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)
“That’s where the rest of that bottle went?” Sam asked, turning to me.
“You’re the one who told her to use what was in the front of your liquor cabinet.”
“I did? When did I do that?”
I shook my head at him.
“God, I don’t remember anything anymore.”
I shrugged. “I’m sure Aaron will get you another Slappy, or whatever it was.”
Aaron chuckled. “Let me understand, the twenty-three-year-old bottle of Pappy Van Winkle bourbon I got your father is what you used for your candles?”
She nodded.
He turned to Sam. “I’ll get you another.”
“No,” he grumbled, “I’ll get it. I’m the one who apparently said it was okay.”
“Let me, all right?”
Sam’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
Aaron smiled wide. “Because.”
“Uh-huh,” Sam muttered suspiciously, glancing at Duncan.
“We’ll get it,” he reiterated to Sam.
Hannah hugged Duncan, then me, and finally Sam before putting on a mask that also said “I Dissent” and walking out the back door.
“I appreciate you getting the robes made, and the masks,” I told Aaron, “and the collars.”
“She asks, I deliver,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s how it’s done.”
“You spoil her,” I declared, “but I appreciate it.”
“Spoil?”
“Oh yes,” I assured him. “You’ve ruined her for normal life.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“She’s a snob, Sutter,” I accused him. “Not about people or anything, but I was informed the other day, when I offered her a grilled cheese sandwich, that gruyere is the only kind she likes hers made out of now.”
His snort told me exactly where she had gotten that notion.
“What the hell, Aaron? Gruyere? And tomato bisque, not soup. Bisque.”
He squinted at me.
“And she would prefer apples in her grilled cheese, but they need to be brunoised?” I growled at him. “I had to look that up!”
“I don’t know what to tell––”
“You know she’s going to be in for a big change when she goes off to college and lives in a dorm and has to start eating ramen,” I groused at him, crossing my arms.
The way his face scrunched up, I got the feeling that was never going to happen. “You know she wants to go to the University of Chicago.”
“I know. It’s getting hard to get in there, though.”
His shrug was too much.
“Get out of my house, Satan.”
He cleared his throat.
“What now?”
“Hannah wants me and Duncan at her birthday party, and she asked if I could rent out a bowling alley for her.”
“What?”
“Listen,” he rushed out. “Most of the time when she helps me with events, as you and I agreed, I put money into her savings account for college.”
“Yes.”
“Have you checked that lately?”
“No,” I replied quickly, and then grew instantly suspicious. “Why?”
“Nothing, I—nothing, but sometimes she prefers that her payment is for things.”
“Oh God,” I moaned. “Like what?”
“A car for example.”
“You bought her a car?” I shrieked at him.
“No, I didn’t buy her a car!” he shouted back, glaring at me. “Your husband would have me murdered.”
“Yes, he would,” I assured him. “And worse, he’d cut you off from his daughter.”
“I know that too,” he muttered. “But occasionally, she wants things like shoes or a purse or a charm for said purse or something else sparkly.”
“But not like the Tiffany diamond, right? You haven’t bought her that, have you?”
“Honestly, what you must think of me.”
“Okay, so she wants to have her birthday at a bowling alley?”
“Yes. She thinks it will be fun. It sounds horrid to me.”
Of course it did. “So you’re going to rent out a bowling alley for her?”
“If that’s all right.”
I nodded. “That’s all right.”
“I will also be getting her a gift.”
“I know that too.”
“Excellent, and since her birthday would be on a Monday this year, I was thinking the twenty-sixth instead.”
“You think anyone will be up to that the day after Thanksgiving?”
“I think most people will want to be there for Hannah.”
I nodded.
“Your girl will be sixteen, Jory. How do you feel?”
“Old,” I confessed. “Just like I did when Kola turned eighteen in September.”
“Speaking of your son, I never told you that I got a very kind note in the mail from him for his birthday gift. Did you prompt him to do so?”
“No, sir, I did not.”
He nodded. “The young man you raised is quite impressive.”
“Thank you.”
“He’s certainly not common.”
“Give it a rest,” I ordered, hobbling over to the sink.
“I simply don’t understand how you could allow them to call her common,” he reproached me. “I understand Sam wasn’t out there, but you were.”
“The only thing I could think when Anne was talking was––”
“What’s wrong with your ankle?” Sam asked as he walked back into the room.
“––how sad it was for them to be losing Hannah from their lives.”
“Yes, but––”
“Hey,” Sam barked.
I turned as he moved up beside me, hand on my bicep, gently turning me to face him. “It’s nothing,” I said quickly.
“You’re limping,” he commented as he squatted down in front of me. “Lemme see.”
“It’s––”
“Oh for crissakes, baby, this thing is huge,” he groaned as he rose quickly and swept me off my feet, walking toward the living room.