Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 55395 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 277(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55395 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 277(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
The moment I hit the key fob, the headlights illuminate the dark sky and the doors unlock. My mind goes back to the news of Lyric being not only back in town but also at my parents’ house. That shit is messing with me. Jude told me she was back a month or so ago, except she really wasn’t at that time. Only that the house next door to my parents is now hers and apparently has been in their family’s name the whole damn time. I had no idea until Jude broke that down for me. I might see my parents on a weekly basis, but talking about the house next door doesn’t happen.
“Christ.” I climb inside, start the truck, and reverse out of the yard. We’ve added a third project manager and a second general contractor, plus summer is here, so we’ve got a slew of summer interns between the local high school and community college. The pay isn’t the best, and the job also doesn’t come with benefits, but the experience they’re receiving will help beef up their resumes when the time comes for them to head into the real world.
I pull out of the parking lot of Jagged Edge Construction and head to Undercover Lovers.
--
“You’re gonna want a beer for this conversation.” Jude hands me one the minute I walk into Johnny’s office. True to his word, the place is crowded with our crew. The only ones missing are the kids: Briar, Kennedy and Trent’s daughter, who is from a previous relationship Kenny had, and Sebastian, Johnny and Winnie’s son, who’s been formally adopted by the two when Winnie’s sister passed away.
“Christ.” I grab the bottle and take a deep pull from it before making my way into the inner circle. The rate our group is growing, it won’t be too much longer until we’ve outgrown Johnny’s office.
“At least there’s food. We’ll let the girls feed us and wait for them to move off to the side before I give you the information on what I found out.” I nod my response and head toward our friends.
“How are you ladies doing?” I ask. My target just so happens to have two out of the four women. My arms wrap around Winnie and Maci’s shoulders, and I kiss each of them on the cheek.
“Never better,” Winn says. “What about you? Working hard or hardly working?” She pats my chest.
“You know me. A bit of both.” I give her a smirk.
“That sounds like a bullshit answer,” Maci replies, calling me on my lies. “I’m doing good. Finally done with the sickness that sneaks up at any given time or in the weirdest of places, and now we’re on to the planning part of the nursery.”
“Oh, and Kennedy has news. You may want to grab a bite to eat before everything commences,” Winnie says, grabbing a plate and piling it high with salad and bread. She’s been off meat the past few weeks. From what Johnny says, he can’t keep up with what she likes and doesn’t like.
“I think we can all guess what that is, too,” Maci says with a wink, then she heads to Tysen. I tip my head toward him, giving him a silent hello and a shit-eating grin. He saw where I beelined it, too, and there are two other ladies I still need to greet before heading to my brothers. Tysen shakes his head. He knows my game; they all do. Anything to get a rise out of them and to keep the focus off what I’ve got going on.
Lennie and Kenny are chatting away in the corner. I give them a few minutes to finish their conversation, and in the meantime, I finish my beer. I’ll be grabbing another one, then call it a night when it comes to drinking since I’ll be driving home. I could very well tie one on and one of the guys would drive me home, except four out of our group have a woman and their own family to get home to. The last singles in our group besides myself are Jude, the app developer in our group, Luke, the obstetrician and gynecologist, Matthew, the lawyer who came in handy when Kennedy’s ex tried to act like he wanted to be an active part of Briar’s life, popping in and out whenever he chose to, and Crew, our engineer, who also helps a lot at Jagged Edge.
Jesus, I need to get ahold of my damn self, figure out what Jude has to say about Lyric.
“Excuse me, can I have your attention, please,” Trent says, stopping me in my tracks. So much for Winnie spilling the beans about the gender of their baby. I’d bet anything Kennedy told the girls in their group chat, and Winnie decided to keep her news for another time.