Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 71843 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71843 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
“Oh, uhm, I’m on a date with Jonah. Do you know him?”
I shook my head.
“This is his aunt’s house.”
“Got it.”
“And you?”
“This is my mother-in-law’s house.”
He winced.
“Ben?”
Quick shake of his head then. “Nothing, I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “Do you have kids? I always figured if you had any, they’d be just gorgeous.”
“Well, they are,” I said, grinning like a crazy person because my kids were beautiful. “But I’m biased, you understand.”
“Well, I’d love to meet them.”
“They’re outside, come on.”
He moved to follow me.
“You should grab some water, though. It’s like the-surface-of-the-sun hot out there, except it’s not a dry heat.”
Outside, I walked him back to Kola and Hannah but didn’t see Sam anywhere. Once we reached them and I handed out the bottles, I introduced everyone.
“Did you guys do the Hustle?” Hannah asked him.
He snorted out a laugh. “Sweetie, how old do you think your father and I are?”
She tilted her head, thinking.
“We’re old, but we’re not 1975 old.”
“No?” She sounded confused.
Kola rolled his eyes at her.
“Do you have kids?” I asked Ben.
“No, I couldn’t do that,” Ben told me. “I just didn’t feel like it would be right no matter how good a father I thought I’d be.”
Weird way to say that.
“Well, we all have our own path,” I said sagely.
Hannah turned to me with her brows scrunched up. “We all have our own path?”
I could never just spit something out for the sake of filling the silence when my kids were around. It was dangerous.
“What is that?” she asked, still scowling at me “We all have our own path? Who are you, the Buddha?”
I growled at her.
Kola choked out a laugh. “That was some deep stuff there, Pa.”
“I can still sell you on the internet, don’t think I won’t.”
Hannah chuckled. “I love you. Yes, I do.”
I was glaring at both of them as Sam walked up beside me and took gentle hold of the back of my neck.
“We need to go,” he announced.
“Why?” I asked, worried because he looked annoyed.
He gestured at everyone. “I just can’t deal with the no-mask thing and the not-wearing-it-over-your-nose thing. It’s making me rabid.” His head turned to his daughter. “I know the coven’s convening for the full moon tonight, so they’re good with staying outside, right?”
“Yes. And I made us all matching masks with Hecate’s Wheel on them.”
“Very good,” he told her before turning his head to Ben. “And who’re you?”
“Sam,” I said quickly, feeling my husband bristle at my side. He was not a fan, ever, of strangers being with his family when he came back from doing something. It put him immediately on edge. “This is Ben Adler. We used to go out clubbing together.”
Sam grunted.
“Isn’t that amazing, I mean, it’s been ages.”
“Yeah, that’s so great,” he muttered, his gaze fixed on Ben. “So you knew Jory even with his mask on?”
Ben grinned at him. “I was one of his many, many admirers, and for all of us, he was a constant source of study.”
Sam’s hand dropped from the back of my neck before he took hold of my hand.
“And how many blond men with brown eyes do you meet?” Ben said, smiling at me. “I mean, he’s hard to forget.”
Sam squeezed my hand. Not tight, he would never use his strength and hurt me, but just enough pressure to remind me that he was there.
“I was telling him that he looks exactly the same.”
I leaned on his chest, and just that much contact soothed my husband, who would always be possessive of both me and his kids. He didn’t share, and he especially didn’t like other people taking too much of an interest in any of us. Logically, he knew Ben was utterly non-threatening, but reminders of my past, of the club kid I had been, never ceased to stir bad memories in him. He liked me how I was now, which was his. Period. But me leaning, nuzzling, giving him my weight, that jostled his irritation loose.
“Agreed,” Sam said, sounding a bit better, less gruff. “He’s just as beautiful as he’s always been.”
Ben smiled at him.
“I’m Sam Kage,” he said, giving Ben a head tip that normally would have been a handshake. Sam wasn’t up for touching strangers lately. He still smiled, behind his mask, but if he didn’t have to touch you, he was going to skip that for the time being. Inside, with his family, he had no choice, they’d touched him. Anyone else wasn’t happening. “I’m his husband and their father. Nice to meet you, Ben.”
He jolted like Sam had zapped him with a live wire. “Husband?”
Sam’s scowl always got so ominous. It had something to do with how dark his slate-blue eyes got, how narrow they became, and the furrow of his eyebrows. No one I knew had ever been able to convey the same amount of menace. “Yes. Husband. Why?” he asked sharply.