Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 94279 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 377(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94279 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 377(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
I ran into the kitchen and found her covering her eyes. Wilder stood in his boxer briefs, frozen, with a coffee mug in his hand. I gestured for him to go into the bedroom. Once the coast was clear, I spoke to my niece. “You can uncover your eyes now.”
“Yes, but I think my retinas might be permanently scarred.”
I cracked a smile. “I think what you got a peek at is pretty spectacular.”
“He’s like sixty.” She took her hands away and promptly rolled her eyes. “Is Wilder your boyfriend or something?”
“Umm … It’s new. Sorry. I should’ve locked the door.”
Wilder strolled back into the room wearing jeans and a T-shirt. He picked up the coffeepot and nodded at Olivia. “Good to see you, kid. Don’t you knock?”
“Don’t you wear clothes?”
He poured a cup of coffee and leaned a hip against the counter. “Not when I sleep. Your aunt was kind enough to let me crash on her couch last night because I got in late.”
She wasn’t buying it. “Uh-huh, sure.”
“Shouldn’t you be at school?” he asked.
“I was just leaving, but Dad forgot to leave me lunch money.”
Wilder pulled his wallet from his pocket and slipped out a bill, extending it to my niece. “Here you go.”
“She doesn’t need a fifty, Wilder.”
“It’s the only American bill I have.”
Olivia smirked. “I’ll bring him change.”
I shook my head. “Like I haven’t heard that a hundred times.”
She tucked the fifty into her pocket. “I thought Lucas was coming in tonight?”
“He is.” Wilder sipped his coffee. “I have a meeting, so I came a day early. I’m picking him up from the airport later. You two gonna hang out?”
“We want to.”
“That can be arranged. If…” He tipped his mug to her. “You’re not late to school.”
“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes again, but waved. “See you later, Aunt Sloane.”
“I’ll walk you out.”
I pulled the door closed behind me. “I’m sorry you had to see Wilder half-dressed.”
She shrugged. “I gotta go.”
“Alright. Have a good day.”
Olivia stopped two steps down and turned back. “Do you think his brother looks like that with no shirt on?”
Oh Jesus. “I don’t know. And I hope you don’t find out for another twenty years—when you’re old enough. Now get to school.”
I was still shaking my head when I walked back into my apartment. Wilder poured a second cup of coffee and added half and half before passing it to me.
“I think we might have a problem,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“She’s hot for your brother.”
He nodded. “I think the feeling is mutual. But I’ll talk to him when I pick him up tonight, make sure he’s not an ass to her.”
“Thank you.”
He sipped and looked at me over the brim of his mug. “I overheard you talking when I was getting changed. What’s with the answer you gave when she asked if I was your boyfriend?”
“What do you mean?”
“You skirted the question. That’s why I threw out that I’d slept on the couch. Do you think she’s too young to know?”
“She’s fourteen. Half the girls in her grade have had boyfriends already, unfortunately.”
“So why the vague answer?”
“Because … I wasn’t sure how to respond.”
Wilder held my eyes for a few heartbeats before setting his coffee on the counter next to him. He closed the distance between us and locked his hands around my waist.
“We are, sweetheart.” He ducked down so we were eye to eye. “Boyfriend and girlfriend, or whatever you want to call it.”
My pulse raced like I was back in ninth grade and Eddie Anderman had asked me to the spring dance. I smiled. “Okay.”
He pressed a kiss to my lips. “I have a meeting at ten. But I’m going to go visit Coach after. You want to meet him?”
I nodded. “I’d like that, boyfriend.”
He chuckled and kissed my forehead. “My girlfriend is a goofball.”
* * *
“Hey, Wilder.” A nurse with a Caribbean accent and long, beaded braids smiled. “He made me do it.”
“Do what?”
She chuckled. “You’ll see.”
Wilder took my hand, tugging me with him down the hall. “That’s Lucinda. She’s great. She’s been here as long as Coach has. He has a big crush on her. The more his disease progresses, the less he hides it. She’s a really good sport.”
Coach’s room was at the end of a long hall. On our way to the nursing home, he’d filled me in a little more about his old coach’s dementia battle, so I walked in expecting to find an old man in hospital pajamas, hunched in a chair with his eyes glazed over. But I wasn’t even close.
Coach wore a Hawaiian shirt and basketball shorts, blasted reggae music, and was dancing all by himself. He also had a full head of gray, beaded braids.
Wilder shook his head. “Now that’s a new look…”
Coach grinned and patted his hair. “You like it? Lucinda’s last boyfriend had braids. I thought it would help my chances.”