Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 70488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Smugness.
I continued to jiggle my leg on my knee and watched him go.
“Here’s hoping to never see that one again.” Magnolia echoed my own thoughts.
“Here’s hoping.”
Twenty-Three
Your level of stupidity rendered me speechless.
—Bernice to Patrick Huber
Bernice
Today had been surprisingly great.
It was the new nurse, Chan’s, official one-week anniversary, and we’d celebrated by cleaning the entire office with Lysol.
I liked him.
He was fun and he worked hard, and seemed to fit well into our clinic dynamic.
He took on the extra workload without a complaint and had no problem splitting the work with Sage.
Sage looked like she was finally getting sleep.
And Magnolia started picking up the slack where she could.
All in all, the last week had been one of the best I’d had at the clinic.
Sadly, today Hux wouldn’t be picking me up.
I was getting a ride home with Sage.
“So how did you like the last week?” she asked.
“I actually liked it a lot more than I thought I would,” I admitted. “Chan does really well with the demand and workload. Doesn’t complain, and bonus, doesn’t give me the creeps.”
She shuddered. “Did I tell you that Randel called today?”
“No!” I gasped and practically leaned over the console as she took the right that would lead us to Hux’s place in my neighborhood. “What the hell?”
“It was during lunch,” she said. “I answered the phone and he asked if Odin had made a decision on his employment yet.”
“Odin didn’t tell him?”
“Odin did tell him.”
“Creep,” I murmured as she navigated the slick streets. “What did you say?”
“That we decided not to move forward with his employment due to a conflict of ideals,” she admitted. “Told him to check out Bozeman.”
I snickered. “And what did he say to that?”
“Nothing. Just said ‘thank you’ and hung up.” She pulled up to the house and stopped next to Heidi’s car. “You having a party?”
“A come-to-Jesus meeting,” I admitted, then gave her the quick rundown on Katana. “And family dinner. Plus, we’re going to clean out and box up all of Hux’s things. He’s officially moving into his warehouse this week. Putting his house on the market.”
“You don’t seem all that sad to be losing your neighbor.”
I scratched at my neck. “I might or might not be practically living with him at this point.”
She snorted. “Just make it official.” She looked at me dreamily. “If Hux is anything like Gentry, you won’t be leaving his house ever again anyway.”
“You might be right.” I patted her hand. “Thank you so much for the ride.”
“You’re welcome,” she said as I pushed the door open.
I squeaked when I found Hux there to catch me. “Have a good one, Sage.”
“You, too, Hux,” she called. “Bye, Bernice.”
“Bye!” I called out as Hux carried me into his house.
He didn’t put me down until I was inside the foyer.
There were moving boxes everywhere, and I could hear the laughter coming from the kitchen.
“Y’all’ve been busy,” I said.
He held on to my hands while I got rid of my boots, then helped the jacket off my shoulders. “Put a change of clothes in the bedroom.”
I leaned up onto my tiptoes and waited.
He dropped his mouth to mine then squeezed my hip. “Go.”
I went, changing into a pair of sweatpants, a thick black turtleneck, and my slippers.
The house was a comfortable seventy-eight degrees, and when I got into the kitchen, every last member of the Hosea-Palao family was wearing shorts and a t-shirt.
They didn’t seem to mind getting overheated, though.
“Heyyy, Bernice,” Heidi said. “I got you a drink here.”
She handed me a lemonade, and I looked at it skeptically.
In the weeks that I’d known the family, I’d seen them spike all kinds of drinks.
Lemonade included.
“It’s alcohol free,” she admitted. “I poured it before I added the alcohol.”
“Thanks.” I smiled and turned to Katana. “Hey, Katana.”
She looked a little green, but otherwise pretty happy.
A motorcycle sounded outside, and Heidi stood up. “That’d be my man.”
Only, when she came back, it wasn’t her man.
At least not by himself.
He had another man with him.
Shaw.
“Shaw.” I waved. “Hey! You both realize that it’s absolutely freezing out, right?”
“We do. But we’re moving the bikes into a new facility since the last one burned down. Only a few mile drive, and your place was on the way.” He gave me a chin jerk and turned to Hux. “Sorry to crash your party. Was hoping that you had a Band-Aid I could use. Caught…”
He trailed off when Katana turned around, revealing herself to him.
Katana paled and covered her mouth.
Shaw looked like he’d seen a ghost.
“I thought…” Shaw frowned and looked around. “What the hell?”
Katana stiffened. “Can we go outside?”
“No,” Heidi whispered and looked at her man.
Bells shrugged.
“No.” Shaw stiffened. “We could talk about how we’d decided to get married and have a bunch of babies before you ghosted me and ‘moved.’ We could definitely talk about that right here and right now.”