”
Pa-Ho perked up. This he could do. “I show,” he said, trying to sound helpful instead of hopeless.
But Flik-Clik gave him the negative click at once. “Too danger. Stream open. Sky open. Cats hide. Hawks hide. No go.”
She was right. Hatchling-frogs were good, but the stream was too exposed, especially for a bird of her status. Big Crow did not lose daughters to foolishness.
Pa-Ho’s feathers dimmed a little.
Flik-Clik clicked again—different tone, more focused. “Show hot-bug spot?”
Pa-Ho jerked his head up. The hot-bug spot—what the Kingsley family and inner circle called the Johansen Spot (though Pa-Ho didn’t know this). She wanted that? Females rarely asked for adventures off-territory. They preferred safe routes, safe perches, safe food. Only the wildest juveniles flew to the hot-bug spot, and Flik-Clik was many things—bold, curious, chatter-bird—but not reckless.
She clicked again, sharper this time. “Hot-bug spot. You show?”
Pa-Ho stared at her, unsure he’d heard right.
Flik-Clik tilted her head as if waiting for him to catch up. “You know place. Many hot bugs. Want see. Want eat.”
His crop fluttered. He spread his wings halfway, uncertain. “Long flight,” he warned. “Wind strong near big water. Gulls loud. Moving nests.”
Flik-Clik clicked the okey-doke click without hesitation. “Show.”
Pa-Ho swallowed—hard enough that the beetle grubs shifted inside him.
She wanted him to take her to the hot bug spot. Just the two of them.
“Show Flik-Clik hot bug spot,” Pa-Ho’s mother told him—commanded him in her way. His mother most definitely approved of his friendship with Big-Crow’s daughter. Crows were smart enough to be social climbers and Flik-Clik was higher than anyone in their family could possibly hope to climb. But she would root for him. And even if (when!) nothing came of it, they would still have good will from the Big Crow family.
Pa-Ho dipped his head. “Come,” he said to the beautiful black creature who had, for some reason, decided she liked him.
Flik-Clik stepped closer, feathers brushing his.
Pa-Ho felt the world tilt sideways for a heartbeat.
Then he opened his wings for the long flight to the southwest.
Pa-Ho launched from the branch, the air catching him cleanly. Flik-Clik followed a wing-beat behind, her form neat and efficient but lacking the deep power his own wings carried. She didn’t fly outside the murder’s territory. She didn’t play in the wind for no reason other than fun with the other young males. That was a male thing—stupid, glorious, sky-wild fun—fighting your way up wind as far as you could go and then turning around and seeing how fast you could fly back. Like human children dragging a sled up a snowy hill and then riding it down so they could do it again. Pa-Ho raced his season-mates every time the wind blew strong. His wings had grown powerful because of it.
He climbed easily, gaining height with long, confident strokes. Flik-Clik climbed too, steady but slower; Pa-Ho paused once in the updraft so she could match him. When she reached his level—about five hundred feet—they turned southwest together.
Below them the great dunes rolled like pale waves. The big road cut along their edge in a long gray scar, dropping down from Home Hill and weaving beside the sand. Moving nests crept up and down the dune faces—odd, boxy things sliding along the sand and whining with effort. Pa-Ho had never understood why humans dragged their noisy little moving nests up and down dunes, but they did it often enough that there must be some purpose to it. Humans didn’t do things for fun. They weren’t capable of that kind of behavior.
Gulls circled above the dunes in loose, noisy loops. They paid no attention to Pa-Ho and Flik-Clik. Gulls only screamed at crows when crows stole from them, and Pa-Ho wasn’t stealing today. Not yet.
As they neared the hot-bug spot, Pa-Ho felt the wind shift—stronger now, flavored with salt and the tang of human food. The place was crowded. Many moving nests lined the sand-side edge, their grilles bright and full of promise. Humans walked everywhere—some alone, some clustered, some with fledgling or nestling humans tugging at them. Gulls swarmed overhead and below, waddling between the nests, screaming at each other, picking at anything left unattended.
A crowded day meant more cooked bugs. Many varieties. Many sizes. Many flavors. It also meant more dangers—more humans who might stamp without looking, more gulls who might mob, more movement and noise that could hide threats inside it.
Pa-Ho banked to the left, letting the wind carry him toward the safer corner. He aligned himself into the breeze, folded his wings halfway, and dipped neatly onto the top rail of a small wooden fence. It bordered a tiny, foul-smelling human structure—half box, half cave, and leaking scents that told Pa-Ho this was not a nest. It was a human pooping place. No other explanation fit. No crow ever lingered near it long. But it was a good landing perch—solid, with a clear view of the feeding grounds.
Flik-Clik touched down beside him, feathers sleek, eyes bright with the thrill of being this far from home.
Pa-Ho clicked low, signaling caution.
Flik-Clik clicked back, signaling she understood. They had arrived. The hot-bug spot lay before them, full and alive. The crow buffet was now open.
