Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69026 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69026 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Cadence Moran doubled over, and the elder Moran glared hard at us.
I caught him by the collar and marched him outside.
“Come on, time to go in the water.”
“I’ll never let you take me without a fight,” he said.
But before he could even finish his “fight,” I had him knocked out with a punch to the temple.
He fell face first into the water, and we left him there.
Cadence Moran hissed in a breath, ready to scream, but Cakes was there, silencing her.
She didn’t fall in the water, but Cakes helped her there anyway.
“Now what?” Cakes asked.
Four hours later, I found myself staring at my daughter. “I’m sorry, what?”
My eyes flicked from my daughter to Aella to my mother to Silver and back.
“We want to go on a girls’ weekend,” she said. “Just the four of us and whoever else wants to go.”
“Where?” I asked at the same time Chevy popped the top off a beer bottle. The soft whisper hiss of it momentarily distracted me enough to say, “You have any more of those?”
He popped the top on a second beer, though this one a can, and handed it to me.
I took a healthy sip before looking back at to Eedie.
“Um, Mexico?”
Chevy snorted. “You don’t even have a passport, Aella.”
“That’s true for all of us, but Silver said Apollo could expedite it all. He could get us a passport lickety split,” Eedie rushed out.
I scrubbed a hand down my face. “What, exactly, are y’all going to do? Where are you going? Is the hotel you’re staying at safe? I want to know all of that.”
So that was how we spent the next hour.
We discussed an impromptu trip to Mexico.
We discussed where they were going, why they wanted to go, and who all would be going.
And, apparently, it was all of the old ladies, sans kids.
Well, sans every kid except Eedie.
Searcy, Aella, Baker, Silver, Brittnie, and Eedie.
Oh, and Jasper.
“Why Jasper?” I questioned.
“Because he’s in need of some serious rest and relaxation,” Eedie said. “And he was there when we planned this impromptu trip.”
I looked at Silver because she hadn’t said much through all of this.
“What are your thoughts on all of this?” I asked.
Silver swiped some of the stray hairs that’d escaped from her ponytail from her face before saying, “I think it’d be a good bonding trip.”
She flicked her glance at Eedie, and then back to me, and I understood.
Silver didn’t necessarily want to go, but Eedie was so excited about the prospect of spending time with Silver, the woman that I’d fallen in love with, that she was willing to quit her job to do it.
“I don’t think you should quit your job, though,” I pointed out. “Ask them if they’re willing to accommodate you and then go from there.”
“We can go?” Eedie squeaked, clapping her hands excitedly in front of her.
“As long as Apollo can get you into a hotel we all approve of, and you don’t leave the resort,” I countered.
“Done!”
Aella moved to Chevy, who was a lot more easygoing about them springing an impromptu trip to Mexico on us the moment we walked through the door of his place.
“You okay with this?” I asked when Silver walked toward me.
The moment she was close enough, I pulled her into my arms, my eyes once again studying the faint bruising around her eyes.
She was almost bruise-free.
Another two or three days, and you’d never know that she was beat so badly that she didn’t have an inch of skin on her left side that wasn’t covered in the purple mottled bruising.
Hair once again fell into her face, and I smoothed it back just as she said, “I’m okay with it as long as you’re okay with it. I’m not a super fan of going to the beach, but apparently the UV score there is always ‘fabulous’ and she was super excited when Searcy off-hand mentioned needing a vacation to the group.”
I studied her face for a few long seconds before saying, “If you’re going to be in my life, you have to know that the UV index is something Eedie mentions at least twice a day. I want to make sure you know what you’re getting into.”
She scrunched up her nose. “I tan really easily. I can be outside for an hour and I have a tan that’ll look like I’ve been out there for a week. I’m not sure what I’ll look like if I spend four days in Mexico on the beach all day.”
I chuckled. “I’m sure that you’re going to look beautiful and hot. Plus, vitamin D is good for you. I’ve heard getting the D is life changing.”
She scoffed. “I’m not sure we’re talking about the sun with that last sentence.”
“We’re not,” I growled, ready to place my lips against hers.
Eedie popped up beside us before I could feel her lips on mine.