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)
“I do.” She grinned evilly. “But they’re only boys. Will they really even know they’re following directions?”
Maybe not.
“I mean, Harper needs Kola to balance him out, and so does Jake. But Jake needs me too, and I certainly need him. And Finn is my George when George isn’t here, so we’re good too, and Wick and Finn can basically have an entire conversation with grunts, eyebrow lifts, and gestures. I mean, if they were fish, they would swim side by side in complete sync. It’s amazing.”
I felt very warm and happy inside.
“And this is not to say that we all don’t have other people in our lives, but I think it’s good to have a solid core, like you guys do.”
“Huh,” Sam said after a moment, “that’s true, isn’t it.”
“I mean, everyone who’s already been here and left, and people still coming by, that’s wonderful, but your people will stay.”
She was right. Dane and Aja, Aaron and Duncan, Dylan and Chris…that was our core. Sometimes we had Sam’s friends as well, his family, and of course, his parents, but the people who sat around the table when everyone else was gone, talking, eating, and most importantly, laughing, those were the people at the core of our lives, and we were the same for them.
“How funny,” I murmured.
The door opened then, and Aja leaned out.
“Hey,” Sam said huskily, because one of his favorite people in the world was looking at him. His eyes warmed every time he saw her.
Her face lit up as she smiled at him. “Will you make sure I don’t go to jail for using a knife on people that go near your good bourbon?”
“Yes,” he nearly snarled, charging into the house with her leading the way.
“I think she likes to see him all wound up.” Hannah giggled like an evil pixie.
“So do I,” I said, putting my arm around my girl and walking her back into the house. “I’m still sorry about your parents.”
“Why? My parents are totally bussin’. They get me.”
I leaned her close and kissed her temple.
“And about living with the boys, we still have to sort out who gets the two spaces in the garage. I mean, can you imagine me parking my baby on the street?”
I had a feeling she would figure it out.
There was dancing outside in the backyard, and Aaron showed off his moves from the late eighties. Duncan couldn’t take his eyes off him.
There was no cake, as Hannah preferred cupcakes, which there were hundreds of. Dane made her stand next to him and explain each stack. Aja was going to go save her, but I pointed out how happy she looked. She was working hard to “sell” each one to her uncle and loving every minute. The way he regarded her with suspicion, like she was trying to poison him, sent her into a fit of laughter that was good to hear.
Hannah danced with her grandfather, after which several other women wanted to be next to be twirled around the floor by Thomas Kage.
“Do those girls know how old he is?” Sam groused at his mother.
“I don’t know, kid. He looks pretty good out there,” she said, winking at him. “I think I might attack him when we get home.”
“Oh, I’m gonna be sick,” he groaned as he walked by.
Harper brought Hannah a chocolate and pecan pie that he made from scratch that Sam wanted to try. She agreed only because it was her father. No one else got any. That was what the cupcakes were for. From Sam’s reaction, I was betting that Harper could, in fact, bake.
All her cousins came, but the ones she stuck to like glue were, of course, Gentry and Robert, Dane and Aja’s sons. They were the ones who got her. Gentry came bearing some kind of pink and green mochi I didn’t even know she liked that she went wild over. Robert found her a Godzilla Christmas ornament that shot steam out of its mouth. It also growled. You would have thought he gave her a million dollars.
Kola appeared with Finn hours later, and even though he looked really tired sitting at the dining room table, he was smiling. When Hannah took a seat beside him, I had to hover.
“My sapphire earrings are lovely.”
“You like them?”
“I do.”
“They’re two carats each.”
“Oh I know,” she told him. “Very simple and elegant with the prong setting.”
“They weren’t as much as you think,” he grumbled.
“I don’t care,” she assured him. “They’re perfect.”
He grunted.
“Why sapphire?”
He rested his head on his palm as Finn brought him a plate of food. “We were in the car, and you were looking at that shirt of yours with the weird shell buttons, and you were saying that you had no earrings that matched it. You had every blue but a good navy, and Harper said, ‘like sapphire,’ and you said, ‘yeah, like sapphire.’”