Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 78466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
When Sam was back in front of me, I gave him a smile before he bent and I got a kiss. It was quick, but he leaned his forehead against mine afterward and just stood there and breathed me in. It took me a second to realize the room had gone silent.
Turning, I saw all three of the Gleason clan staring at us. Kola was smiling before he got up and walked over. I moved because I knew what he wanted. Slipping in front of Sam, he wrapped his arms around his father’s waist and leaned in, closing his eyes, his face in his chest.
“I think we’ll be going now,” Angie announced.
Ella put her hand on Kola’s arm as she walked by and promised to call him later. He nodded but didn’t move and turned his face away from her as Sam patted his back. Clearly, he needed his father at the moment.
Robert reached out to touch Sam’s shoulder as he walked by, thought better of it, and went out the front door with his family in tow. After a moment of quiet, Sam reached for me and put his hand on my cheek.
“I love you,” I said softly, choked up seeing him and our son together.
“I love you back,” he assured me, clearing his throat as Kola stepped free, wiping at his eyes. “But really, why the hell is the cat blue?”
JULY 2019
Hello, all, and welcome to He Said, he said for July of 2019. This time I’m doing kind of a mash-up between a slice-of-life of Kage-Harcourt life and questions I’ve received, because I’m working on this on the 4th of July. Normally we see fireworks in one of the parks or we get to go out on the lake on my friend Aaron’s boat. Yacht. Whatever. But this year a plague has hit the household, or technically, the stomach flu, and everyone got it but me. I don’t know why, perhaps it’s all my clean living, I couldn’t say, but regardless—I have dodged the bullet. Hopefully. At the moment, there is miso soup on the stove in a big pot and rice in the electric cooker warming. The thought of chicken noodle made everyone green, so I went with an alternative. They’re all watching the third season of Stranger Things—which the three of them have been dying to see—which is why I think being sick has not been such a tragedy. So here we go…
Hannah: Why don’t you watch this with us?
Jory: You know I get scared just coming up the stairs at night if I’m the last person down here, so watching anything remotely frightening is a bad idea. I used to like scary movies, but I’ve found, as I get older, that my tastes have changed.
Hannah: You’re not old yet.
Jory: Thank you, my daughter.
Hannah: And for the record, this isn’t scary at all, and I’d like to point out that you’re sitting right here.
Jory: But I’m not looking at it.
Hannah: Okay, be weird. I don’t have the energy to argue with you.
Jory: Well, thank you so much. Drink some water, please.
Hannah: Why?
Jory: You know why. Dehydration.
Hannah: …
Jory: Nice. Face.
DEAR JORY:
A mutual friend of my husband and mine likes to go to Chicago Blackhawks games with him. I don’t enjoy it and never have. We have been friends with this woman since college, and I trust both her and my husband implicitly. That being said, I simply don’t like it, and there’s no good-faith basis for my feelings. They go out, sometimes they have a couple of beers after the game, and then my husband comes home. I know I’m being stupid, my sister said I am, but I have a weird feeling about it that I simply can’t shake. I also feel odd bringing it up to my husband since I’ve kept my mouth shut for years. Am I a crazy person?
Jory: If you feel it, you need to address the issue. It really doesn’t matter if this arrangement has been in place for years. If it’s bothering you, or if you feel ill at ease, then there’s a problem. You need to talk to your husband about it.
Sam: And then he’s going to say what?
Jory: What are you talking about?
Sam: So, his wife says to him, I don’t like you going to the games with whoever—Janet for example. And he says okay, but I like to see live hockey games and have a beer and you don’t.
Jory: He could go with his guy friends.
Sam: Would Janet be able to come along if there were other guys along?
Jory: Yes.
Sam: Why?
Jory: Because the concern is probably that one drunken night, in the rain—
Sam: You watch waaaaaay too much Lifetime Channel.
Jory: Shut up.
Sam: Go on.
Jory: One night when Janet is a bit tipsy, she leans over the console and lays a kiss on the husband.