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)
“I did?”
I nodded.
“Are you sure?”
I nodded again.
“Is that why Santa’s not on the roof?”
“A different one is going up this year,” I told him. “Hannah said she found something more magical, and our regular guys are coming to put it all up tomorrow.”
“Shouldn’t I see it before it goes up on the roof?”
“You’re being awfully territorial about something you were so done with doing last year,” I reminded him, walking into the kitchen to check on the fifth batch of Christmas cookies. Thank God for two ovens or I would be baking into the new year.
After making sure that nothing was going to burn, I looked over at my husband and saw him leaning against the counter. At this time last year, he was sick of being the person we all waited on to put on the lights. Now he was regretting his tirade because he loved us all needing him. I understood it completely, but it didn’t help at the moment.
Realizing that I needed to talk to my daughter, I took a breath and headed for the backyard, where I knew she was stringing lights. Or more explicitly, the boys were stringing lights and she was supervising.
Stepping out onto the deck, I saw her on her cell.
“Does that look like draping to you?”
“Screw you, B!” I heard from across the yard.
Checking, I saw Kola, thirty feet up in a tree, unspooling lights, and twenty feet from him, in another tree, was Harper. I would have been worried, but Jake had made “tree-light harnesses” for all three of them. They would have to work really hard to fall.
“Think giant spiderweb with millions of fairies stuck in it.”
“That’s seriously messed up,” Jake commented from where he was, closer, at the moment, not in the tree yet, instead on Sam’s extension ladder. “Like, please don’t say that to anyone under five.”
“I just need you guys to stop screwing around and take direction!”
“Pa!” Kola called over to me. “Do something with her.”
She whirled around to face me, arms crossed, brows lifted, and head tipped at that angle where you knew she was ready for a fight. “Yes?”
I exhaled deeply and walked over to her, and halfway there, her arms fell to her sides, her chin started to wobble, and her eyes narrowed so she wouldn’t cry.
“I’m sorry,” I said when I reached her, drawing her into an embrace. “I was a coward. Please forgive me.”
She wrapped her arms around my neck and squeezed tight before stepping back to look up into my face. “So you’re ready now?”
Would I ever be ready to hear about my daughter’s first sexual encounter?
The weekend after Hannah’s birthday, which was two days after Thanksgiving, which I must tell you was utterly problem-free—I nearly passed out from shock—she and Jake drove up to a cabin on Lake Geneva and…consummated their relationship.
When they got back, Sunday night, having been gone from Friday afternoon, I sort of slinked away. I knew she wanted to talk to me, but maybe this was the time when she needed her aunt Aja or her girlfriends or anyone other than me.
For the past week, I’d been using anyone I could find as a buffer. I went so far as to hide under my bed—with my dog, because of course he found me—until I saw her walk in and out of the room. It was spineless, I could own that, but hearing about it would be, I suspected, excruciating.
The thing was, she was unhappy, turning into herself, getting quiet, broody, and I knew I was the only one who could fix it and bring Hannah back from the dark side. Her brother had informed me that morning that if she said one more thing to him, that was it, he was shipping her to Outer Mongolia. Outer, not where the airport was.
“I think she’d make a top-notch sheep herder, and I understand that a yurt is a lovely abode. She should be able to decorate it easily.”
“Yes, I’m ready to talk,” I assured my daughter.
“Good,” she said, beaming at me. “Let’s go get coffee.”
I snorted. “So we’re grownups now. Not just gonna sit on my bed?”
She shook her head, and I realized something all at once. Because yes, she’d been checking to find me alone, but she was on the lookout for more than me. She was keeping an eagle eye on Jake.
“Just let me speak to my minions,” she announced.
“You know,” I began as she walked away. “You might want to just––”
“Hello,” she called across the yard, clapping her hands to get their attention. “I’m stepping out, but I expect the work to continue.”
There were yells of not-complimentary things, and her brother, especially, told her where she could shove her directions.
“Supervisor,” she shouted, hand over her heart, “minions,” she made clear, gesturing at all of them.