Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 139088 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 695(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139088 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 695(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
“You in my bed and me not schlepping around changes of clothes and toiletries way works for me, Knox Chambers.”
“I’m not gonna schlep shit around, so don’t freak when I bring a bag so big, you think I’m moving in.”
My only reply to that was to roll off the bed, snatch up my phone, cue up Apple Music, make sure my phone was connected to my Bluetooth speaker and unleash Katrina and her Waves.
I was in the middle of doing the head banging Jack Black moves when I found myself on my back in my bed and Knox on top of me.
“You’re a total goof,” he said, smiling down at me.
“You stopped me before I could get to the air guitar part,” I complained.
Still smiling, he kissed me on my mouth.
Then he slid down my body and kissed me a whole lot more thoroughly somewhere else.
And I might have been lying on my back all the way through it.
But I was still walking on sunshine.
Knox and I had shuffled around my kitchen to cobble some dinner together from cupboards that weren’t exactly bare, but they weren’t teeming (we settled on baking the two frozen salmon filets I had, and miraculously, I had all the ingredients to make Cracker Barrel hash brown casserole, so dinner was going to be yummy).
Now, while the casserole cooked, we were camped on my couch, me and my two boys (only one had his head in my lap (Knox) the other one was curled in the crook of Knox’s hips), Knox was watching some skiing competition somewhere I wanted to go (not to ski, to drink hot toddies and look cute in outdoor gear).
And I got on my phone.
It rang.
And rang.
And then Dream picked up.
“Hey,” she greeted.
“Hey,” I replied. “Thought you’d want to know, Knox is sitting next to me, and we have Cracker Barrel hash brown casserole in the oven. He’s been here since last night. We had an epic session of letting it all hang out, we understand what went wrong, and we’re back on the right track.”
She said nothing.
“But I’m still up for a sister date tomorrow after your shift at SC,” I offered.
She spoke then. “You just made up with your man, he’s been there since last night, it’s the weekend and you don’t have to work, and you’re offering to leave him to have a sister date with me?”
“Full disclosure, the seal on our reunion was already broken when the girls came over this morning to see if I was okay, Knox gave them hell for not taking my back—”
“Good,” she spat over my talking.
Her defense of me felt fabulous, but I kept going. “Then Knox had to go break up a fight between Jacob and Alexis’s dad in the courtyard. I mean, not a fight fight, though that was forthcoming as chests were being bumped and faces were in faces.”
“Cavemen,” she muttered.
I ignored that and shared, “Incidental news, Alexis’s father is kind of a dick.”
Dream didn’t have anything to say to that.
“So, tomorrow after your shift, I can give you the whole skinny about Knox.” I felt his eyes come to me. I looked down at him and shook my head to communicate it wouldn’t be the whole skinny, just enough of it I could keep my plan moving forward with making sisters out of my sister and me. “And you can tell me how it went with Byron.”
His lips hitched up at one side (nice), and he turned back to skiing.
“I don’t want you to think I’m making a statement with this or anything,” she began.
Terrific.
“But Sunday nights after the kids leave and after I’ve worked seven days straight are kind of the only me time I have. So it isn’t that I don’t want the skinny, it’s just, I’d rather take a bath, drink a glass of wine and give myself a facial.”
Oh.
Well then.
It actually was terrific.
“I feel you,” I told her.
“But the date with Byron went great.”
“Really?” I asked.
“He was very worried about you, and I thought that was sweet.”
“I think he’s a nice guy.”
“I tested him by showing him about five hundred pictures of the kids. He’s either a good actor or he understands a mom’s need to brag about her children and hear people say how cute they are, because he didn’t seem to get tired of it at all.”
“Oh, he totally got tired of it. But that’s how much he likes you.”
“Yeah,” she said softly.
“Did he kiss you?”
“Yeah,” she said softer still.
My back straightened and I felt Knox’s attention again on me.
But I was all about this intel.
“Ohmigod, is he good?”
“Nerds can kiss. Like really kiss. Who knew?” she replied.
Ohmigod!
Byron was a good kisser!
Thus commenced me and my sister having the first healthy conversation—on the phone or ever—for the next half an hour. She told me about Byron (it really did sound like a good date, case in point, they already had another one planned). I gave her a little about Knox. We discussed what a dick Alexis’s dad was (Dream’s take: “Of course, he’s pissing on his patch about his own daughter, which is revolting. And the second of course is he’s dragging his wife right along with him. What a tool.”—by the way, I agreed).