Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 111610 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 446(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111610 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 446(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
Gracie interrupts and corrects her, “Texting on your phone to Mercedes, whining about how bitchy Samantha is. Which she is not.” Gracie throws her hands on her hips and glares at Olivia in my defense.
Luna whispers to the girl, “Don’t say bitchy around your dad either.”
Olivia grits her teeth and hammers on, “Minding my own business, and that monster peed on my new 550s.” Her shoes are chunky, white, grass-cutting, Dad-style and currently covered in yellow tinted liquid. “Can we go now?”
Without waiting for an answer, she starts stomping across the park toward the car, her whole body going up and down, getting taller and shorter with each step depending on whether it’s her bare foot or shoed foot.
“Guess I’m leaving,” I tell Luna. “Sorry, Gracie. Maybe next time we can swing?”
“Okay,” she says unhappily. “Olivia’s mad at Nutbuster, huh?”
“Yeah, but I think she’s mad at a whole lot more than that,” Luna says wisely. To me, she adds, “Hey, Carter’s taking me ice skating at the mall tonight. Wanna come? Zack’ll be there for a minute. He’s got some prospect property for Carter to look at.”
Zack is Luna’s brother, her husband’s business partner, and she hopes, my soon-to-be-boyfriend. But Zack and I are polite acquaintances with Luna in common, nothing more.
“I don’t know—”
“I’ll send you the details. And you can probably sell a product or two to Carter and Zack. If nothing else, they’ll buy your whole stock to get you to stop talking about it,” she teases, knowing that I’ll show up if there’s a chance I could get another sale.
“Fine, see ya later!” I shout back, nearly running to catch up with Olivia.
The drive home is completely silent. Olivia’s anger is heavy. Her lips are pressed into a straight line, and she’s pointedly looking out the window in an effort to avoid me entirely.
When I pull into the driveway, I try to apologize. “Olivia, I’m sorry about your—”
She cuts me off. “You owe me new shoes if these don’t clean up. They’d better be pristine.” And with that declaration, she slams my car door and hobbles to the house.
Seeing that Mom’s home now, I turn off the car and head inside too. I don’t knock or anything like that. Mom told me when I moved out that this will always be my home and to treat it as such. Admittedly, knocking on my own front door would be strange, so I’m glad she made her feelings about it abundantly clear.
“Mom?”
“In here,” she calls from her bedroom.
I stand in the doorway for a moment, taking her in. Mom is beautiful in a quiet, understated way. Her dark hair flips and flops around her chin in a messy bob, her freckles have been joined by some wrinkles over the years, and her face is bare of makeup besides mascara and tinted Chapstick. Her outfit is comprised of out-of-style, dark-wash skinny jeans, Birkenstock sandals, and a high-neck T-shirt. Nothing about Mom is loud or attention grabbing other than her kind heart.
And the beaming smile with a stranglehold on her face right now.
“Looks like your date was a success,” I venture.
Somehow, her grin grows even wider. “It was. Marvin made us dinner. He’s a grill master of sorts. Has a smoker, a Traeger, a Blackstone, and maybe some other thing? I can’t remember, all I know is that I’ve never had chicken that juicy and delicious. And then we watched the sunset and the stars come out.”
She stops there, and I prompt, “And then? I don’t need details, but did you have a good, very good, or very, very good night? Fair warning, if it was less than stellar, you deserve better.”
She giggles in that way I swear I’ve never heard from her before and then emphatically holds two thumbs up.
“Enough said,” I tell her with an answering smile of my own.
I’m happy for her and hate to burst her bubble at all, but I think she needs to know about Olivia’s reaction to the overnight date. “Olivia was okay at brunch today, but Luna said something that made me think. Do you think maybe she’s worried about your dating because she doesn’t want you to get hurt? I mean, Dad’s an ass and did a real number on us all. Maybe Olivia’s finally realized that and is worried that’ll happen again?”
Mom sits heavily on the edge of the bed, her eyes falling to her hands in her lap. “I don’t know. I’ve tried talking to her about it so many times, but she shuts me out every time. Or blows me off, laughing like it’s no big deal when I know it is.”
“Keep trying,” I advise her. “She might not act like it, but she hears you. And seeing you make your happiness a priority is a good example for her. As long as this Marvin guy treats you right and you keep smiling like you were when I came in here, she’ll come around. Eventually.”