He Said he said Volume 6 Read Online Mary Calmes

Categories Genre: Contemporary, M-M Romance Tags Authors: Mary Calmes Advertisement

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Hello all, Jory Harcourt here, and Volume 6 of my He Said, he said columns were from 2024 and there were world changes, that you all know about, and family changes that were new. We were all introduced to the man who would become very important to my son, his best and only, my daughter and Jake doubled down, Kola met his biological parents, and Michael’s bachelor party, which was not great, and his wedding, that was much better. It was a year of ups and downs, but through it all, our community grew stronger as did my fondness for a glass of red wine under the stars on my back deck

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JANUARY 2024

Hello, all, and welcome to the first He Said, he said of the new year! I hope you all had wonderful holidays. Mine started out a bit shaky but got good.

I have to rewind you all to the winter solstice in December. It’s the longest night of the year and the beginning of the Yule season that goes until January first. But I digress. As you know from past newsletters, Hannah lights the Yule log as soon as the sun goes down, and it burns all night long until dawn. That means someone has to stay up and keep an eye on our wood-burning fireplace, and never, not once, has it been my dear sweet daughter. Normally it’s me. Now I will say we usually snuggle together, her and me, on the couch, and sometimes Sam will remain downstairs with us as well if he doesn’t have to get up early the next day. This year, his Friday, December twenty-second was going to be a long one. Because his team was moving Dr. Adam DeBoer, a disgraced investment adviser—think Bernie Madoff but smaller—from his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, or MCC, to federal court. It promised to be a zoo, so Sam needed all his faculties for the following day. So even though he didn’t like it, he went up to bed alone, leaving me and Hannah up.

We watched one of her favorite movies, then mine, back and forth. What was nice was that they overlapped, like Pride & Prejudice, the Keira Knightley one, The Fugitive, Jaws, of course Jaws, and finally when we were both getting sleepy—I was no longer in my clubbing days where I used to get ready to go out at ten—we watched K-dramas. If you had to focus on the subtitles, you weren’t falling asleep. At about four in the morning, Hannah was out like a light, but by then I had changed the channel to Law & Order because I could listen but not watch and started making breakfast for Sam.

He was down at four thirty.

“What are you doing cooking?” he asked, coming up behind me and wrapping his arms around me.

“Before I passed out next to Hannah, I thought I should make some food for my man.”

“Oh yeah?” he asked, kissing my neck.

“I thought, this way he can hit the ground running when he gets to work, having already had coffee at home and more in the car—note the Yeti there ready for pouring—and if he doesn’t get lunch, that will be okay.”

“Very kind of you,” he commented, still holding me. “I don’t like when you’re not in the bed with me. I can’t ever really settle.”

I knew that, but last night it couldn’t be helped. The boys were still across town, having not begun the camping at our house for Christmas yet.

“I appreciate this, you know, but I could have grabbed a bagel and made coffee if you were passed out on the couch.”

“I know, but an omelet filled with lots of cheese, spinach, green peppers, mushrooms, and diced ham is better. And wheat toast is healthier than your bagel.”

“I don’t know about that,” he rumbled in my ear before I got a final squeeze.

I sat with him as he ate, and told my husband in no uncertain terms that he was not to get between any crazy people and DeBoer. After he ate, there were kisses and hugs, and I reiterated my need for him to be careful. He’d had water and coffee with breakfast and was carrying his large travel mug as he walked to the garage. I waved from the back deck and stayed outside while Dobby did his business, because yes it was early, but he was up and so was I, so why not? Plus, I had been hearing some coyotes lately, and even though we had a six-foot wood fence in the back and a five-foot chain-link one running the length of the driveway to the backyard, the front was a darling white picket painted in rustic white that any coyote could easily leap. Best for me to stay on patrol.

Wisely, Dylan, Fallon, and I had closed our office from the twenty-second all the way through Christmas and New Year’s to the third of January. We could. We were a medium-size business that had weathered many storms from the pandemic to the economy, and historically, our business slowed from a crawl to nothing at the end of December. I counted myself blessed to be able to take the time off, as did all our six other employees.

Hannah and I got up, her from passing out in the wee small hours of the morning, me from a three-hour nap, when Kola and Jake came banging in the back door around eleven, and I was far more bleary than she was.


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