Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 111685 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111685 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
I wasn’t ready. I just wasn’t ready.
“I think if that happens, it’ll be later, much later. Like senior year later.”
“Good.” Nicole seemed relieved. “I have to ask. It’s been on my mind, but I know you’re going for marine biology, but I don’t know. Your cooking, it’s fucking phenomenal. You could go to culinary school and be a personal chef. I mean, you got the hookup.” She went back to watching Stone, who, as I knew would happen, was now talking to two guys.
Had I thought about being a chef? Yes. Stone suggested the same thing a week ago, but the marine biology thing stuck deep in me. It was my vow, and who knew. Maybe I’d do both at some point. I didn’t know, but I didn’t have to make that decision.
I had time.
I had lots of time.
And I felt good knowing that.
Instead of answering Nicole, I went over to Char.
She stopped talking, blinking at me. “Yes?”
“You owe me a full month’s rent.” I narrowed my eyes. “And if you don’t pay, I can make your life hell.”
Her mouth opened but held there.
Mia clamped a hand on her arm. “Don’t even think it. We will back her up in a heartbeat, Char.”
Char’s mouth closed. She nodded to me. “You’ll get the check tomorrow.”
“Good.” I grinned at the rest. “Now, excuse me. I’m going to go sit with my boyfriend.”
And that’s what I did. As I went, I heard, “Blue!” Looking over, Joe slid a beer toward me. I reached out a hand just in time, and the mug slid right into my palm, splashing a little. He tipped his head. “Nice to see you enjoying life right now, but can you take a shift in two days? You never answered my text.”
A second laugh from me. I was letting more and more of those out. “Thanks, Joe. And yes. I’ll cover the shift.”
He held up a hand, leaning down to hear another customer’s order.
As I got to our table, Stone already had a beer in hand. Cammie was bringing over a tray of food and a couple of waters. A basket of fries and I already knew there’d be two chicken sandwiches with them. “Heya! How’s the date?” Her amusement was evident, and as I slid onto a stool on the inside of the table, right next to Stone, she tapped my arm. “Let me know if you need anything. I don’t work tomorrow, so we should grab lunch, yeah?”
I nodded. “Sounds good.”
It was more than good. It sounded perfect.
Stone excused himself and moved so he was facing only me. He blocked out the rest of the room. He leaned over, resting a hand on my hip and reached forward to grab a fry.
“That all okay back there?”
I looked. Char, Mia, and Lisa were still talking, their heads pressed tightly together. Nicole had returned and Dent put his arm around her shoulders. Savannah was snuggling against Noel’s side, and I knew my answer.
“Yes. It’s all good.”
Yes. Mushy. Me.
I didn’t care.
I reached up, my finger under his chin, and I said, “Come here.”
He flashed me a grin, bending, and his mouth fit over mine just how it should’ve been. Perfectly.
Epilogue After The Epilogue
The alarm went off, and I was up.
“Fuck, babe.” The covers moved and a muscled arm came over me, pulling me back down into his warmth.
I would not be deterred. No way. No how.
Even if that warmth and that muscled arm was connected to my husband. We’d been married four years now, and to say our journey had been smooth sailing would’ve been a lie. Not between us. Well, we still fought.
Stone and I would never not fight.
We fought. We bickered. Then we had hate sex (it wasn’t really hate sex, but I still liked to use the term), which turned into hot sex, and then make-up sex, and well—
“MOM!”
There was our reward.
“Fuck. Babe.”
I grinned, but we heard the door slam into the wall. The door was already open. We didn’t sleep with our bedroom door closed, and we didn’t let Grayson’s door remain shut either, so why he hit the floor running every morning and why he had to shove the door open when it was already open was beyond me.
Stone muttered, sitting up and running a hand over his face, “We’ve already fixed three holes this month. It’s time to take the doorknobs off.”
That was another battle on our hands.
We wanted to take Grayson’s knob off his door, but his door wasn’t the only door he slammed open. That meant we’d have to take all the knobs off the doors, ours included and to say Grayson was hyper and unpredictable was an understatement. There was no rhythm or reason to why he fell asleep, how long he’d fall asleep, or more specifically how long he’d remain asleep. That meant we never knew which doorknobs we could actually lock, say…if we wanted to have any forms of sex stated above. He was also an expert at escaping anything. No crib held him. No fence contained him. Tables and cupboards weren’t too scary to him. The kitchen became his personal gym, and yeah, it was panic-inducing and I almost had three heart attacks when he first began crawling. He went straight to climbing and the kid was not normal.