Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
“He would never admit it, but I know he likes to be with Gia. He misses his kiddos when they fly the coup.”
I was sensing this the closer we got to tomorrow, and he’d have to say goodbye to his current round.
“I’ll ask him,” I promised. “He’s letting go all three of the dogs he has tomorrow. We’re heading out to pick up the next litter Saturday. But new doesn’t erase old. It might be good he has a distraction and the reminder that, when he places his dogs, they’re with people who care about them.”
“Yes,” Nadia agreed. “Should we trade phone numbers?”
“Absolutely.”
She and I did. Lillian and I did.
And Nadia left with two of Gemma’s candles, one of Melissa’s scarves, and the black cat sitting at the bottom of Cicely’s stroller that she crowed Riggs was going to hate. Lillian left with more sugar scrub, green tea mask and a nightlight that could only be plugged into one kind of room, so I had a feeling it gave something away, and I was happy for her and Harry.
After the bell over the door rang again to herald their departure this time (and another half-hearted, goodbye roo-roo from Tonks), I was bapping the POS tablet to close out the sales as Abigail approached.
“They were cool, right?” I asked her.
“Babe.”
The way she said that, I looked from the tablet screen to her.
She had a worried look on her face.
“What? They aren’t cool?” I asked.
“Do you know what you’re doing with Hutch?” she asked back.
She hadn’t come out and shared her concerns yet, but I knew they were there.
“We both went in with eyes open, Abigail,” I said softly. “And we’re both grownups. Honestly, you don’t have to worry.”
“How often does he spend the night in your bed?” she queried.
“That’s the benefit part,” I told her.
“The entire night, Mabel.”
I frowned as something started niggling inside of me.
“How often?” she pressed.
“It’s become kind of a schedule. He trains Tonks Monday, Wednesday and Friday. When he’s done, he leaves, comes back, we have dinner, he stays.”
“And the weekends?”
“There’s only been one weekend.”
“But he was with you. Almost the whole weekend.”
We both went to his place on Sunday to feed his pooches and spend time with them (twice).
But the rest of the day we were at mine, where we lazed, had sex, napped, ate.
And he spent the night.
“And now you’re going to get his new litter with him,” she continued. “Are you going to leave when he has a room full of puppies at his house?”
I’d told Abigail that Hutch told me he keeps his puppies, when they were still puppies, in his house in a room he hilariously called the “romper room.”
And…
Yeah.
No way in hell I was leaving a litter of cute, mini-Hannibals.
Three words: I’d seen pictures.
“Listen.” She reached out and grabbed my forearm. “I like the man. And for what it’s worth, I fully believe he’s right where you are. I fully believe that. But even if I do, and I know all, I still asked Brett. And he agrees with me. The thing is, I…we…Brett and I, I mean…but mostly I don’t think either of you are clueing into exactly where it is that you are.”
I was torn between being irritated she thought I was being an idiot and feeling how nice it was that she cared.
So my tone was even when I countered, “He and I had a very frank discussion about this, Abigail. During that discussion, we also established rules.”
“I’ve never had an arrangement like this. I dated. Brett dated. I can’t say every man I was intimate with lasted for any period of time. And some of them were jerks. But I’ve never been in something like this. That said, you told me, you haven’t either.”
“No. But I still know what it is.”
She nodded. “I’m trying not to offend you. Or worse, insult you. I know you’re a grown-ass woman. I’m only two years older than you. I don’t even know if my concerns are valid. I just think this is ripe for misunderstanding. What if one of you catches the feels?”
“Both of us have already caught the feels. That’s why we aren’t just screwing.”
She let me go and backed off verbally too. “Okay. It does sound like your eyes are open.”
I wanted to say, That’s because they are.
But I was shook.
Abigail was not like my take-no-shit, tell-it-like-it-is Mona. She was also not like my I-took-off-the-rose-colored-glasses-and-crushed-them-under-my-own-boot, all-men-are-dicks friend Kacey.
She and Brett had been married for five years.
She was a wife, a mother, a store manager. She’d been a stay-at-home mom, then she’d put Emma in preschool because she realized she was losing hold on herself and the woman she was, not to mention the wife she was, to become nothing but a mom (yeah, we broke the friendship seal so it all spilled, she knew about Bryce and my name change too, though she didn’t know about my uncle, my mom or the man who sired me…yet).