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)
“True,” she mumbled.
“And if you like Byron and think this might go somewhere, you’re going to have to learn to compromise,” I informed her. “I know I don’t have to tell you that not everyone is vegan, composts, or low-key boycotts Christmas every year as a statement against materialism.”
“Gotta say, I didn’t really have a problem with that two-hundred-dollar bottle of champagne. It was really delicious.”
I smiled as I powdered my face. “There you go.”
“And I let him slide into second base and the man knows what to do with a woman’s nipple.”
Right.
Knowing Byron was a good kisser.
Awesome.
More when it came to my sister?
TMI.
“Maybe we should leave that there,” I suggested.
“The sex act is the most natural act on the planet, Luna. Every animal does it.”
“I know. But do you want me to wax poetic about how great Knox is at giving head?”
“I’m very pleased to know he doesn’t avoid the act,” she said, all uppity. “Men are constantly begging us to suck their dicks, and yet any of that business returned is perfunctory, if it happens at all. It’s unconscionable. Do you know that historians consider the nineteen twenties as the decade men discovered the clitoris? That’s why there was somewhat of a sexual revolution then. The nineteen twenties. Outrageous.”
This was the sister I knew, and yeah…
Oh yeah…
Loved.
“I’m feeling this opposite attracts thing for you and Byron,” I remarked.
“Maybe he’ll turn vegan,” she mused.
“And maybe you’ll let him be who he is, because it’s clear he likes you just as you are, and the things about him that are not the same as you, you find your way to dealing.”
“I’ll feel him out,” she replied.
Well, at least that wasn’t a line she was going to draw in the sand.
“He has no choice but to be vegan tomorrow,” she shared. “He’s coming over for dinner.”
Another date?
Brilliant.
“Avoid anything that needs cheese,” I advised.
“It isn’t that bad,” she scoffed.
“You haven’t eaten real cheese in a decade. You forgot its wonders. It’s that bad, Dream.”
She huffed.
I grinned as I drew in my brows.
“You’ve been a good sister, Luna.”
I stopped drawing my brows and sniffed. “Don’t make me cry while I’m doing my makeup.”
“Wait. You’re going out?”
Oh shit.
Should I ask her to go?
She wasn’t an Angel.
Furthermore, how would she feel about breaking bread with a bona fide gangster?
“The girls and I are going to a restaurant owned by the Russian mob,” I informed her. “Wanna come?”
Total silence.
So I called again, “Dream?”
“No shade, sister, but on that, I’ll pass.”
I was relieved, but not in the way I would have been two weeks ago.
“Chill out about Byron. Let it happen,” I instructed.
“Whatever.”
“And remember to call me if you need me to swing by the post office.”
“That’s part of what Byron and I are going to do tomorrow night. He’s interested in my Etsy business. We’re going to pack orders, and he said he’d take them with him and drop them at the PO the next morning.”
Go, Byron!
“Babe, this dude really sounds like a keeper.”
“We’ll see,” she hedged.
As Dream would say, whatever.
“You good?” I asked.
It took her several very long seconds before she said, “Thanks for making the effort with this, Luna.”
“You missed it, Dream. I didn’t. You did. I showed at my lowest, and you looked after me. Albeit you served me vegan cheese during that time, but that was the only part where you fell down on the job.”
“Shut up.” She said those words, but were my ears deceiving me? Did it sound like she was kinda laughing?
I didn’t ask.
I said, “Have fun tomorrow night. I want another progress report on Thursday.”
“Will do.”
“Dream?”
“What?”
“I love you, you know.”
Another very long several seconds before she said, “I know. Same.”
Same.
Not a blood pact chockful of loyalty and sisterhood.
But I’d take it.
I was running five minutes late to meet the girls at the storage units.
Fortunately, Raye texted to say she was running ten minutes late.
Since I was her ride, I told her, to shave off some time I’d fire up the Prius and meet her outside the gate.
Therefore, wearing my fabulous emerald-green, satin-strapped, spike-heeled sandals that were only a smidge off the color of the green of the leaves of the big orange flower on my one-shoulder-bared/one-arm-flowy dress, and after a cuddle with Jacques, I hustled to my car.
I unplugged it from the juicer, put the nozzle back in its holder, and was heading to the driver’s side door when I heard a woman call, “Luna Nelson?”
I looked beyond the carport to the lot next door.
And yep.
There stood a woman, late forties or a very well-preserved somewhere-in-her-fifties. She was illuminated by the lights of our parking lot, and the one next door.
She had blonde hair with a hint of red. It was thick. Brushed her shoulders in a style that suited her. She was wearing nice jeans, high-heeled pumps, a white T-shirt with a plaid blazer over it that had a feminine cut and was rad.