Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 157162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Even though I had a penchant for nice things and a militant tidiness disorder, I still accommodated the small people I loved. No sharp corners or choking hazards within reach, nothing that could obviously kill them, and I'd arranged the area in the corner where they could play. There was a small toy basket that didn’t actually have toys in it, just random household objects that toddlers seemed to be obsessed with.
“Your husband, though… I can’t make any promises about him,” I added as we followed June, who was smacking a kitchen whisk against the coffee table.
“He’s a big boy; he can look after himself.” She kept an eye on her spawn as she helped herself to coffee. “But avoid his face. I like him pretty.”
I shook my head, settling back to where I’d been sitting with my coffee and my laptop. I closed it, pushing it away along with my thoughts about how hopeless it was to achieve my yearlong task of ridding myself of Jasper and his employers while still breathing.
A problem for another day.
“You left with Elliot the other day.” Fiona was filling a sippy cup with water. She handed it to her grabby toddler who ran away, likely to pour water all over something electronic or expensive.
“I did,” I ground my molars. I’d hoped she’d leave it at that. Fiona was the one most likely to do that, except for Tina who didn’t ask questions about any of the love lives of anyone in the group and grumbled about ‘soap opera bullshit’ whenever she did find herself caught in such a conversation.
Fiona was a little more down for girl talk but tended to wait until the other person was ready.
Not this time, it seemed.
“You sneaky bitch.” She whacked my arm with surprising force given her small frame.
I rubbed at it, scowling at her, but she was too busy to receive said scowl since she was taking a box of matches out of June’s paws.
“When did this start happening?” She opened the fridge, rifling to find a container of strawberries, ripping off the top and handing it to June.
I bit my tongue instead of saying how most of the strawberry juice would end up on my furniture instead of in June’s mouth. Who gave a shit?
Happy with her instrument of destruction, June tore off again, leaving me with her mother’s full attention. Well, not her full attention. I was around enough mothers to know that they never stopped watching or thinking about their child.
Men, on the other hand… I’d seen them let their child fall into an open basket of laundry and flail about with their legs in the air for minutes before they noticed.
“I don’t know, a month ago?” I was going for nonchalance, as if I didn’t know exactly when things started.
Fiona’s eyes widened. “A month?”
“Inside voice, Momma!” June screeched from the living room.
“Sorry, baby. Your mother just found out her best friend has been screwing an attractive fisherman for over a month and hadn’t told me.” She spoke to her baby without the baby talk that she’d told me she found ‘offensive.’
“Squewing,” June parroted before continuing to smush a strawberry into the sofa.
“I’ll pay your cleaning bill for the sofa.” Leaning on the counter, Fiona waved her hand in the direction of her daughter. “Now, tell me how the fuck this happened and what the sex is like. Well, I don’t need to know what the sex is like since I saw the kiss on the beach…” She fanned herself. “Actually, I do need to know, since the sex must be fucking excellent for you to be brave enough to make it public.”
“I wasn’t brave enough to make it public. Your fucking husband did that,” I reminded her. Through the joy of Henry’s arrival, Kip had missed my wrath and intense questioning as to why the fuck he’d invited Elliot. He’d been mysteriously missing when I’d gone to pick up Mabel the day after. Coward.
Fiona pursed her lips. “That he did,” she replied over the chatter of June throwing things off the sofa, which she’d somehow managed to climb on top of.
She glanced at her daughter without concern. Fiona was not a helicopter mother and was as laid back as it got. It was her easygoing husband who followed his daredevil daughter around, wringing his hands while broaching a serious case for her to wear a helmet all day.
“You like him,” Fiona deduced.
I considered lying. “Yes. I do.”
It felt like an admission of weakness. A defeat. A cracking down the very center of who I was.
Fiona smiled.
“That doesn’t mean I’m a part of this club.” I pointed at her. “This loved-up Jupiter club with the husbands and babies. There is no ride off into the sunset here. It’ll end. Messily, likely. If I don’t end it soon.” I chewed my lip.