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)
“Sure,” Kola agreed as he walked beside me.
“It’s just like that,” I revealed. “Right now, your father thinks we’re in another state, all safe, doing our normal thing, and so he can be here and be relaxed and not on guard duty. He can just be free.”
“So we’re what, some gigantic burden?” Hannah wanted to know.
“Sweetie, no,” I told her. “It’s just, he’s on vacation from his life for a few days, and shouldn’t we let him do that? I mean, we can still talk to him at night when he checks in but maybe we leave him alone during the day.”
“Sure,” Hannah agreed, shrugging. “I want Dad to have a break, he deserves it.”
“He does,” Kola affirmed, his grin making his eyes gleam as they had since he was a little boy.
“Okay, so what do you guys think? I could go for some tapas.”
“Oh yes, me too,” Hannah said, clapping. “Lots of different things.”
We found a great Spanish eatery that made a variety of small plates that we had with salad, and I got my sangria. On the way back to the hotel, we found another theatre store, and even though they didn’t have the Be More Chill poster Hannah wanted, she got one for Wicked that she was pleased with as well.
“Once I get a frame, I can hang this by the signed Hamilton one Uncle Aaron got me when he was in London,” she told me excitedly.
The man selling her the poster shot me a look, but I just smiled. Even as she got older and understood how much things cost and more about money, Hannah still had no real concrete idea of what Aaron Sutter was worth. I hoped it stayed like that for a bit longer.
We walked by an Italian restaurant, and the man standing outside told us that they had the best lasagna in town.
“It sounds great, but we already ate,” Hannah said, smiling.
“Dessert?” he offered. “We have amazing tiramisu.”
“That sounds awesome,” Kola responded eagerly.
It was fun walking down the steps from the street to the front door and into the restaurant.
The hostess set us up near the kitchen, close to the end of the bar, and I had a tiramisu and a cappuccino. Hannah had panna cotta and a vanilla latte, and Kola had an enormous piece of lasagna, an ice tea, and a cannoli that was as big as a burrito. I had no idea how he could eat again, because even when I was his age, I didn’t have a tape worm, and he still wasn’t stuffed when we left.
We stopped at a liquor store and got a 24-pack of bottled water for the rooms, and then at the Starbucks so Hannah could get a cup of Earl Grey tea. The elevators were glass, and the kids enjoyed putting their foreheads to the sides and looking down as they whooshed up. It was cute, like they were still little. Once we were back in our adjoining rooms, when I pulled my phone out of my back pocket, I realized I had a missed call from Sam and immediately called him back.
“Jory,” he said instead of hello.
“Hey,” I greeted him, lying down on the bed and stretching out. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, where are you?”
“What?” I said instead of answering.
“Where,” he said slowly, “are you?” He had enunciated each word.
“In bed,” I answered, which was mostly the truth.
“Uh-huh,” he rumbled. “And where, precisely, is the bed you are in?”
I made a noise.
“You know that your phone shares its location with me all the time, right?”
My groan was loud.
“What are you doing here?”
I rolled over on my stomach. “See, originally I thought that while you were here at your conference that during the day you’d do your thing and I’d take the kids to the Statue of Liberty and stuff like that, and then at night, we could all do things together.”
“But?”
“But then I saw you with your friends and––”
“Not my friends. My colleagues,” he corrected me.
“With your colleagues,” I amended, “and I got to thinking that you get so little downtime without me or the kids, and wouldn’t it be nice to unwind and hang out with the guys and smoke cigars and drink and eat steaks in big, manly club chairs in front of a roaring fire.”
“It’s August. What fire?”
“Fine. No fire. But I want you to be able sit around and have fun and not have to pull yourself out of just ‘you’ mode and into husband mode or dad mode. I wasn’t thinking. I’m so sorry to intrude on your time alone. Forgive me.”
“Okay,” he said, and hung up.
I sat up and stared at my phone, half of me hurt and the other relieved that he was taking me up on my offer. The knock on the kids’ door was unexpected, as was my daughter’s sudden squeal of happiness.