Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
“Of course,” Gracen added quieter, “I can’t get him to tell me any of the names he might pick.”
A hard laugh burst from Delaney. “Really?”
“Malachi says it’s too early. He needs time to work on a short list.”
“Like he has a long one to whittle down?”
At ten weeks along?
Delaney doubted that.
“What’s the chance he already has a name picked out if it’s a boy?” Delaney asked.
“Twin minds, you and I,” Gracen murmured. “I’ve considered that might be the case only because he gets this stupid little smile on his face whenever I bring up a boy name I found and liked in this damn book.”
“You have a book of baby names?”
Delaney thought Gracen was just trolling the internet or listing names off the top of her head like she had been, but apparently not.
“I might have picked one up a few days ago,” Gracen offered as if it wasn’t important.
“Have you considered ordering more?”
Her friend had little self-control when it came to shopping online and having things mailed directly to her door. Delaney remembered good and well what it was like to walk out of her apartment to find Gracen’s latest order had been delivered in a giant pile on their stoop.
“Maybe,” Gracen whispered, “but we don’t have to get into all of that.”
“Uh-huh,” Delaney replied.
She had caught onto Gracen’s tricks a long damn time ago.
“There could be a chance he thinks I might try to convince him to change the name if he tells me now. I mean, we do have another seven months to go, you know?”
“Would you?” she asked Gracen.
“Not on purpose.”
Delaney snorted. “I bet he’s just as invested in naming this kid as you.”
She only knew about the baby for a day—Malachi had undoubtedly known since day one.
“Oh, he’s invested,” Gracen agreed with a low laugh, “in keeping me distracted with all sorts of girl names.”
Huh. Did that mean … “Someone believes you’re having a boy.”
Delaney meant for the comment to be a joke, but Gracen’s answering silence confirmed that it might hold a bit of truth.
“Is that what you think, too?” she asked her friend.
Gracen let out a happy sigh. “I think …”
“Keep going.”
A chirp of a laugh answered back. “I think I’m gonna put Amber Rose on the list, too.”
“Yes!” came the holler from the couch. Bexley even fist pumped the air. “Stripper names for the win.”
Not too seriously, but throwing an old eyeliner stick at the back of Bexley’s head all at the same time, Delaney told her cousin, “Stop calling it that.”
She didn’t miss.
*
“Any reason you didn’t mention to Gracen that you had a date tonight?” Bexley asked as she leaned in the doorway of Delaney’s bedroom.
“Uh, no?”
“Why was that a question?”
“Because I didn’t really think to mention it,” Delaney said, her tone posing it like a question even though it wasn’t one.
It was the truth.
Delaney, standing slightly off kilter with one foot in suede ankle boots with a thick two-inch heel and another in a slightly shorter heeled boot that went up over her knees, eyed her reflection in the leaning mirror against the wall. Facing the foot of her bed, it cast rainbows in her room whenever the light filtered through the window and caught the reflective pane.
“You didn’t think to mention that you were going on your first date in over a year?” Bexley’s voice pitched higher at the end, like she couldn’t mentally grasp the concept.
“I have more interesting things to talk about with Gracen,” Delaney replied, turning on her taller heel to face her cousin. “Which is better—bootie or boot?”
“There’s three feet of snow outside. The boots.”
Delaney toyed with the hem of the short skirt where the dress fell to just below her mid-thigh. A sliver of skin showed when she moved and walked. Bending over would take careful mindfulness. “Yeah, but does the thigh-showing thing scream try to find out what’s under this skirt or should I do a thick hose with the bootie instead?”
She wanted her look to set the tone for her date with Lucas. Something she would do for any man she agreed to go to dinner with—he wasn’t a special case. The last impression Delaney intended to make was that she would be the all-you-can-eat buffet.
That was not the case.
There would be no menu including her.
“Who cares if he’s thinking about what is—or isn’t; are you wearing panties?—under your dress, Delaney? Weren’t you the one who spent the last half hour ranting at me about saying a name could be a stripper name? What was that patriarchal, feminist crap you spewed at me again? I forgot, sorry.”
Dammit.
“First of all, yes, I am wearing panties.”
“Thank God,” Bexley muttered.
“And I never said someone else couldn’t look like they wanted a man’s hands up their dress the first night he takes her out … just that I don’t, thank you.”