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)
“I’m sorry, what?” Sam sounded horrified.
“It’s a well-known fact that some restaurants substitute pig butt holes for calamari, and once it’s fried, how can you tell? They’re both kind of chewy.”
“This is disgusting,” I assured her.
“No,” Sam told her. “That’s an urban myth.”
“It’s not at all,” she promised her father. “I mean, Cardenelli’s is a good place, so it’s doubtful that they’re giving you pig—but, Dad, you gotta look for the tentacles.”
“I’ll make Duncan check,” he told her. “And thank you for putting this in my head.”
“You’re welcome,” she said cheerfully. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning. I have to do laundry, and the machines at school are disgusting and you can’t leave them. One of the girls I know lost all her thongs, and it’s just weird thinking about someone wearing them, you know?”
“Good Lord,” Sam grumbled.
“And I would have the service at school do them, but that is not a good use of my money.”
“The service at school?” This was news.
“Yeah. You can have your laundry done.”
“That seems crazy.” Sam was amazed. “How are you supposed to become independent people if the school is doing your laundry?”
“For a fee,” she reminded him.
“Yeah, but still.”
“Well, if your family is rich at school, it’ll be rich when you get out, right? I mean, technically, you’ll never have to do your own laundry.”
“When I was going to school there,” I chimed in, “that was not an option.”
“But that was a long time ago, though,” Hannah pointed out.
“Really?” I snapped at her.
“Oh come on. When did you graduate? Like, nineteen seventy-five or something?”
Sam snorted and I gasped.
“I’m kidding,” she said, cackling. “It was in the early eighties. I know that.”
It was, in fact, not in the eighties but in the mid-nineties! “Goodbye,” I told her, and hung up on both her and my husband.
When I reached the restaurant, I valet parked my car, realized that since I was driving, I would be having one glass of wine and not three, and made my way into the restaurant. Inside, the hostess greeted me and then walked me over to the table. Sam got up, bent to kiss me, and then I slid over into the booth beside Aaron. Duncan and Sam always sat on the outside. It was a cop thing, I was certain.
“Thank you for coming to dinner,” I said to Aaron, bumping him with my shoulder.
“Of course,” he told me, smiling. “Your husband called. It’s nice when he does.”
“Like I never call,” Sam groused at him as the calamari was put down in the center of the table with marinara sauce for dipping and cheesy garlic bread.
“Usually Jory calls,” Duncan told him, using the serving spoon to put some squid on his plate and then pour some marinara. “So when you pick up the phone, it’s nice.”
“It really is,” Aaron agreed.
“Then I’ll remember to do it more often,” Sam told them. “I don’t hate you guys.”
“High praise,” Aaron stated.
Sam shook his head but, I noted, kept an eye on Duncan.
“I can’t eat it raw,” Duncan said, putting one in his mouth. “The tentacles freak me out. But when it’s fried and they’re curled up, I’m okay.”
“And there are tentacles, right?”
“Yeah,” Duncan said, squinting at him.
“Okay, good.”
“Why?”
“Believe me when I tell you that you don’t want to know.”
The four of us sat and talked, and when Aaron had to get up to return a call and Duncan had a situation that he had to check in on, that left Sam and me sipping our drinks.
“So,” he began hesitantly. “You could drink some more wine when we get home so I can still get laid, right?”
I shook my head at him.
“What? I have priorities.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
He smiled at me, pushing my hair out of my face. “Of course.”
“How did you become friends with Aaron?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, Aaron and I were lovers a long time ago. How did you get over that?”
He smiled at me. “You showed me that he was a good man, and I believed that, truly, when I saw how hard he fell in love with Duncan.”
I nodded.
“I mean––” He chuckled. “––he loves Duncan as much as I love you. There’s no way he’s biding his time, waiting for me to get shot or something.”
“Oh dear God, why would you even––”
“He loves you like a brother,” he assured me. “Or a pet.”
“That’s mean.”
Quick scoff. “But the one he’s really crazy about––”
“Is Hannah.”
“Is Hannah, that’s right. I mean, when you see her with him, that’s as real as it gets.”
I nodded.
“What’s with the weird questions?”
“Nothing. I just… I saw Hayes Fisher tonight.”
“Who?”
“He was a client, and then he was in Hawai’i when you met me there. Remember?”
He was trying to dredge up a face. “I remember Aaron and that nice family we met, but that’s about it.”
“It was a long time ago.”