Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
“Right now, for whatever reason, the guys in your dorm aren’t seeing three strong, capable young people, but instead three women that they think are pretty who they want to go out with and spend time with and––”
“They want to get with us, sir, they want to hook up,” Jalissa informed him.
“Stop, you’re gonna make him throw up,” Hannah cautioned her friend.
“Yeah,” Coretta agreed. “My dad would puke too.”
Sam took a breath as Hannah leaned into his side, wrapping her arms around his waist. “All I’m saying is that if those little pieces of––”
“Sam,” I said quickly.
“If those boys see you three in a new light after I come out and show up in your dorm, then we’ve defused a situation before it escalates. Yes?”
Hannah sighed deeply. “I just—I don’t want you to ever think I’m not strong and that I can’t handle things myself or for my friends.”
“Oh, love, I know you’re strong,” he said, squeezing her shoulders and giving her a kiss on the head. “But lemme come to school and take a look at the boys, all right?”
Coretta was clapping, and Jalissa was nodding.
“I know you’ve been dying to do that anyway,” Hannah said, sighing deeply.
“What? Me? No.”
Not one of us was buying that.
“My boys would never do that,” Aja was telling me a couple days later as we were having lunch downtown. “I mean, it really is how they’re raised.”
“I disagree,” one of her friends, Theresa Palmer, who taught with her at Loyola, interjected. Aja had left DePaul a few years back for a dean of education spot. She also sat on a board for Aaron that figured out where millions of his charitable dollars would do the most good in the educational arena. “I think all people are capable of resigning their own logic and empathy in pack situations.”
“Meaning what?” Aja asked her. “That my sons, that I’ve raised, that Jory’s son, or yours, when put into a situation with enough of their peers will simply succumb to the group mentality and not stand up for what’s right?”
Theresa tucked a strand of thick white hair behind her ear. “You’re being defensive.”
“No,” Aja assured her. “What I’m saying is that weaker minds might crumble, but strong, proud individuals will not.”
“I think you would be surprised what your boys do and say when you’re not around, Aja Harcourt,” she said, chuckling. “I think you’d be shocked at your husband as well.”
I scoffed, and Aja turned to me. “You agree with her?”
“Uh, no,” I stated. “Dane’s not that guy.”
“Jory.” Theresa sounded placating. “Come on, be serious.”
“Listen, was my brother a big player back in the day? Yes. Did he once see a woman at a party, extend his hand and say it was nice to meet her, having slept with her a month prior?”
“No,” Aja gasped.
“Oh yes.” I cackled.
“That poor woman.” Aja was utterly aghast.
“Yeah. Not one of his better moments.”
“You see,” Theresa began, “I told––”
“But––” I spoke over her. “What you need to keep in mind is that even when he was a manwhore, he was never, ever, untrustworthy.”
Theresa laughed. “Are you kidding? Jory, you––”
“He was upfront with everyone he dated,” I clarified for her. “They knew who he was, that he wasn’t getting married, and that he was just out to have fun. He’s never disrespected anyone. And I have only heard my brother whistle at one woman, ever, and that’s his wife.”
“Yeah, I like it when he does that,” she said, waggling her eyebrows at me.
“Because you’re a little trashy,” I teased her.
“Pot to kettle,” she replied flatly.
I really couldn’t argue.
“But see, this is what I mean.” Aja turned back to Theresa. “I think there’s a difference between hooking up or being on the prowl or whatever and actually going out and hassling women. Or men, or anyone for that matter. I don’t think the majority of men are like that. And even in a group, I’ve seen our friend Dylan’s son Micah smack one of his bros in the stomach for saying something lewd to a woman.”
“Yes, but you were there to observe it,” Theresa countered. “And I’m assuming, so was his mother.”
“Yes. True.”
“So I have to wonder, if you weren’t there, if his mother wasn’t there, how would Micah have acted without supervision?”
I was going to defend Micah and tell her that Dylan’s oldest didn’t do anything, ever, that he didn’t want to do, but I didn’t think she was going to listen to me.
“And, Jory, I know you love Dane, but you really don’t know, when he’s out with the boys, what he says when a beautiful woman walks by.”
“I do know, though,” I assured her. “Because if a woman crosses his path who is young, like from eighteen to say twenty-five, he would be in dad mode. If she is between twenty-five to, I dunno, fifty, then he won’t even notice her.”