Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 91461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“Yeah,” Harper said, coming into the kitchen, sounding shaky. “He’s all certified now. I had no idea.”
Hannah came into the kitchen and sat down as Dane and Aja came in the back door with Gen and Robert. “He looks so good,” she murmured.
“He’s thinner,” Kola said.
“No,” Sam corrected his son. “He’s just using all my equipment in the basement every night, and he runs with me in the morning. It’s all muscle.”
“You just hugged him,” Harper muttered, flopping down in a chair. “You know he’s not thin. He felt strong. Good.”
“He didn’t hug me,” Hannah whispered.
“Because that would break his heart right open,” Kola told her. “He can’t do that.”
She nodded, and Sam slipped around the table to hug his girl. Hannah wrapped her arms around her father’s waist and then turned her face into his side so no one could see the tears.
Later, Harper and Kola were standing out on the back porch, and when I joined them, I noticed that Harper was smiling.
“You look better than earlier.”
He nodded. “It’s so weird. Because I love Hannah,” he said turning to me. “I do. You know I do.”
“Yes,” I assured him.
“But… I know what Jake’s footsteps sound like. I know the exact moment when, if he doesn’t cut his hair, it’s going to start to curl. I know the sound of his breathing, and I know exactly how he starts off talking about sentient robots and ends up on Quentin Tarantino movies.”
“Which he loves, by the way,” Kola threw in. “And K-dramas because of Hannah.”
“Who I love,” Harper repeated, making sure I knew that before turning to Kola in absolute misery. “But… I can’t anymore. I have to see him once a day, every day, for my mental health.”
“He’s the same,” I told them.
“He looked fine to me,” Kola muttered.
“He fills every single second of his time,” I told them. “And he’s working like a dog.”
“I miss him,” Kola murmured sadly, leaning over on the railing. “I need him to veg with. I can sit with him for hours and not say a word.”
“Exactly,” Harper agreed. “And it’s the same with you, but without him––”
“The energy’s off,” Kola said miserably and then turned to me. “Will he even come home? He seems pretty happy here with you guys.”
“Everyone’s happy with us,” I assured my son. “Your father and I are the best.”
His smile was huge. “It’s true.”
“If you think about it,” I began, “all of you have places to go if things don’t work out at home. Jake has to drive to his father or fly to his mother. I’m sure he thought, what am I going to do, which is why he was staying with friends when he first got back from Wisconsin.”
“But then he came over here,” Kola stated.
“Because his brain kicked in. He knows better. It just took him a minute to remember that, even though your father and I are your parents and Hannah’s parents, that we love him like he belongs to us.”
Kola nodded.
“You too,” I said to Harper. “I miss you when you’re not here, and so does the chief deputy. He doesn’t like the idea of seeing you less. Don’t make him resent Wick.”
Harper grinned at me. “No, sir, I won’t.”
I nodded even as I saw his face crumple. “Honey?”
“I want Jake to come home,” Harper said wistfully. “He was telling me how he hung out with some guys from school and that they could not follow his train of thought at all.”
“That’s the worst,” I told my son and one of his best friends.
“It is,” Kola mused. “You have to be with people who get you.”
“I don’t want him hanging out with other people,” Harper told Kola. “And that’s ridiculous and so fifth grade but—it’s how I feel.”
“I know. Me too.”
“I need him back,” Harper said with a sigh. “It’s like, I knew better than to let you break up the band when you were heading to California.”
Kola turned to him. “You guys told me you wanted to go.”
“We did. It was new, and it’s good to expand your horizons and all, but we also knew that me and Jake without you was not a good thing. That’s why Wick better not decide to take a job in New York after he gets his master’s.”
“You can’t go that far,” Kola told him. “I mean, you could. Of course you could. But you won’t, will you?”
Harper smiled at him. “No, I won’t. How could that ever work?”
Kola nodded and exhaled deeply, looking back out at the yard. “Thankfully, Finn is going to stay right here, because I can’t have him leaving me either.”
“Nobody’s leaving you,” Finn promised, walking up behind Kola and wrapping his arms around him.
Quick exhale from my son before he turned his head and kissed Finn’s cheek. “I need Jake home.”