Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 76953 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76953 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Perish had spent half the day in the water features with the kids, keeping him cool. I’d been mostly fussing about things in the heat.
“Kids were bragging about you to the Grassi kids,” Perish told me. “Saying that their mom was so cool because she set the party up.”
“Really?” I asked, feeling the damn tears immediately prick my eyes.
“Yep. Better soak it up now. Won’t be long before they think everything we do is embarrassing as fuck.”
That was true.
I’d been watching my cousins go through it with their tweens and teens for years. As much as I liked to think it wouldn’t happen to me, I also knew that I wasn’t anywhere near as cool as some of them, so if their kids thought they were cringe, mine would definitely think I was.
“You got a bit on the little one,” Perish said, sensing my thoughts and reaching over to squeeze my thigh.
I did.
We had two boys back-to-back. After that, I’d taken a nice little break because, well, pregnancy was not easy for me. I envied my cousins who thought it was the most magical experience of their lives. I’d been horribly sick for five months, then so swollen I could barely walk the last two months. So there were basically only a few weeks in the middle when it felt kind of nice.
We hadn’t been planning on a third baby but got a surprise after a weekend away from the kids.
My final pregnancy had been easier on me when it came to sickness and swelling but completely wrecked my skin.
Thankfully, everything went back to normal a few weeks after delivery, and we had our sweet little girl.
“And the boys know they gotta respect their mama,” Perish added.
They were already so much like Perish. Insanely tall for their ages, rough and tumble, and fiercely protective of their baby sister.
I was sure she would hate it when she was a teenager. But I loved it for her.
“God, this is weird,” I declared when we moved into our eerily silent house.
“Like a horror movie,” Perish agreed, accidentally kicking a toy truck that was in his path. It ricocheted off the coffee table and started to make siren sounds.
“That’s more like it,” I said, shooting him a smile over my shoulder. “I’m going to take a quick shower to wash the sweat and sunblock off.”
He was already cleaning up the disaster area that was the living room as I made my way into the bedroom.
The whole parenting thing was not as hard as society liked to claim when you had a partner who was actually a partner.
We both cleaned, cooked, did the grocery shopping, laundry, and took care of the kids.
The only thing I wasn’t “allowed” to do was the lawn. For obvious reasons. And Perish wasn’t allowed to pick out the kids’ outfits because, well, the man once put our girl in a polka dot shirt and floral pants and had insisted that “it’s the same color, though” when I’d asked about the choice.
I knew that by the time I got out of the shower, the living room would be free of toys, the blankets would be folded, and the old coffee and drink cups would be in the dishwasher with it running.
Would the kids come through like bulldozers and ruin it all in a few hours? Sure. But we accepted that our life would be mostly chaotic with occasional moments of tidiness.
“Still fucking love that scent,” Perish said, coming up behind me to lean in and sniff my neck.
I leaned my head to the side when his lips pressed into my skin, feeling a familiar fluttering in my belly.
Sensing the immediate change in me, Perish’s hands slid down, working the tie of my belt free, then lowering my robe to the ground.
Then, well, we made the house not so quiet for a while.
Perish - 20 years
“Does he really think he’s sneaking in?” Gracie whispered, her head on my shoulder as we heard our second son outside in the driveway, his phone dinging, giving him away.
“Kids are dumb,” I said, smiling as I heard him creeping around the house toward the back door.
“He probably thinks we’re too old to be up this late,” Gracie said.
“To be fair, we woke up early,” I reminded her, glancing at the clock that was flashing five in the morning.
“Shh. He doesn’t need to know that. Should we go out there and scare him by flicking on the light like they do in the movies?”
“Got a better idea,” I said, hearing him creeping down the hallway toward his bedroom. “Hey, bud, that you?” I called.
We both tried not to laugh at the quiet ‘fuck’ that escaped him.
“Yeah.”
“Glad you’re up early,” I called, trying to keep my tone serious even as Gracie laughed. “Got a big day planned. Make sure you grab some electrolytes. Gonna be busting our asses.”