Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 101524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 508(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 508(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
“Good to know.” I grin while taking a swig of my drink then tell her. “You’ll have to give me her schedule and we’ll try to make it to a few of her games.”
“She’d love that, I know she wanted to go to Cooper’s game Saturday, but I’m not sure we’ll be able to make it.”
“You have plans?”
“My parents want us to come over. Since school started, we haven’t had a lot of time to visit with them.”
“Do you have plans Saturday evening?”
“You really are relentless.” She shakes her head with a small smile that offers a bit of hope. “No, I don’t have plans, but I also don’t have a sitter.”
“I got one, and Zuri can hang out at the house with Coop, and the sitter can keep an eye on the two of them at my place.”
“I don’t know your sitter and I’m not…”
“You’ve met my mom a few times,” I cut her off. “She’s mostly trustworthy.”
“Mostly.” She smiles.
“I let her watch the kids one Saturday, and by the time I got home, we had a new puppy. Another time I came home to the kitchen covered with slime, and then there was the LEGO fiasco.”
“LEGOs don’t seem as bad as coming home to a puppy you weren’t planning on or slime everywhere.”
“You’d think so, but I hate LEGOs, and she bought one of those architecture sets that’s like five thousand pieces. Billie was younger then and really wanted the castle for her bedroom, so who do you think ended up spending forty hours putting it together?”
“At least it wasn’t a rat,” she mumbles, and my brows drag together. “That was the surprise my parents gifted Zuri when we moved in here.”
“A rat?”
“Yep, a real rat. His name is Pippin, and I hate admitting it, but he’s cute.”
“Yeah, you win,” I mutter, and she nudges my shoulder as she laughs. “Gotta love grandparents.”
“Yeah,” she agrees softly and there is something about the way she says it and the look in her eyes that tells me she actually means that.
“So, Saturday?”
Dragging her eyes off mine, she looks out towards the dark backyard for a long time before she meets my gaze again and lets out a deep breath.
“Alright.”
“Alright?”
“Yeah, even if it’s just to see Hector sing on stage since I can’t imagine him doing that.”
“He and his ex would play together every other weekend downtown; this will be his first time on his own and back on stage since shit between them went south.”
“They don’t have a good relationship?”
“Not even a little. She cheated, they tried to work through that shit, and when he decided that he couldn’t get over what she did and told her that he wanted a divorce, he became enemy number one.”
“That sucks.”
“No, what sucks is that they have two girls, who don’t know about their mom cheating, they just think their dad woke up one day and decided to put an end to their happy family and a seventeen-year marriage that from their perspective was perfect.”
“Poor Hector,” she whispers with her face soft.
“Yeah, baby, poor Hector,” I whisper back.
She takes her eyes off mine, then says quietly, “It makes you wonder why people get married at all.”
“You don’t see yourself ever getting married?” Her eyes come back to mine.
“I don’t know.” She takes a sip of wine.
“What about kids? I know you have Zuri, but…”
“No.” She cuts me off before I can finish asking if she wants kids of her own one day. “I know Zuri’s not mine in the way that I gave birth to her, but she’s it for me unless I adopt an older kid one day, which is something I’ve thought about.”
“I can respect that.”
“Do you want more kids?” I’m actually surprised she’s asking, even if she’s only doing it because I asked her first. Progress? Maybe, but I’m not getting my hopes up.
“I haven’t ever put much thought into it, but I love kids, so I wouldn’t be upset if I ended up with one or a couple more, however that came about.”
“How would your kids feel about you adding to your family?” Shit, now that question coming from her really shocks me.
“I’m not sure, but I guess they’d adjust.”
“How would Zuri feel about having siblings?”
“She has two older brothers, who she misses like crazy, and she loves all her cousins who are here, so I would guess she’d be over the moon with glee at the idea of having a bigger family.” She yawns, covering her mouth with the sleeve of her sweater. “Sorry, I think the wine and the day is catching up to me.”
“Don’t apologize, it’s getting late, and I should probably head home.”
“Yeah.” Her face softens. “But this has been nice.”
“We’ll have to do it more often.” I get up, grab both bottles, and my empty glass.