Total pages in book: 31
Estimated words: 29591 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 148(@200wpm)___ 118(@250wpm)___ 99(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 29591 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 148(@200wpm)___ 118(@250wpm)___ 99(@300wpm)
I lifted my brows. You’re not even gonna let him finish his studying?
Evidently not. “I wanted to tell you that I’ve met someone.”
Some twenty-five years ago…
“Whoa.” Alex straightened in his seat, visibly surprised.
My mouth twitched.
Truth be told, I’d expected to be at least a little bit nervous, but when push came to shove, my only source of worry for so long had been Max himself. And I’d locked him down properly, so I guessed that was all there was to it.
“You know him already,” Max confirmed.
Alex’s initial reaction was to glance at me quickly, and that settled things for me even more. We weren’t a shock to anyone who knew us. Dylan certainly wasn’t going to be surprised when I called him tomorrow.
I let a smile break free.
The kid smiled back, then chuckled and faced his dad. “You and Uncle Reid?” he pressed.
“Yes.” Max nodded. “How do you feel about that?”
Alex shrugged and scratched his nose. “All good. Congrats and stuff. Maybe Moms can quit talking about it now. Every time you see each other, they gossip about if you’re together or not.”
Well. There we go.
“Can you relax now, darlin’?” I asked Max.
He let out a breath and chuckled, maybe at himself. “I suppose so.”
“Darlin’,” Alex snickered. “That’s weird.”
I smirked.
The following week
“Sounds like you made the right call,” Reese replied, biting into his burger.
“Yeah, but maybe a couple years too late.” I took a big bite of my burger too.
The joint was packed with the lunch crowd, and I was far from the only one decked out in high-vis. In fact, I was fairly sure I recognized some of the construction crew from the nearby worksite I’d just left.
Reese shrugged and grabbed a napkin from the dispenser on the bar. “Not if Max needed the extra time to let go of OT. I’d probably be just like him.”
“I reckon I was never as attached as he was.” And that wasn’t weird, considering Max had used our community to try to find his identity. “Either way, we’re glad it’s over and done with, and we were talkin’ about joining one of those munches after the holidays.”
“Why wait till then?” He wiped burger condiments off the corner of his mouth. “We’re hostin’ one the first weekend of December.”
I shook my head and swallowed a mouthful of food. “We’re heading up to New York to visit my son. The little shit tried to cancel Thanksgiving because he’s busy with school, so we compromised. He’ll come down for the dinner, and he’ll spend the night. Then Max and I will head up to spend a few days with him.”
It’d be a nice extra vacation, and we’d have plenty of alone time while Dylan tried to catch up. Poor kid had begged his professor to let him redo a project he’d failed by misunderstanding the task. I’d had half a mind to call the professor myself.
“It’ll be nice,” I said. “Gives me a chance to restock his fridge and freezer too. I don’t think he’s had a single home-cooked meal up there.”
Reese shook his head. “Fuck New York.”
“Amen.” I reached for my soda and took a swig. “So, what prompted this lunch invitation today?”
I mean, Reese and I were close enough to call each other buddies, but we usually only met up for a quick beer together here and there.
He smirked and shifted his attention to his fries. “I saw you lurkin’ around our online community and figured, there’s a Sadist whose input I want for our next year’s monthly events.”
I chuckled. “I highly doubt that. The number of stories I’ve heard about your themed events over the years…? Monthly challenge, monthly game, monthly class. What’s the name for next year?”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” he replied. “Didn’t Old Town run a similar event one year called The Presentation?”
I half nodded, weighing my answer. “Yeah, but we didn’t have a competition component. In the end, fewer members showed up, nobody wanted to contribute as dungeon monitors, and everybody just complained about one thing after another.”
Reese nodded and threw some fries into his mouth. “Corey and Lane may have mentioned it. But what if we turned it into a competition? What if we took that idea of giving dynamics tasks every month, and they have a couple of weeks to complete them before they give their presentation? What if we did this in a community with two hundred active members instead of forty? And in a location with more space than an attic.”
I scratched my jaw and thought about it. No doubt, they could make that event much better. Max and I had come up with the idea together, and we’d admittedly wanted a portion of the event to include some kind of challenge or contest, but we just hadn’t had the space for it. Or members who gave a shit. They wanted a whole lot without lifting a finger.