Flik-Clik hopped once on the fence rail, glanced at Pa-Ho for confirmation, then followed as he dropped toward the nearest moving nest. Humans milled everywhere, their steps heavy and unpredictable, but none close enough to threaten. Gulls shrieked and bickered and flapped around scraps but didn’t look twice at the two young crows.
Pa-Ho landed first on the shiny protrusion at the front of the nearest nest, claws gripping the warm metal. Flik-Clik copied him a heartbeat later, wobbling once before correcting her balance. She clicked—half excitement, half pride.
Pa-Ho leaned forward and plucked a perfectly crisp moth from the grille. It came away with a satisfying crunch. He swallowed it whole and moved sideways. More moth bodies, still faintly warm. Mosquitos by the dozen. Fat black flies. A single scorched bee. Even a butterfly, its wings brittle and useless but its body soft enough to swallow.
Flik-Clik was watching closely.
Pa-Ho stepped aside and gave her room.
She checked the sky, checked the humans, checked the sand for cats and dog-animals. Then she darted forward and seized a scorched moth body. She swallowed and rattled her throat in delighted surprise.
“Bugs good,” she clicked to him.
They moved from nest to nest, repeating the pattern—land on the metal nose, eat, hop, scan, fly, repeat. Each grille offered a new mix: bees, moths, flies, a crisped wasp, and once a giant, beautiful, burnt-blue dragonfly that Pa-Ho and Flik-Clik tore in half without ceremony. They worked efficiently, instinctively, not wasting a moment.
Their bellies grew warm and full. Flik-Clik chattered nonstop between bites.
“Bugs good. Big bugs best. Hot bugs better. Humans scary. Gulls noisy. Smell fish.”
Pa-Ho agreed with her each time, even when the words were silly. It was easier than trying to think of something clever.
After nearly fifteen minutes, their bellies were full. Flik-Clik hopped toward him, feathers bright with excitement.
Pa-Ho clicked softly. “Go Home Hill.”
Flik-Clik tilted her head. “Go water spot?”
Pa-Ho’s feathers lifted in agreement. “Go.”
They took to the sky once more. The wind carried them easily now, full bellies making their flight smooth and slow. Pa-Ho led them northeast, over the dunes, alongside the big road, and up the rise toward Home Hill.
They dipped down into Kay-Dee’s family territory, landing lightly beside the human steel pond. The small pipe that leaked water ran beneath it, as always—a dependable source. Both birds stepped to the puddle beneath the pipe and lowered their beaks, drinking deeply until their thirst was satisfied.
Flik-Clik rattled her throat in contentment.
Pa-Ho shook droplets from his head, then hopped into the shallowest part of the puddle. He splashed, wings dipping and lifting, water sliding down his back. Flik-Clik joined him, sending arcs of water up and out. They flicked and fluttered and soaked themselves until their feathers clung dark and sleek to their bodies.
When they were wet enough, Pa-Ho hopped out, gave a hard shake, and flared his wings to shed the heaviest drops.
Then he motioned down the hill with his wing. “Warm air thing.”
Flik-Clik followed as he descended the short flight to the roof of the human nest. The wide pipe protruding from the shingles breathed warm air into the sky. Pa-Ho stepped beside it and let the rising heat spread through his wet feathers. Flik-Clik eased closer and mimicked his posture, letting the warm air dry her back, her wings, her neck.
She gave a pleased click. “Good.”
Pa-Ho ruffled with pride.
They warmed and dried side by side, feathers loosening, wings settling, the heat smoothing the last traces of the cold bath away.
They stood side by side next to the warm pipe, feathers slowly loosening as the rising air worked its way through them. Pa-Ho turned a half-step toward Flik-Clik, meaning only to shake off another bead of water, but her head lifted at the motion.
She clicked once—soft, questioning—then stepped closer.
Before Pa-Ho could decipher what she meant to do, she leaned in and touched her beak lightly to the feathers beside his eye. A gentle stroke, then another. Then a careful smoothing along the crown of his head.
Pa-Ho froze.
Every instinct in his body lit at once—shock, confusion, pleasure, fear, hunger, something else he had no name for. Grooming. She was grooming him. Not practice play with random juveniles. Not social grooming in a crowd. This was one bird choosing another bird, alone, with no witnesses but the sky and the warm vent.
She groomed his cheek feathers next, tiny delicate tugs that straightened each plume. Then the short ones behind his beak hinge. His breath hitched in a small, involuntary rattle.
Flik-Clik continued, unbothered by his stillness. This was normal to her—instinct, curiosity, Sun-Longer boldness. But Pa-Ho felt like a stick caught in a sudden river current.
At last she paused and tilted her head, waiting.
It took a long moment for Pa-Ho to understand.
She wanted him to groom her back.
He swallowed. His wings twitched. His feet shifted on the warm shingles. Then, with all the grace of a bird stepping into the wrong nest, he leaned forward and touched his beak to her head feathers.
