Total pages in book: 191
Estimated words: 182070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 182070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
If someone were to ask me, the Aiden guy sure wasn’t hard on the eyes, but Zac… well, Zac was Zac. If I was going to look at anyone, it was going to be him. And not just because of the way his bones and skin had been put together, but also because of the rest of him. The stuff you couldn’t see on the outside so easily.
All I had to think about was the way he’d picked on the kids and showered them with attention from the moment he’d seen them.
It shouldn’t have been surprising; he’d always liked kids even when he’d been nothing but one himself. I was living proof of that. God forbid there was a baby-baby somewhere; he was going to try and kiss it, then steal it. I kind of wished there had been a baby, honestly. But he was so cute with the toddler and the boy I’d learned who was now almost seven and the quiet one who I thought might have been thirteen with a fake birth certificate that said five.
“Can I help you with something?” I asked Vanessa after we’d arrived at the huge facility with an indoor playground, bowling alley, and hundreds of games. The Aiden man had bought us wristbands and the kids digital “tokens” to use. To give Zac credit, I had seen him saddle up next to him at the register, they’d bickered, fought with credit cards, and then Zac had rolled his eyes and shoved his back into his wallet.
“Can you watch Fi for a second?” the other woman answered as the younger of the two little boys whispered a question to her.
Standing off to the side, Zac was talking to Aiden with the oldest boy standing there, his head tipped all the way back, listening to them. From the bits and pieces I caught onto, they were talking football.
“Sure,” I said before taking a seat in the empty chair beside her.
The three-year-old blinked at me with these crazy-long, black eyelashes that I was way more jealous of than a grown woman should ever feel.
I smiled at her. “I like your hair bows.”
Those big, dark eyes blinked up at me. “Mommy did it.”
“Wow. My mommy never gave me hair bows that pretty,” I told her and winced.
Lord, that struck a little too close to home.
To be fair, my mom had done some things to my hair, but only in the month or so a year she was in the States. My God, that really did sting a little when I thought about it. She had emailed me two weeks ago to check in. She’d even sent me a picture of her and my dad with some villagers.
“How old are you?” I asked her, pushing my parents aside. They were close to retirement, but I knew things were never going to change. I was fine with it.
She held up two fingers right as Vanessa finished telling her husband—Zac had confirmed it on the way to the complex, explaining all about how all three of them had lived together for a few months years ago during the end of his time in Dallas—that the other boy needed to pee. “Fi, one more finger,” she corrected the little girl as she turned toward us.
Fiona flashed me three fingers, and I ooh and aahed over them. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Zac walk off with Aiden and the two boys to where I could only imagine was the bathroom.
“Your kids are so cute,” I told her. “The boys are huge.”
Vanessa snickered. “They take after their dad. I told Aiden they’re going to have beards by the time they’re thirteen, and women are going to think they’re full-grown men.”
I laughed. “I told Zac in the car that I thought the oldest one—Sammy?—could have been seven or fifteen, and I wasn’t sure.”
That made her laugh too. “They were both ten-pound babies.”
I didn’t mean to make a face, but I did, and fortunately it only made her crack up more.
“Everyone makes that face. Don’t feel bad.”
It was my turn to laugh, all awkward. “I’m sorry. How big was she?” I asked.
“She was a preemie. She was only about four pounds.” Her hand went to tweak the little girl’s bow.
Zac had explained in the car that they had originally meant to be Fiona’s foster parents, but they’d only made it a few months before deciding to adopt her.
The other woman glanced over her shoulder before turning back to me. “Bianca, before they come back, I wanted to ask… how’s Zac doing? I’ve been really worried about him. I’ve been so busy, and he doesn’t tell Aiden the same things he tells me, so I don’t really know if he’s doing okay mentally.”
Did I want to talk to this woman who I barely knew about Zac?