Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 88290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“We’ll have the drivers meet us at the diner,” Naomi said, patting his shoulder since she was sitting directly behind him. “No worries.”
He didn’t seem mollified, but I saw the slight grin. He enjoyed being in charge in all things, so this, the evening, put him right in his element.
“Maybe I should do a series on all the different law enforcement people in the city. Like the different offices and the bosses. That could be really fun.”
Drew groaned from the back, and Sam grunted.
“No?”
“Maybe you offer them root canals instead,” Anika suggested, cracking herself up.
“Sorry,” Mark said. “People tell her she’s funny because they don’t want to hurt her feelings, and then the rest of us have to pay for it.”
I couldn’t stop laughing. I liked them all so much. “What are you all doing for New Year's?”
That’s it, all. Have a wonderful rest of February, and I’ll tell you in March how the chief deputy and I spent Valentine’s Day.
MARCH 2023
Hello, all, welcome to He Said, he said, March 2023. Now, originally, my thought was to get us caught up this month, since, as you know, I’m a month behind once the big holidays hit. I thought I could do it, but my husband melted my brain, in a good way, but certainly next month will be it. March and April are normally a bit tame around our house. February is usually nothing to write home about either, with the exception being Valentine’s Day. And that’s not to say that my February fourteenth is always fireworks and roses, but between that and Imbolc, the first sabbat of the year that my daughter pours candles for, it’s at least noteworthy.
Interestingly, Hannah did not make candles this year. She simply wasn’t up for it. Between school, commitments with Aaron’s charity, teaching yoga, and friends, she was swamped. She still came over and baked us some sourdough bread, and we had chamomile tea that evening. It was very thoughtful.
On Valentine’s Day, I got a call from Kola that afternoon because his basket arrived, as did Harper’s and Jake’s, and he wanted to thank me as he gorged on all the different kinds of chocolate I’d sent along with GameStop cards for all of them. There were things they all wanted that I helped them get. And they loved the cards, all of them, but there was something, especially for Kola, about me sending him a heart from Sees, the same one I’d been getting him since he was little, that always made him happy. It was the same with his Easter basket. Funny how it always ended up being the smaller things instead of the big ones.
Hannah called, smiling at me over the large bouquet of orange and red roses I sent her. “I love them, and I love you,” she said, beaming at me.
I smiled for the rest of the day until Sam came home. Not that I wasn't thrilled to see him, but he was grumpy.
“A Valentine’s Day what now?” my husband asked, squinting at me as he walked back into the kitchen on that Tuesday night.
“It’s a mixer,” I explained for the second time.
“But I thought we were going to dinner,” he very nearly whined.
“No,” I said.
“No?” He hung his suit jacket over the back of the closest chair of the dining room table. Not that we had a dining room; we’d taken out that wall when we first moved in. We had an extended kitchen. “I was sure that was what you said.”
I squinted at him. “Where did you get that?”
“Because you told me, and I remember this clearly, that we were having dinner with Dane and Aja on Valentine’s Day.”
“Which is correct, but you forgot the addition of the ‘at the mixer’ part.”
“No,” he howled softly, putting his head back. “Why?”
The fact that our Chihuahua howled along with him was freaking adorable.
“Because Aja is supporting a friend and we’re supporting her.”
“I don’t want to meet anyone new,” Sam grumbled at me. “I like the husband I have. Why does Aja want to turn Dane in? I thought she liked him too.”
I snorted out a laugh. “You’re ridiculous. Nobody’s ditching anybody. It’s not that kind of mixer. It’s a couples’ mixer where you meet new friends.”
“Oh for crissakes, I don’t wanna do that either,” he assured me. “I like the friends I have now.”
“Listen, Aja is supporting her friend Christina, and we’re there for Carwood. Do you remember him from the party at Dane and Aja’s a while back?”
“Oh yeah. He was nice.”
“He is. We have lunch every so often, and he’s attending and bringing along a friend who I have some suspicions about.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, Carwood says this man, who’s his new roommate, by the way, is nice, but is a bit prickly, and can’t seem to not try and tell Carwood what to do.”