Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75478 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75478 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“Yes, yes, yes. For God’s sake, yes,” Bonnie hissed to the justice of the peace as her face contorted in pain.
“By the power vested in me by the state of New Jersey, I now pronounce you man and wife,” the man said, eyes a little panicked, likely worried the baby might make its appearance right there in front of him.
I pulled Bonnie in for a quick kiss.
“You ready to have this baby now?” I asked.
“You’re not allowed to touch me ever again,” she grumbled, making the girls share a little laugh.
Childbirth, I’d found out, was the ultimate way to pull Bonnie out of her shell.
She raged at me, told me I was to blame for everything she was going through, told me she was never going to let me touch her again, that she was banning smut books and the ideas they gave me.
“Oh, you’d never punish yourself like that,” I said, getting a small snorting laugh out of her as I half-carried her out of the courthouse and into the car.
On the way to the hospital, and for a few hours after, there was nothing but heavy breathing, ice chips, and accusations about what I’d done to her.
Until, with an ear-splitting scream—from the mother—and a powerful cry—from the baby—we were parents again for the second time.
“I got something for our first pictures,” I told Bonnie as I wiped her sweaty hair off of her forehead.
“Oh, yeah? What is it?”
In answer, I handed her the box I had stored in my overnight hospital bag.
Bonnie, who looked like she needed a solid twelve hours of sleep, pulled off the top, then parted the tissue paper.
To reveal five identical Hawaiian shirts.
“This is so cute,” she said, pulling each out. “Wait, why are there five?”
“One for Zima too. We can’t forget her.”
“You think of everything,” she said, pushing the box to the side, then patting the space next to her.
I climbed up in the bed, pressing a kiss to her heated cheek. “You were a fucking badass today.”
“When? Pushing that giant baby out of me, or marrying you while in labor?”
“Well, I was talking about the impressively inventive expletives you came up with to curse me with, but all that other shit too,” I said, getting a tired little laugh out of her.
We both looked over at the incubator where our new baby was fast asleep, though we both knew it wouldn’t be for long.
“What are we going to say when they ask us how we met?” Bonnie asked, pressing the side of her head against mine.
“I vote for in a bookstore.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, smile soft. “In a bookstore.”
Bonnie - 14 years
“Hey, bubba,” I said, reaching out to pet our new lab-mix puppy as he ran toward me when I pulled the grocery bags out of the trunk.
Pick-up groceries.
Because some things never changed.
Though, these days, it was more about saving time than trying to avoid people.
I would always be who I was. Introverted, quiet, sometimes quite anxious.
But loving Sully and raising kids had allowed me to grow, to experience things that would have sent me into full-blown panic at another time in my life.
“Yes, there is whippy in there,” I told our puppy as he sniffed one of the bags. “But you can only have it after dinner.” And that was only because I hid his allergy pills in the whipped cream, so I could get one in him without too much fuss.
“How’d you get out in the front yard, huh?” I asked, looking to see if the gate was open.
It wasn’t.
But the front door was.
“Uh oh. Do I want to know what they’re up to in there?” I asked, hearing the squeals of laughter carrying over to me.
And despite knowing that any number of very messy things could be the cause of that laughter.
Once, I came home to find Sully had set up a ’Spaghetti Slime Fight.’ Which involved, roughly, twenty pounds of different sorts of pastas that had been stained bright primary colors, and the children and their father tossing the slimy, colorful noodles at each other.
Luckily, Sully had been smart enough to take that fight outside.
And, yes, it had been reasonably hilarious to see our overtired toddler, tear-stained and snotty, plop down in the grass, grab a handful of said colorful pasta, and just shove a whole fistful of it into his mouth.
I’d heard rumors about Sully and a Slip-N-Slide covered in chocolate syrup and whipped cream. And, admittedly, had been anticipating and dreading the baths that would follow that for years.
“I hope we have enough soap,” I added as I made it to the front door.
I braced myself for chaos.
“Surprise!” the kids chorused, voices loud enough to make me wince.
To be fair, there was a bit of chaos.
Balloons and streamers were everywhere.
But it was festive sort of chaos.
For my birthday.