Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 85322 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85322 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
I sighed heavily, wondering how I could describe this in the shortest way possible.
“Dig in, please.” Emilia pushed a salad bowl to Finn.
He furrowed his brow. “Princess, when you shove the salad at me first, you gotta see it makes me feel attacked.”
“Good lord,” Shan muttered.
I stifled my amusement and picked two quesadillas, one chicken and one shrimp. Emilia had stuck little toothpick labels in them and everything.
“That’s cute,” Emilia said, fanning out a napkin across her lap. “Mere years ago, you would’ve called that argument ‘snowflake and feminist propaganda.’ Are you turning into a snowflake, dear husband?”
I fucking loved Emilia. Like, legit. She was a queen. She treated Finn like a king—until she felt he needed to get his feet back on the ground, and then she was a stunning bulldozer for a hot second.
Finn grabbed the salad bowl forcefully and stared at her. “You’re not my favorite right now.”
“I will be by tomorrow,” she responded casually. “I think I can survive till then.”
“What happens tomorrow?” Finn scowled.
She was all smiles, however. “The big O-word, if my math is correct.”
O-word? Wasn’t that orgasm?
I felt my forehead wrinkle.
Finn’s scowl was gone.
“Are youse talking about sex in front of your old man?” I had to ask.
Shan coughed into his water, and Emilia looked horrified.
“Of course not!” she insisted.
Finn laughed.
“Well…” Shan cleared his throat, half amused, half uncomfortable. “Indirectly, I suppose.” He faced me a little. “I think it means ovulation.”
Oh.
“Definitely indirectly, then,” I agreed. “You sick freaks.”
Emilia face-palmed, evidently embarrassed, and Finn was still highly entertained. He’d also passed on the salad bowl in favor of the nachos.
Shan shook his head and started filling his plate. “As long as I don’t get more details, I’m just happy to welcome new grandchildren in the future.”
Ironically, my mom would fit in here. She’d been on my case before the divorce, wanting a third and fourth grandchild. I’d kept saying she should’ve had another kid if she wanted an army of grandbabies.
“Excuse me while I go check in on the kids,” Emilia said stiffly.
“We have a nanny for that, baby,” Finn laughed.
She shot him a glare before she stalked off.
My bad! It hadn’t been my intention to take down the queen, however temporarily.
“She’s my favorite again,” Finn chuckled around a mouthful of chips. “You’re a close second, Alfie.”
“That can’t be good,” I drawled, smirking. “By the way, should we be worried about Kellan?”
“Nah.” Finn waved that off.
Shan checked his watch. “I’ll give him another five minutes. He ran in right before you arrived, so…”
“For the third time,” Finn added.
In other words, they’d stayed at the pub late last night.
I bit into my chicken quesadilla and immediately had to take a bigger bite to catch the melted cheese running out. My fucking God, this was good. The chicken had a nice kick to it too.
“So, anyway…” Finn twirled the finger of doom, indicating he wanted to circle back to something. “You and your man. It would really work better for me if you got your shit together and remarried. Exes are unreliable.”
My eyebrows went all the way up there.
“Finnegan, for chrissakes,” Shan chastised. “Alfie’s marriage is none of your damn concern.”
Finn strongly disagreed. “It is when a love-sick Son is running his mouth to a possibly scorned former spouse who then feeds leads to the cops. It’s not rocket science, Pop. The reason we walk free is because we know when to keep our mouths shut.” He shifted his gaze to me. “Your ex may very well be trustworthy, but I can’t know that for sure, and I gotta draw the line somewhere. If you’re married, there’s increased protection by law—but most importantly, hopefully loyalty. In your case, I don’t know what you have. I don’t know what you share with him, if anything.”
I set down my quesadilla and cleared my throat, and I wiped my fingers on the napkin. To be frank, I understood his concerns, so I was gonna be honest.
“We have a peace treaty as co-parents,” I said. “For the sake of his sanity, and in exchange for his silence, I share minor shit.”
He leaned back in his seat and lit up a cigarette. “Give me an example of minor.”
I nodded, thinking about the other night when West had to take the kids. “All right. The night we got called in for the shit about Tony and Colby. I had to drop Trip and Ellie off at West’s first, and when I came back, I had Colby with me. Naturally, I had to tell him something.”
He inclined his head.
“I told him the bare minimum,” I said. “I’ve admitted I’m basically Kellan’s PA, and most of what I do is making calls and answering texts. And then, as he got to experience, shit happens occasionally. So I told him I put together teams for work gigs, and sometimes we gotta go in to fix mistakes.”