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)
“Yes, but who’s to say someone else might not catch his eye down the road. He’s not to be trusted a second time.”
“Or…he’s utterly learned his lesson,” he argued.
I shook my head. “Absolutely not. She would never trust him again.”
“Why should she trust idiot Michael who’s leaving her for his name on the door?”
We were both quiet for a moment.
“You know whose fault this really is, don’t you?” Sam asked me.
“I do. It’s Dane’s fault for not hiring your brother all those years ago.”
Sam cackled. “Yeah, but really, Michael wasn’t a good fit for him.”
I sighed. “I want Michael to be happy, but I want that for Sandra as well.”
“Well, we’ll have to wait and see how this all shakes out.”
At home, two hours later, Hannah was on the couch watching the Apothecary Diaries and eating an enormous plate of chicken pad thai, and Jake was passed out beside her.
“What’s happening?” Sam asked as we walked in. “And why don’t you just watch the dubbed version of this? There’s gotta be one, since you’re watching it on Netflix.”
“For one, ewww,” she told him. “I always watch everything in the original language if remotely possible. I like the inflections better. For two, Wick, Harper, and Finn decided that painting the kitchen was a good idea to start late Friday night when they all got home.”
“Painting?” I asked her.
“I mean, I don’t care. Pale green kitchen with forest-green cabinets—that’s awesome. Go for it. But that’s a weekend project or a fall-break one. That is not something you want to start on a Friday night.”
“Paint fumes?”
“For starters, yeah,” she told us. “I ordered them pizza, and then we bailed. And your oldest child is asleep upstairs in his room.”
“He left Finn?”
“It was Finn’s idea,” she said with a shake of her head. “He deserves to sleep alone when he thinks they can just ‘whip that out,’” she finished, doing a terrible impression of Kola’s beloved. “Plus, Finn’s been a bit psycho about Kola’s birthday present. He doesn’t understand that Kola’s love language is not gift-giving in any way, either giving or receiving, but totally quality time. All Finn needs to do is be around him and Kola’s happy.”
“You and your father are both gift people,” Sam told me and my daughter.
“And yours is acts of service, Dad. We know.”
He shrugged. “Is there any more pad thai?”
“Yeah, there’s a ton. I over ordered because I thought Jake was going to eat, but he had pizza before we bailed.”
“Awesome,” Sam said before he walked back to the kitchen.
“Didn’t you two eat at the anniversary party?”
“Listen to this,” I said, and flopped down beside her on the couch and relayed the story.
“Wait, he’s moving to Boston? Without Aunt Sandy?”
I nodded.
“But doesn’t that seem, you know, not super smart, considering they’ve only been married a year?”
“You would think so.”
“Huh. What did Nana say?”
“She thought Sandy was going with him.”
“Yeah, but Kitty’s still in school. And her dad’s here, and all her friends.”
“This is what I said.”
After a few minutes of silence, Hannah told me that her friend, the very rich and oh so handsome David Chan, was getting married.
“You remember him, right? He’s the one George saved from being kidnapped at that fundraiser I was at with him.”
“How could I forget,” I assured her. “Plus, he and I have seen each other on more than one occasion.”
“True,” she said with a smile.
“So he’s getting married?”
“In theory.”
“What does that mean?”
She grimaced. “It means his mother said, over my dead body, and he said, then you better get your affairs in order.”
“This sounds terrible,” I commented. “And those accents are atrocious.”
“Sorry. But it is contentious. I told him to stop being a brat. He can’t possibly marry Leticia Brummell in Hong Kong next month. She’s not right for him, and he’s just using her to irritate his parents, which is terrible.”
“Maybe he loves her.”
There was loud scoffing.
“Hannah Regina Kage, do not be so dismissive of people your friends love.”
She cackled evilly. “Yeah. Okay. We’ll see.”
It was funny, but about thirty minutes later, there was a knock on the back door. Sam got up, going to check, leaned into the kitchen so he could see out to the back door, and asked whoever it was, what the hell was happening.
“I know,” I heard Harper mutter.
Hannah and I both turned around and looked at him. Jake was still asleep on the other end of the couch. Wick and Finn were right next to Harper, standing there looking utterly bedraggled.
“Since when do you knock?” I asked him.
“These two are weird about it,” he stated, rolling his eyes and gesturing at Wick and Finn.
“It’s not right to just walk in like we own the place,” Wick declared.
“But all of you are family,” I told him. “I promise you that it’s okay.”
Wick dropped his duffel, trudged over to the couch, and took a seat beside me before putting his head on my shoulder. His sigh was long. I slipped my hand up around the side of his cheek and patted gently.