Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 88290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“I’m just glad that Kola broke down and talked to me and Jake about it. We were all feeling it but—he’s the one who has to say. It’s always been like that.”
I nodded.
“That’s not to say that if he wanted to come home and me and Jake didn’t, that we would have followed him. We’re not his sidekicks; we’re all our own people.”
“I’m aware,” I assured him.
“But we’re all so similar in the big important ways.”
“Soulmates,” Jake said, retaking his seat on the couch with an enormous sandwich with dill pickles and pepperoncini peppers and potato chips on the side.
“What?” Harper asked him.
“Soulmates don’t hafta just be lovers or married people,” he answered, crunching a pickle. “They can be friends like us. I mean, I can’t imagine not having you guys around for the rest of my life. Can you?”
Harper thought a moment. “No, I really can’t.”
“Yeah, see. It’s like you thinkin’ it had to be Kola, like you were in love with Kola,” he said with a snort. “Yeah, right. You were just confused. You love him, you just don’t love-love him in a romantic way. He’s your soulmate, just like I am. I know what you think before you think it.”
Harper nodded. “That’s true.”
“And that’s not to say we don’t miss stuff. I mean, I totally missed Kola hating to wake up with my dates every morning.”
“That was not fun,” Harper said flatly.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. But all I mean is, I don’t think any of us have to be sad if we go through life and never have that big love like Kola’s folks have, ’cause we’ve got the soulmate thing covered already.”
Harper was staring at him.
“What?” Jake said, or I was pretty sure that was what he said. Hard to tell since he was eating and he couldn’t close his mouth all the way because the bites were so big.
“I dunno. I think you’re not paying attention a lot of the time, and then you come out with something like this and blow me away with your insight.”
Jake smiled with all the food in his mouth.
“Oh God,” Harper groaned as Kola came back into the room in sweats and socks, a long-sleeve T-shirt and a heavy cardigan on over that.
“Close your mouth,” he ordered Jake. “Why you gotta be so disgusting?”
Jake said something, but it was lost on me.
“No, it’s not a gift,” Kola groused at him and then turned to his sister and smiled.
“Oh God, what?” she groaned.
“I want a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup, but not the regular one, but––”
“You want the spicy bisque and the really thick sandwich?”
“Yes, please.”
She grunted like she was annoyed, but she went immediately to the kitchen, and after a few minutes she called her brother in there. I got comfortable on the couch beside Sam, who was watching Jake eat and playing Diablo at the same time.
“How is he still eating?” he asked Harper.
“You know cows have four stomachs,” he offered. “It’s like that.”
“Huh,” Sam said, focusing on the game.
“I’m really glad you guys are moving back,” I said to Harper and Jake.
Jake said something, and Harper said, “Me three,” like he did when he was little.
It was nice that certain things never changed.
Our party on Saturday, on Christmas Eve, was good. Some people came and stayed. Dane and Aja and their sons and their friends, who were girls—Aja didn’t like the word girlfriends, not yet—were there for the long haul, and I was thrilled. Robert’s friend, Portia, was very nice. She and Robert both attended Northwestern, having started there as freshmen in the fall. Gentry, still in high school, was spending a lot of time with Dallas, who was a transfer at his school. It was, at the moment now, zero degrees outside, and while we were warm and toasty inside, she was lucky, because her dress was so short, if she stepped outside, her legs would freeze off. Why she wasn’t wearing tights was beyond me. Hannah had offered her some, she had many pairs, but Dallas had sweetly told her no. As her shoes were so high, she was sitting, and Gentry was getting her things.
“Had you met Dallas before tonight?” I asked Robert.
“No,” he said, making a face. “And I hope this is it.”
“Robert.” Portia sounded aghast. “That’s your brother’s…friend. Be nice.”
He rolled his eyes and went to get Portia some of his mother’s peach cobbler.
“It’s very nice of you to stick up for Gen,” I told the beautiful young woman.
“I just feel bad,” she said with a sigh. “I can tell Dallas is giving Mrs. Harcourt hives, and if I wore something like that to a family party, my mother would die of embarrassment. On top of that, Robert can be kind of a jerk if he doesn’t like you right off.”
“He gets that from his father,” I assured her.