Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 94624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
“Why is that better?”
“Because last time he said that he had better things to do than babysitting a spoiled heiress.”
“Wait, what?” I could feel myself bristle.
“Okay, fine, that’s not exactly what he said but––”
“He must know you’re not an heiress.”
“Probably.”
“You made that up so I wouldn’t like him.”
“What? That’s crazy.”
“What did he really say?’’
“He was mad because I was making him carry stuff out of my room.”
“Hannah, the man is not free labor.”
“He couldn’t help carry? George always helps me.”
“Because George is overly fond of you. Finn is just doing his job.”
“He’s an ass.”
“Now I really can’t wait to meet him.”
“Meet who?” Kola asked, walking into the room with a dish towel over his right shoulder and Dobby trailing after him.
“Are you cleaning alone?” I asked him but looked at Hannah.
“I cleaned,” she assured me. “I totally washed the pans and loaded the dishwasher. Why do you have the towel, is it a prop? Are you auditioning for something?”
“You’re funny,” he said, pulling it off his shoulder and wadding it up and beaning her with it. “Jake said to send Hannah down because she will want to dry with him.”
“Uh, no,” she replied snottily, getting off the bed and walking out of my room.
I heard her take the stairs to the landing and call Jake.
“Hey,” he yelled, which meant she had beaned him with the towel.
“Do your own drying, man. I washed,” she told him and then stomped back up the stairs and came back into the room. Kola had taken her blanket in the meantime and was now next to me with the TV clicker. She gasped when she saw him. “What the hell, man?”
“Get another one or take the chair, but this spot is warm.”
“Because it’s my spot!”
“I don’t see your name on it.”
“Ohmygod, Pa! What is he, five?”
I loved them arguing like they had when they were six and eight. It was awesome. I nearly started crying.
“Oh God, you really need sleep,” Hannah pronounced, going to the chair, sitting down, and putting her bunny-slipper-clad feet up on the ottoman.
“I lit the solstice day candles for you,” Kola told her.
“Oh crap, thank you. I forgot.”
“Supposed to celebrate living through the longest night and the return of the sun.”
“Well, the sun ain’t returning for a bit, but yes, return of the sun. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Tell me more about Finn,” I ordered Hannah.
“He’s a jerk.”
“No,” Kola argued. “He’s a nice guy.”
“You’ve met him?” I asked, turning to look at my son.
“Yeah. Hannah was at the—where were you with the narwhal thing?”
She rolled her eyes. “It was a fundraiser to help protect the manatees. Good Lord, one of those creatures has a giant horn. Are you kidding?”
“I wasn’t really paying attention,” Kola confessed. “But so you know, Jake’s doing that on-call waiter job and they called him in, like, right before Thanksgiving, but he had that giant bandage on his head, as you know, so he couldn’t go. You only get three callouts with the company and then you’re done, and he already called out once before, so I filled in for him at the narwhal––”
“Manatee,” Hannah corrected.
“Manatee,” Kola amended, “fundraiser.”
“And Hannah was there?”
“Yeah. And when I went over to say hello, she got up to hug me––”
“I must have been drunk,” she muttered.
“Have you ever been drunk?” I asked her.
“Maybe not,” she replied after thinking about it a moment.
“And then she introduced me to him,” Kola went on as though he and I were the only ones having a conversation.
“Imagine talking to a door, Pa,” Hannah chimed in. “Finn’s like that.”
“What kind of name is Finn?” I asked her.
“I have no––”
“It’s short for Finnegan, which is Irish, and he doesn’t love his full name, so he just goes by Finn.”
Hannah turned to her brother. “How do you know all this?”
He shrugged. “We hang out sometimes.”
I enjoyed watching Hannah’s eyebrows lift. “You hang out? When do you hang out?”
“I dunno, like, hey,” he said to Jake, who walked into my bedroom. “When was the last time Finn was over?”
Jake was quiet a moment. “Oh, I dunno, like, last week sometime?”
“I think Wednesday maybe,” Kola said, settling on Law & Order SVU. “Don’t worry, Pa, if it’s a kid one, I’ll change it.”
“Yeah, he can’t watch the kid ones,” Hannah agreed as Jake flopped down on the bed beside Kola.
“So this Finn is nice, then?” I asked Kola. “How old is he?”
Hannah scoffed. “He has no idea how––”
“He’s twenty-six at the moment,” Jake answered, which turned my attention to him.
“Oh, Pa, this is a good one, and there’s no kids,” Kola promised.
“How do you know how old Finn is?” Hannah asked Jake.
“He told us when he was kicking my ass at Tekken. He was a policeman for five years, and during that same time, he went to college in the evening, and got an undergrad degree in criminal justice.”