Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
“What is this?” Sam grumbled, the gruffness hiding his happiness. I saw what Kola couldn’t, Sam’s eyes close for a moment as he soaked in the closeness.
“You’re a good man.” Kola smiled as he kissed his father’s cheek. “You’re worried about Ruby maybe having caught something, but you’re letting them come for Christmas anyway because you know they need us. Way to have faith.”
And he was. I was very proud of the man I loved.
When Sam looked over at me, his son still hugging on him, I saw it there, gratitude for the life we’d made. But it was both of us, equally. We built our lives around each other.
That’s it, everyone. I hope you all had wonderful holidays, and let’s have a better 2021.
FEBRUARY 2021
Hello, all, Jory Harcourt here back for the February edition of He Said, he said. I was going to regale you all with funny New Year’s stories, but there really weren’t any. It was low-key. We had Dane and Aja and the kids over, as well as Duncan and Aaron, and played a never-ending game of Monopoly. Dane and Aaron combined their resources, Kola and Duncan and Robert combined theirs, and Sam and Hannah somehow came out on top. Duncan complained that Sam had unionized public works, and I washed my hands of all of them. I mean, come on, it’s supposed to be a game.
Moving forward to later in the month, I spent January 20th on the couch watching the news all day, emotionally spent by the evening, thankful Hannah made tacos.
We had a quiet Imbolc, as the coven had to convene on Zoom because it was far too cold to do anything outside on the first day of February, same for the second. I was racking my brain trying to think of what I could do for my husband on Valentine’s Day that he’d love and would be special, without us going out since the mere thought makes him snarly. And sitting together, across a candlelit table, with masks on, doesn’t really convey romance. Better to stay home.
A woman was in line in front of him and Hannah at the store the other day, without a mask, and Sam had the store manager ask her to put one on or get out. He got a round of applause, but several people called him a fascist as well. The thought process behind not wearing a mask, or wearing one poorly, made him nearly homicidal, so since he got enough of it at work and when he was out, I wanted to do something romantic at home. Beyond sex, though, I had trouble coming up with anything, and really, if Sam Kage wanted me, ever, I was his. Not much of a romantic gesture there.
I was racking my brain the morning before, on Saturday, wondering if heels and garters, sexy lingerie, and lipstick might do it for my marshal when the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Jory”—Jake’s mother, Linda, sighed my name—“I need to speak to you.”
“Of course.”
“I don’t know how to––” Her voice hitched. “Jake’s father and I are getting a divorce.”
My heart clutched tight. I had always considered Jake’s parents to be the type who didn’t necessarily show how they felt about each other in public, but behind closed doors their bond was probably warm and sentimental. Apparently, I was mistaken. Or I’d been right for years but something, somewhere, had deteriorated.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you,” she replied with a wobble in her voice. “You’d think after twenty-three years I would give up my ridiculous notions about falling madly in love someday and resign myself to planning my retirement.”
She was trying to kill me.
“But it turns out the whole idea of getting a divorce and having a do-over is simply far more appealing than I ever imagined.”
“I seem to recall you telling me you were young when you got married.”
“I was. Only eighteen. We thought we knew what we were doing. Of course, when we were ready to call it quits two years later, that’s when I got pregnant with Jake’s sister, and then two years later, with him.”
She had two kids, Jake being the youngest at nineteen.
“And now?”
“Now my Etsy shop is doing really well, Reese is out of the house, and, Jory, I want to move to Silverlake, California.”
“Oh?”
“Yes”—she sighed deeply—“a friend of mine is taking a sabbatical to teach in Barcelona for a year, and she offered me her home, which has a gorgeous adjoining cottage I can use for my studio.”
Jake’s mother was a talented potter; her ceramics had appeared in many local art exhibitions, and her online shop was, in fact, doing very well, if the number of sales and five-star reviews was any indication.
“And when she returns?”
“Then she’ll give me the opportunity to buy it if I love it and it works. It’s a win-win.”