Running with Rogues

CHAPTER 23 - LUNCHTIME

Hello y'all. I am now neck-deep in the eXaM pErIoD, so please excuse the slightly late/non-existent updates for the next two weeks. I have a year's worth of procrastinating to make up for and not much time to do it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The food truck was parked in one its usual haunts, just west of Pine Forest Pack. There were a handful of picnic benches scattered outside and a handful of people queuing for today's lunch, which smelt like beef casserole to me. We sauntered up towards the counter with grins plastered on our faces.

"Aren't you going to take the cuffs off?" Hayden hissed at Nia. "They'll see."

She just laughed at him. In all fairness, he couldn't have been expected to guess that this incredibly human-looking enterprise would be manned and visited entirely by rogues. He was dragged to the counter with her, and he was forced to stand by anxiously while she leaned over it and whistled.

She'd skipped the queue, not that it mattered. We weren't customers, and all the rogues here knew it. The rest of us piled up behind her, peering into the truck and jostling each other. It took Maggie a minute to drag herself out of her armchair and come and see what was going on.

"Morning, Maggie," Nia said cheerfully. "How are you?"

"How am I? How do you think I am?" Maggie demanded. She was coming up to ninety, I reckoned, and her joints were turning in their resignations by the dozen. "Now stow the cheek and get in here, young lady. You're overdue a hug."

My cousin laughed. "If I hugged you, I'd crack your ribs. You can have my sister, though. She's been a right royal pain in our asses today."

Yes, Poppy had decided to spend the entire car journey throwing a tantrum because she was hungry. She was sat on Sam's shoulders now, and he set her on the counter to say hello. She just burst into tears all over again. Maggie started to soothe her while she looked over the rest of us.

"How many of you are there? Sixteen? More? You'd better find some extra plates, Tomos," she said over her shoulder. There came a creaking as the other occupant of the food truck pushed his chair back and came to peer at us.

"Oh dear. There goes our lovely peace and quiet."

I snickered. The dude claimed he was there to protect Maggie, but he was also approaching triple digits, so I wasn't sure how much use he'd be. Their friendship, if you could even call it that, seemed to be entirely platonic. I reckoned they just enjoyed each other's company, although you wouldn't know it from the way they laid into each other.

"Shut up, old man. You love us," Eira told him. "Now where's the food?"

"There's plenty here," Maggie assured her. "How are you feeling today, sweetie?"

Eira always got asked that, and her patience with it was infinite, as far as I could tell.

"I've been worse," she said, scratching at the place where her IV had been only a few days earlier. It wasn't entirely a lie, but it was definitely an avoidance of the truth. She'd got so tired walking back from Llechi that she'd asked Rhodri for a piggyback, and those two weren't on the best terms, to put it lightly.

"Leave her be, Margaret," the old man scolded. "She doesn't need you fussing."

Maggie rounded on him quicker than I could blink. "You must be going senile, Tomos. How many times do I have to tell you? Maggie is not short for Margaret."

"Yes, yes. I'll believe you when I see your birth certificate," he sighed.

"It's a Bengali name, you old prat. The spelling is British - that's all. My parents compromised, as yours should have done," she said, nodding at Rhodri now, "instead of naming you after my no-good layabout of a son-in-law."