He brushed one feather—wrong one. Adjusted. Stroked another—too hard. Flik-Clik didn’t flinch. Encouraged, Pa-Ho tried again, gentler this time. He smoothed a short row of feathers along her crown. Then another along the curve of her cheek.
Flik-Clik rattled her throat with quiet satisfaction, leaning into the touch.
If Owen Olson had been a crow, he would have been screaming “First base!” at the top of his lungs. Matt would have been unimpressed. “Stick your fuckin’ tongue in her mouth, moron,” he would have said. “Then turn her around and do whatever it is you motherfuckers do to get it on.”
Pa-Ho continued grooming for a few heartbeats more, each careful stroke sending panic and delight spiraling through him. When he finally pulled back, Flik-Clik clicked once in a way that made his crop flutter like a trapped butterfly.
She shook her feathers, now mostly dry.
Pa-Ho shook his as well, though he was certain he would never feel entirely steady again.
They stood together on the warm vent, the afternoon light slanting across their feathers, and Pa-Ho understood—without words, without human thoughts, without anything but instinct—that something had changed.
Something important.
Something that had never happened to him before.
Flik-Clik stepped back, giving a pleased shake. Her wings lifted and resettled—dry enough now, warm from the vent—and she clicked a parting phrase.
“I go forage. Try bugs near human-nest boundary. Beetles sometimes.”
Pa-Ho clicked acknowledgment, though his body still felt ... wrong. Light. Unsteady. Warm in the crop and warm in the feathers and warm somewhere deeper he didn’t have crow-words for. Being groomed had left him half-floating, half-stunned, and entirely not thinking clearly.
Flik-Clik turned to go.
And that was precisely when Pa-Ho committed the kind of spontaneous, under-analyzed, emotionally-charged impulsive decision that Nerdly—if he had been a crow—would have immediately labeled putting an unplanned sequence of events into motion without empirical analysis beforehand.
Pa-Ho clicked, too loud. “Have secret food source.”
Flik-Clik stopped mid-step, head snapping toward him. Her feathers lifted—not alarm, but interest. Sharp interest.
“Where?” she asked.
Pa-Ho’s brain flailed. His wings twitched. He had not intended to say that. He had not intended to say anything. But he was halfway to the stars from her grooming and his beak had gotten ahead of his survival instincts.
“At human nest,” he said.
Flik-Clik’s eyes widened. She stepped closer. Closer still. “Food at human nest?”
Pa-Ho pressed on—because pulling back now would be worse than dropping a live snake on Big Crow’s head. “Yes. Very good food. White berries. Almost time. Show you.”
Flik-Clik tilted her head, calculating. Her feathers lay sleek and confident against her body. “Danger,” she said. Everyone knew to stay away from the human nest during the day. Only at sunset was it safe.
Pa-Ho shook his wings slightly. “Close to Kay-Dee,” he said. “Safe. Kay-Dee good. Kay-Dee give white berries.”
Every crow in the murder knew Kay-Dee’s name. The nestling human who made the beautiful noise and sang with the beautiful human voice.
Flik-Clik considered this. Her posture eased. “Kay-Dee good,” she agreed softly.
Pa-Ho felt his heart hammering under his keel. He had just offered her the greatest secret he possessed—his private food source, his bond with the human nestling, the ritual no other crow shared.
Flik-Clik took a single step nearer, feathers brushing his.
“Show,” she said.
Pa-Ho’s breath hitched. His wings opened almost of their own accord.
“Come,” he said.
And with the foolish bravery of a young crow in Sun-Longer, freshly groomed by a princess and thinking far less clearly than he should, Pa-Ho leapt from the roof and took to the air—Flik-Clik following close behind, intrigue radiating from every line of her body.
Caydee pressed her forehead to the minivan window and watched the houses blur past. Mondays were supposed to be Ramirez House Days. Everybody knew that. The universe knew that. But not today. Today Carlos and Emilia were grounded.
Deeply grounded.
Epic-level grounded.
It had happened the day before, after church. The Ramirez siblings had heard from classmates that dropping Mentos into soda made it erupt like a volcano. They decided to test the theory using, not a can of soda and a single Mento, but a full two-liter bottle of Mama Ramirez’s diet Coke and an entire pack of Mentos stolen from the snack drawer. The result had been immediate and catastrophic. Foam everywhere. Ceiling, floor, cabinets, shoes, hair, nostrils, clean dishes in the drying rack, a drawer of clean dish towels, and all over the bar of soap next to the sink, which caused a separate chemical reaction and mess.
The Ramirez family lived paycheck to paycheck, and Mama Ramirez was furious about the waste of money—furious in two languages. But she was even more furious about the mess. It was the mess to end all messes, the extinction level event of messes. It had taken hours to scrub and mop everything clean—and you can bet your booty that it was Carlos and Emilia that cleaned everything—and she grounded both children for a full week.
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