Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 89535 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 448(@200wpm)___ 358(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89535 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 448(@200wpm)___ 358(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
I slump. “I was kind of hoping now we’re boyfriends, the studying in exchange for sex would stop.”
“I was never helping you for the sex. You want to stay on the team, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.”
“How have things been progressing?”
“Slowly, but I’m managing. Even got Eckstein to offer me an extra-credit assignment to bring my average grade up.”
“How’d you do that? He never offers extra credit.”
I honestly don’t know. “I think West talking to him might have helped. He probably pulled the sob story of our parents.”
“That’s usually your job.”
“I tried, but Eckstein wouldn’t even let me get it out. I figure maybe with West being faculty, he actually listened.”
I turn the car onto my street and pull into the driveway to park, but before I can open my door, Kole grabs my arm.
“What will your brother say?”
“Do you want to tell him or still keep it quiet? We can always say we’re studying. Which apparently you’re going to make me do anyway, so it’s not a lie.”
Kole looks hesitant, but then his eyes soften. “You really meant it, then? What you said in the back seat? I’m yours? That wasn’t some post-sex rambling?”
“Not at all. I called you my boyfriend, didn’t I?”
His smile is blinding. “Then maybe we could tell West. But … after my dad?”
“Hmm, I dunno. I might need West there to protect me when your dad finds out. Actually, I might need all of my siblings.”
“You think the nine-year-old twins can take my dad?”
I scoff. “Ben and Em could take him by themselves. You should see the shit they do to each other. I’m surprised neither has landed in the hospital yet with the way they fight.”
“Is that … normal?” Kole asks, and I have to laugh.
“Aww, my precious little only child.” I pat his head. “You’ll learn.”
I open the car and round the hood to meet Kole. He moves toward the door, but I take his hand and pull him against me to smack a quick kiss to his lips seeing as I won’t be able to do it inside.
Ten pm. We only have to make it one hour, and then we can safely go downstairs without interruption.
Only, when we do step inside, the usual chaos that happens is there to greet us.
“Bennett, Emmett, why aren’t you in bed yet?” I bark.
They’re in their pajamas at least, so that’s something.
“West didn’t tell us,” Ben complains.
“West isn’t here,” Zoe calls out from the kitchen. “I told them to go to bed, but they don’t listen to me.”
“Where’s the babysitter?” I ask.
“West came home and told her to leave. Then he burned dinner, ordered pizza, told me to watch the kids and … disappeared.” Zoe looks panicked.
I take out my phone, but there are no messages or calls or anything for me to come home. I glare at the screen and then slip it back into my jeans and get into big-brother mode. “Okay, twins, bed. Now.”
They go running toward the stairs.
“Wait. Brush your teeth. Then bed.”
They’re not so fast now.
I turn to Zoe. “Where’s Hazel and Rhys?” If she tells me Rhys went to see his girlfriend, I’m going to lose my shit.
“Hazel’s in bed, and Rhys is in his room. I think he’s sexting with Charlotte.”
I do not want to deal with that. Zoe first.
“And are you okay?” I ask. Our family dynamic is a mess. West is the kids’ legal guardian, so technically all the pressure is on his shoulders, but when he asked me to help out, he put some of that burden on me, and then I know we both put some of it on Zoe. It’s not fair, and I hate when we do it.
The babysitter situation has helped a lot, but I have no idea what happened tonight.
“I’m tired,” Zoe says, “but the kitchen is still a mess—”
“We’ve got it. You go on up to bed.”
“Thank you,” she mumbles on her way past me.
I sigh and turn to Kole. “I guess we’re on cleanup duty instead of all the fun things I had planned.”
“That’s all right with me, but … I just want to do something first.”
“What?”
He steps closer to me and wraps his arms around me. “I thought you might need a hug.”
“Mm, not gonna lie, that feels good, but what’s it for?”
“You’re twenty-one—”
“Almost twenty-two.”
“Still, you’re way too young for this kind of responsibility. Even teen parents aren’t thrust into raising five kids at once.”
“Unless somehow they get pregnant with quintuplets.”
“Not my point.”
Being told how unfair my whole situation is makes me want to defend it because it’s instinct to say I’ll do anything for my brothers and sisters, but at the same time, getting the acknowledgment that I’m doing something other twenty-one-year-olds would run screaming from … it gives me a sense of accomplishment that trumps my shitty behavior.