Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 88290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“How does that make him old?” Aja wanted to know.
“They walk like they’ve all had knee surgery, that’s how slow they go, and again, talking about grass and trees and lawns.”
“You’re being very judgmental,” Aubrey assured her.
“I find it terrifying,” she said flatly. “And now, if we’re out after nine, he gets worried. Thinks that’s late.”
I gestured at my son, who was on the giant swing in our backyard that we lovingly called Jake’s swing, as he was the one who made it. “Kola thinks nine is late as well, and on the twenty-sixth of this month, he will be the grand old age of twenty-one. So don’t tell me that being out after dark makes your husband old.”
“Yes, but your son is a Libra with a Capricorn rising sign, so of course he thinks that’s late. You know Capricorns age in reverse. You are one, for Christ’s sake.”
“Which makes no sense, because back in the day, I didn’t even start to get ready to go out until ten.” I smiled at her. “I find your astrological explanation faulty.”
“But you have an Aquarius rising, so of course that makes sense.”
I turned to Aja, who nearly spit out her wine.
“Listen, I know you’re all far too logical to believe in astrology but––”
“No, no,” Aja said, stopping her. “I have respect for all different kinds of relationship strategies. I just think that it might be the state of the world at the moment making your husband want to get back to the safety of home and not the fact that he’s old at forty-seven.”
Wait. “Chris is not forty-seven,” I argued. “He’s forty-six.”
“No, he’s forty-seven, my friend.” Aubrey corrected me.
I turned to Dylan, who was nodding.
“Where was I on his birthday?”
“Celebrating at Tres Hermanos and drinking margaritas right along with the rest of us.”
Was I?
“I think you might be a year behind,” Aja informed me.
“Really?”
“I blame the pandemic,” Dylan stated. “It’s like twenty-twenty and twenty-twenty-one just didn’t exist. Time sort of stopped.”
“He’s forty-seven?” I asked her again.
“You do realize you’re the one who’s forty-six, right?” Aubrey chimed in.
“What?”
All three of them laughed at me.
“What’s funny?” Sam asked as he walked by carrying highball glasses and his good bourbon.
“I’m forty-six,” I told him.
He squinted at me. “Yeah. Your birthday’s in January. First one of the year.”
“How can I be forty-six?”
His grin made his eyes glow. “Why? Still feel like you could go clubbing and stay up all night and it would be no sweat?”
“Stay up all night?” I repeated, horrified. “That sounds terrible.”
He laughed at me before he leaned over and kissed my forehead.
“Oh how time flies,” Dylan teased me as my phone rang.
It was Hannah, which was weird because she was home.
“Hello?” I answered, chuckling.
“Could you do me a favor, and without alerting Dad, walk out to the front yard and then down the street to the Morrows’?”
“I can, but why?”
“Oh, you’ll see when you get here.”
Excusing myself, I got up, walked into my house, went out through the front door and into my yard. I saw nothing. Walking through the front gate and onto the sidewalk, I looked right, just to be on the safe side, saw only a quiet street, and then turned my head left to look toward the Morrow house and saw the lights of a police car.
Jogging down the street, I saw an Oak Park police cruiser parked in front of the home of Todd and Navya Morrow. Their oldest daughter, Kanti, was sitting with Hannah, on the sidewalk in front of the house. Hannah had her legs stretched out in front of her, and Kanti’s legs were crossed, her dog, Seymour, a feisty little Yorkie, sitting in her lap.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked, hearing myself, knowing that I was louder than I should have been, but my daughter was on the ground with people standing around her who were, as far as I could tell, armed.
“Sir,” Officer Blount said quickly—he had on a gold nametag—stepping in front of me, “I need you to stay back and––”
“The hell I will!” I yelled, realizing at that exact moment that I was not looking at a police uniform, as they didn’t wear nametags, but something else. “That’s my daughter!”
The other guard—they had to be private security, there was no other answer—was hovering over Hannah, but not really paying her any attention. He was more interested in typing furiously into his tablet.
“That’s not right,” a woman shouted from near the police cruiser that I realized now was not one. It said Reign Security. “He’s white and she’s not. That girl can’t be his daughter.”
I turned to look at her and realized that the tall blond woman was not someone I had ever seen before in my life, and I knew everyone on our street. If I didn’t know them by name, I knew their faces, but hers was not a visage I recognized. None of the people with her, a couple of men and three other women, were ones I’d seen before either.