Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75323 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75323 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
“What did you do instead of play then?”
“Well, at home, I did a lot of housework. Or practicing with makeup. When I was with my grandmother, we did a lot of walking and gardening.”
“Flowers or vegetables?”
“Both. But I preferred flowers. There’s pretty much no problem that won’t feel a little bit better after pulling weeds for an hour.”
“Hard to weed in a condo.”
“Yeah. I’ve been tempted to weed some other people’s gardens on occasion when I’m taking my walk. But it’s a real toss-up if they’ll thank me or call the cops on me.”
“So your future house is going to have garden beds.”
“Lots of them.”
“Do you see having a dog?”
“Maybe. If it’s a small one.”
“With matching pajamas on Christmas?”
“It’s almost like you’ve been creeping on my Pinterest board.”
“I haven’t been lucky enough to find that yet. What about a man? Kids?”
“Hopefully.”
“How many?”
“Men?” she asked, eyes twinkling.
“If you need more than one to keep you happy, I think you might be dating the wrong kind of men,” I shot back.
“I don’t know. Two sounds like a manageable number.”
“It’s never a good thing to be outnumbered.”
“That’s my thinking too. Plus, you can devote more time to each of them.”
“You have a lot of experience with babies?”
“God, no. Nope. I’ve never even held a baby. You?”
“Tons. The club is teeming with them. You take a nap in the living room, and you wake up to a handful of them using you like a trampoline.”
Her smile went soft at that.
“Babies too?”
“Babies are the shit. Those belly laughs you get outta ‘em. Best sound in the world. Well, top two.” That moan I heard Lula make had to be at the top of my list.
“I can see you with kids,” Lula said.
“Because I’m like a big one myself?”
“That’s probably part of it, yeah. But you’re, I don’t know, patient. And observant. Which I imagine are good qualities for a father to have.”
“Might be the first time anyone has called me patient.”
“But you are. Relentlessly so.”
About her, maybe. Despite her showing not a single sign of reciprocation. Which might make me more dog-headed than patient.
“And nothing seems to get a rise out of you.”
Well, that just simply wasn’t true. I was good at hiding it. Because I was itching to bash my fists into the fuck’s face who made her cry and give up everything she’d worked so hard for to live in a cheap motel while she scrimped and saved to try to rebuild the money he stole from her.
“Some shit does,” I admitted. “But I can usually keep a cool surface. Something you know a thing or two about.”
“You maybe get cool. I get frigid. I can be a real bitch when I’m angry.”
“Eh, I think when women are accused of being ‘bitches,’ what they actually are is hurt and guarded and setting boundaries so it doesn’t happen again. Who got on your bad side most recently? Obvious person excluded.”
“I got pretty icy with Rian a few weeks back.”
“What’d he do?”
“Had sex in my office.”
“No way,” I said, a smile tugging upward, even if I knew she didn’t find it amusing. “I didn’t know his game. Should invite him over to the clubhouse to party.”
“Don’t encourage his debauchery. I can’t look at my desk the same way anymore. I think I used a whole container of bleach wipes on it.”
“You know what would help?”
“What’s that?”
“Fucking on it yourself. That’d erase that other memory clear from your mind.”
“Only you would suggest sex on the desk to fix sex on the desk.”
“It cancels itself out. Like recording over a VHS.”
“I think replacing the desk might be a more sensible solution.”
“Sure. More sensible. But a lot less fun.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“That is my brand. You should order the most expensive desk you can buy and charge it to Rian.”
“Now that’s not a bad idea.”
“For the record,” I said, glancing over at her to watch her reaction, “sex is always a good idea too.”
She rolled her eyes at that, but there was a heavy-lidded look in her eyes that made me start hoping for something I knew was probably never in the cards for me.
If there was even a spark of interest in me outside of a friend or even an annoying brother sort of way, she would have given into it a long time ago. Lord knew I’d been dogged about it.
It would be better not to read into heavy lids or the way she curled into me in her sleep.
Not getting my hopes up too high was probably the only reason I’d managed to continue to go to The Bog, even when I knew she’d be there… and would laugh off my advances for the umpteenth time.
As I pulled into the sprawling hotel in Tucson and watched Lula’s eyes light up in delight, I had a sinking feeling that there wasn’t going to be anything I could do to prevent my hopes from climbing sky-high during this road trip.