Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 94624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
“Really?”
“I’m tired,” he said crankily.
“Oh come on,” I said, yawning. “You should both stay.”
He scoffed at me like I was crazy, and Aja was shaking her head no.
“I just want to go home and take a shower and get in my pajamas and my big sweater,” she told me. “Socks would also be good.”
“You know, I bet lots of people your age will be dancing until dawn.”
“Good for them,” she quipped. “I just want to snuggle up in bed with my husband and watch the fireworks from our windows.”
I whimpered. “I don’t care about the fireworks, but the shower and the cuddling sound great. I want to go home too.”
She nodded. “See? We’re old. We need our sleep. Now kiss me goodnight.”
So I did.
Aaron was chuckling in that way he had where you could just tell something was decidedly not funny, when he reached me, arm in arm with Duncan.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m done with people hitting on my husband,” he informed me.
I glanced at Duncan, who shook his head no.
“Yes,” Aaron corrected him irritably, huffing out a breath. “They can’t help it, but now I just want to go home and shower and snuggle.”
“You sound just like Aja.”
“She’s a very smart woman,” he said, leaning forward to hug me goodbye.
“Sam has groupies,” Duncan informed me before I got a hug from him. “You should break that up before he gets annoyed. He’s in that nice space of drinking where it’s fun and he’s having a good time but—you know.”
It was a thing and everyone knew.
Sam at one drink, perfectly fine. Sam at two, got a bit prickly. I had no idea why. Three, he was funny and sweet and normally got the munchies. Four was the same as three, five, this is where the dancing occurred, and six was his limit. Normally, it was one. Sam was not a big drinker. Apparently, in his youth, much like myself, he had been. But by the time we got together, he was a one- to three-drink guy, and that was what he remained. Tonight, there were five, and there had been bottled water between those, and more water, and the occasional Coke. Sam was not much of a soda drinker, but every now and then, he wanted one, fountain only, and normally with a burger.
After Aaron and Duncan left, I went to find my husband, and he was standing with three gorgeous young women, all trying to lure him back out onto the dance floor. I was going to walk over and peel him out of there, but Hannah wasn’t having it.
“Get away from my father, you skanky hos!”
Sam crossed his arms and shook his head at her as they beat it out of there, and when she whirled around to face him, she was glaring.
“Eww,” she said to him adamantly, with feeling, which made him smile like a crazy person. “And you,” she went on, directing her ire at me, “are you watching him or not?”
I cleared my throat. “You’re absolutely right,” I agreed, wrapping both arms around Sam’s bulging bicep. “I’m taking him home to get lucky.”
“Eww,” she said again with even more revulsion than the first time. She still kissed and hugged us both goodbye before she rejoined Jake on the dance floor. He was not a particularly good dancer, unlike Hannah, but he threw himself into it with such enthusiasm that no one cared, least of all my daughter.
I checked on Harper, still sitting with Wick, and when I waved, he waved back. Kola was deep in conversation with Gavin and Finn, talking about God knew what, but I noted that while Gavin was sitting to the left of him, turned so that he was facing Kola, Finn was on his right, closer, both of them leaning forward, actively listening to Gavin. It was nice, and when I waved, all three men waved back to me, even Finn.
Walking outside to get a cab, or if that looked grim, call an Uber, I was excited to see that Aaron’s driver, Vaughn Miller, who had been his driver when Miguel didn’t do it for many years, was there gesturing for me.
“Good evening, Mr. Miller,” I said, smiling.
“Good evening to you, Mr. Harcourt,” he replied kindly. “Mr. Sutter would like to know if you and the chief deputy would like a burger.”
Sam whimpered, which was a yes. Mr. Miller chuckled and moved to hold open the door. Once we were in the back of the car with Duncan and Aaron, I told Aaron that he should have let the older man go home to his wife.
“He needs to be home by midnight, and he gets triple overtime for the night, and,” he said as Mr. Miller got in the driver’s seat, “she has her book club, who all live in the neighborhood, at the house at the moment.”