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)
“Scott, we decided—” Mom started.
“Well, I changed my mind,” Dad clipped.
“It’s our money,” Mom retorted.
“Yes, as it was our money we loaned our daughter when she started popping out kids and she didn’t have a goddamned job,” Dad shot back.
Dream’s face got red.
Mom’s face got upset.
My mouth opened.
“Stop it!” I shouted.
Everyone looked at me.
“Oh my God. Yeah, she did that, Dad,” I hissed to my father. “And we talked to her about it as a family. Now she runs two businesses and waitresses on the weekend. Look at her.” I threw my hand across the table. “She’s losing weight. And she kicks up a fuss when anyone offers to help because we made such a big deal about it before. She got the message. Back off.”
Dad shut up.
Mom stared at me.
Knox studied me.
And, holy crap, Dream looked like she was about to cry.
Then she said, “I’m trying to lose weight, Luna.”
“Oh,” I mumbled.
“But thanks for noticing,” she went on.
“Well, if that’s what you want, you’re doing a good job,” I said.
“You think I look rundown,” she accused.
“I thought you looked tired the other day. Because maybe you were tired. And with the weight loss tacked on, I made an assumption. It wasn’t an insult.”
“Whatever,” she muttered to her pasta.
“Byron at The Surf Club wants me to set you two up on a date,” I blurted.
Knox made a noise in his throat.
Mom chirped, “Who’s this?”
“Byron,” I answered. “He’s a regular at SC.” I looked at Dream. “Since I wasn’t going to set my sister up with some dude I know but don’t really know, I made him state his case. His car is paid off. He takes out the trash without being asked. He likes kids. And he thinks you’re pretty.”
Holy cow.
Was Dream blushing?
“The guy who sits in the back corner?” she asked.
I nodded. “The one with the laptop and brown hair.”
“He’s kinda cute, but he’s not normally my thing.”
I was curious about what her thing was. I had yet to meet any of her children’s fathers. Though, in high school, she tended to date the stoners.
“Did you miss the part about taking the trash out without being asked?” I inquired, feeling Knox’s focus intense on me.
He’d done the same thing.
And the first time he did it—after he came back inside and washed his hands—I’d jumped him.
Therefore, it was some time later when I’d explained the concepts of weaponized incompetence, malicious compliance, gaslighting and unbalanced emotional and household labor, and how pleased I was that he was exhibiting traits that had nothing to do with any of those things.
And it was then I fell even more in love with him because he hadn’t made fun of any of it.
He’d listened with interest and said with a depth of sincerity that was unreal, “Call me on any of that horseshit if I fall down on the job.”
“It’s disturbing how much of a plus women think this is with men,” Dream remarked. “I mean, how basic, and we consider it a green flag when it’s a beige one. Am I right?”
“You are so right,” I muttered, avoiding Knox’s gaze.
“I very much lucked out with you,” Mom said to Dad.
Dad gave her a gentle look.
“Well, it’s not like anyone else is knocking down my door,” Dream said.
“Oh, peaches!” Mom cried. “I’m so glad you’re going to put yourself out there and have a little fun.”
Dream rolled her eyes.
“You want me to give him your number?” I asked.
“Sure,” she said, then bent over her pasta.
It was then, I chanced a glance at Knox.
He was again studiously eating his own food.
But I knew he’d listened to every word.
After dinner, when we were corralling three kids, a dog and a wounded man into two cars, was when it happened.
Dream and her brood were strapped in.
Knox had Jacques’s lead (of course).
We’d handed out goodnight hugs and cheek kisses.
And Knox and I were walking side by side to my car at the curb when he stopped dead.
Thus, I stopped dead, looked to him, then aimed my gaze where his was, only to see a car drive by very fast.
I’d seen that car before.
It was Cheyenne’s.
A shiver slid down my spine.
Mental note: I had to get Shanti to contact Jayden, ASAP.
In the now, I turned back to Knox to see his jaw hard, the muscles in it bunched and leaping.
I waited for him to say something.
He didn’t. He just resumed our stroll to the car, opened the door, Jacques jumped in, then with difficulty, he folded in.
I folded in beside him, and after turning on the car and a wave to my parents, I set us going, silent and waiting again for him to say something about Cheyenne.
He again didn’t.
Should I?
I mean, had he noticed her around before?
And now that he’d seen her himself, how did I play this?
I decided to start with, “Do you know who was in that car?”