Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 99017 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99017 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
Or the end of a rom-com.
Or the beginning of a suspense movie, right before something terrible happens and the hero’s life is shattered into a million pieces as he hunts his family’s kidnappers across the desert with nothing but a Swiss Army knife and a belly full of rage…
“Daddy, come on.” Ava glances up from her crust, pulling me from my “the other shoe has to drop, sooner or later” thoughts. “You have to do your job. I’m about to need more cheese.”
I give her a quick salute. “Yes, ma’am. On it.”
“Okay, but I think you could go faster.” She sighs through her nose, the sigh of a girl who has carried this family long enough, and Clover snorts with laughter.
“She’s not here for your monkeyshine, mister.” She shoots an amused gaze at my cutting board, currently only half full of shredded mozzarella. “Let’s see some hustle, Kate.”
“Maybelline wrote a poem with that word!” Bella pipes up.
“She did,” Ava says, her brow furrowing for a beat before she quotes, “In the hustle and bustle of the dark, the bunny vampires play their part. The bayou shimmers and…” Her nose wrinkles. “Something about fireflies and crickets singing, but I forgot that part.”
“That’s still amazing, Ava,” Clover says, clearly impressed. “You have a great memory.”
“You do,” I agree, before following up with, “But I’m confused about the bunnies and vampires. Why are they hanging out? I thought bunnies were nice.”
“The bunnies are vampires, Daddy,” Ava says as if that should have been obvious. “Like in that book, Bunnicula, that our teacher read at school. We told Maybelline about it, and she said it made her want to write a poem. So, she did! It’s so good, too. It gives me the spooky chills just like Halloween, but not too scary. Just scary enough.”
Bella nods. “Yep. She’s super good at poetry.”
“She is,” Clover agrees. “But I can’t believe we didn’t realize we were living across the street from a two-time Louisiana poet laureate. I’m ashamed of us.”
“Maybelline’s a private woman,” I say, grateful that she’s decided to become less private with us. The girls love their new babysitter, and Maybelline loves having surrogate grandkids around. “I can respect that.”
“Still, we should have recognized her name,” Clover insists. “She must think we’re all illiterate.”
I grin. “Well, I’ve only read one book this year, so…”
Ava tuts at me. “Bad Daddy, you have to read faster.” She gives my cutting board another meaningful look, “Just like you need to do other things faster…”
Clover snorts again, and I hurry to finish shredding the chunk of cheese in my hand, making a mental note to ask Maybelline if she wants to pick the girls up from preschool, or if I should arrange for them to be dropped off by the bus when she takes over after-school care next week.
She couldn’t commit to evenings or overnights—she teaches college classes and poetry workshops at night—but knowing my afternoon sitter needs are covered by someone the girls love makes me feel so much better. Now, I just need to find an overnight solution between now and the end of the week, when I go back to work, and my childcare situation will be sorted.
Then, I can concentrate on other, equally important things…like convincing Clover to move in with us for real.
Having her across the lawn is good, but having her next to me every morning? Well, that sounds so fucking perfect, I have to fight the urge to lean over and steal a kiss right now. But we’re still playing the “just friends” game in front of the kids, so I settle for admiring her ass as she loads the empty tomato sauce pan into the dishwasher.
“That’s better.” Ava nods her approval as I deliver a large handful of cheese to her pizza a moment later. “Just in time, Daddy. Good job.”
“Now me, Daddy,” Bella demands. “My mushrooms want cheese in their bowl. They want to go swimming in cheese before they lay down on my pizza and go night-night.”
Before I can explain that the mushrooms can’t swim in the cheese until it’s melted, and that has to happen in the oven, my phone buzzes on the counter. I glance down, expecting Elly, calling to confirm our playdate for tomorrow, but it’s…coach.
Coach Merwood never calls me. We text occasionally, but we don’t have a “ring-me-up-anytime” kind of relationship.
“Hey, quiet for a few minutes, girls, okay?” I ask, wiping my cheesy hands on a kitchen towel. “I need to take this. It’s work.”
“Okay!” Bella shouts only to be immediately shushed by Ava, who says, “Quiet quiet, not loud quiet.”
“Okay,” Bella repeats in a stage whisper that has me grinning despite the anxiety fluttering in my stomach as I answer the phone. “Hey, Coach. What’s up? Everything alright?”
“Good evening, Dean. Sorry to interrupt at dinnertime, but we’ve had an incident.” Coach Merwood always sounds a little like a sea captain at the prow of a ship in bad weather, but tonight his voice is graver than usual. “A rookie incident. No one’s dead or maimed, thank God, but turns out Reed never learned to ride a bicycle as a child.”