The Forever Girl (Wildstone, #6)(105)

“We take care of the yard of this property,” one of them said. “I’m R.” He jabbed a thumb at the other kid. “He’s J. Simon just gave us twenty bucks to carry these boxes up here for you. Uh . . . is that a bear behind the couch?”

“Nope, just an anxious dog named Hog. What do R and J stand for?”

“Robert,” the first kid said, patting his chest with his hand. He pointed at his twin. “Jeremy. We hate our names, so we go by R and J.”

Jeremy nodded but didn’t speak.

They were so identical it was almost spooky, but then Emma realized that while R had two hazel eyes, J had one hazel, one green. He nudged R, whispering something in his brother’s ear.

R nodded. “Right.” He looked at Emma. “So does Hog eat people?”

They all eyed Hog. Emma could see he’d been mistaken for a bear because only his huge head was peeking out from behind the couch, along with a line of drool hanging down from his massive jowls. He was panting slightly, his big milk chocolate eyes filled with concern.

“He eats everything but people,” Emma said fondly. “Also, he’s a big scaredy-cat. I’m kind of his emotional support person. It’s okay,” she said to Hog. “They’re friendlies.”

Hog gave a tentative wag of his tail and came out, waiting to receive all the love. Both guys were happy to give him what he wanted. In two seconds, Hog was on his back, tongue lolling in happiness while he received all the pets.

“So what happened to the couple who was supposed to carry my boxes up?” Emma asked the boys.

R grinned. “Simon told them we had this and that they should go because the sprinklers were going to come on and ruin the new wash job on their Lexus. The guy said he could move the car and park on the street instead, but Simon said the street cleaners would be coming through soon so he could just go.”

Not sure how she felt about Simon being her own personal superhero for the day, she searched her pockets, hoping she had some money to tip the teens. But then she remembered—she was flat broke. “Thanks so much for the assist, I really appreciate it.” She went to stand up. “Let me just find my wallet—”

“Simon told us if we took a tip from you, he’d fire us,” R said.

And then they were gone, and she was once again blessedly alone. If she could’ve done a happy dance, she would’ve. Instead, she settled for flopping onto the couch again. Hog joined her and they both promptly caved to the exhaustion and took a nap, and this time Hog wasn’t the only drooler.