Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 82715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
“You should have said something,” Grams said, shaking her head as she swatted me with her napkin.
“I told Emilia,” I replied, dodging. “That was enough.”
“Rhett Michael Rumi Hawtorne,” Rhett said happily.
“Yep, that’s your name,” Emilia confirmed.
“That’s a damn mouthful,” Gramps muttered with a laugh.
“Hey,” Emilia said with mock offense. “Not everyone can be named after lubricant.”
Gramps sputtered before bursting out in full-out laughter, the sound filling the room.
“She’s got you there,” Grams sang merrily, her own laughter joining in.
“Lubicant?” Rhett asked, making all of us howl.
“It’s something that makes things slick.”
“Slick?”
“Yeah, like—” Jesus, why was I drawing a blank? My mind was so far in the gutter, I couldn’t find a PG example.
“Like lotion,” Emilia said in amusement. “Or soap.”
“Oh,” Rhett said, drawing out the word as he nodded. Then he looked at Gramps in confusion. “You name?”
“They call me Grease,” Gramps said.
Rhett wrinkled his nose.
“But his mother named him Asa,” Grams chimed in. “That’s his real name.”
“Asa,” Rhett mused.
“I like that name better, too,” Grams agreed.
“Grease is better than Mr. Hawthorne,” Gramps said, going back to his food. “Which is what your mama called me for a long ass time.”
“It’s a sign of respect,” Emilia said defensively.
“Not respectful if someone asks you to use a different name,” Gramps argued.
“Are we really having this conversation again?” Emilia asked in amusement. “I started calling you gramps, just like you asked.”
“Only took ya a solid year,” Gramps muttered.
“You’re planning on staying at Mick—” Grams paused. It was only for a second, but I noticed.
“I’ll always be Mick,” I said, reaching over to squeeze her hand. “Grew out of that shit. Promise.”
Grams squeezed my hand back.
“You’re planning on staying at Micky’s while you get on your feet?” she asked Emilia.
“Yeah.” Emilia glanced at me. “That’s the plan.”
“Well, good. You let me know when you find a job. We’d love to have Rhett over one day a week.”
“That would be so awesome,” Emilia said, her eyes lighting up.
“I’d ask for more days than that,” Grams said with a grin. “But Heather might kill me if I take away her babysitting time.”
Emilia laughed.
“Club’s havin’ a barbeque next weekend,” Gramps said to me. “You’ll be there?”
“Hadn’t heard anythin’ about it.”
“Tellin’ ya now,” he replied with a scowl.
“We’ll talk it over.”
Gramps scoffed. “You’ll be there,” he said knowingly.
“Emilia’s never been to a club party.”
“Hell, there’ll be kids runnin’ all over.” He waved his hand dismissively. “It ain’t like it’s gonna get rowdy.”
“I’ll let you know.”
“Better to throw ’em into the deep end right away,” he joked. “Give her a chance to dip her toe and she’ll run screamin’ into the night.”
“She already did that once,” I muttered.
“Don’t think that was her choice,” Gramps replied, lowering his voice. “That girl looked at you like you hung the fuckin’ moon.”
“Things change.”
“That didn’t,” he replied with a scoff.
“Maybe Wednesday?” Grams said, raising her voice a little to interrupt us. “Does that work for you, grandson?”
“What’s on Wednesday?”
“Family dinner.”
I scrubbed my hands over my face. I was still getting used to having Emilia and Rhett back, and it looked like I was going to have to share them. Again.
“That works,” I said, looking to Emilia for confirmation.
“My calendar’s empty,” she joked.
A couple hours later, I found myself driving us back to my place, Emilia tucked in next to me. Rhett hadn’t fallen asleep, probably because he was enjoying the unfamiliar view out the window, but he was tired enough that the truck was quiet.
“I missed your grandparents,” Emilia said softly. “Sometimes, I used to play out entire conversations with Callie in my head.”
“Oh yeah?” I cleared my throat. “About what?”
“Everything,” she said with a quiet chuckle. “How Rhett was doing. How cute he was. How scared I was.”
“You coulda called her,” I murmured. “Hell, she probably wouldn’t have told anyone.”
“I didn’t want to put her in that position,” Emilia replied ruefully. “Stupid, right?” She sighed.
“You coulda come home at any time, Em,” I reminded her. “You knew that.”
“You can think you know something and still not believe it,” she said, reaching out to run her fingers through Rhett’s hair. His head was nodding forward as he fell asleep.
It only took us a few more minutes to get home, but that’s all it took for the familiar edge of frustration to start scratching underneath my skin. Counting backward didn’t help. Telling myself that getting angry didn’t fix shit and never had didn’t help either. She’d known she could come back. My family had never been anything but good to her. Supportive to a fault. Even now, even after the shit she’d pulled, they’d welcomed her in with open arms.
Even if I could believe that she’d been unsure of me—and I couldn’t figure out how that was possible—she’d known that my family would take her in. They’d never let her struggle if they could help it, and Rhett only added to that surety.