Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 90098 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90098 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
I even remembered his name. I was fairly sure it was Chris.
“I assure you, my baby-maker is reserved for one man only,” she commented dryly. “My boss is also hella married.”
I snorted. “Yeah, ’cause that never stopped people from crossing the line before.”
“I think Sarah can handle her own,” Ben noted.
Sarah beamed.
I furrowed my brow. “Is this how it’s gonna be? You automatically side with her?”
He cocked a brow. “Didn’t you just say you were gonna make sure Alvin’s on your team?”
“How the fuck is that relevant? Don’t change the topic. We’re talking about you.”
His response? He shared a look with my sister, like they had some inside joke going on. With a side of, “You see what I have to deal with?”
Troublesome development.
“Okay, can we eat now?” Chip asked. “I want beef, beef, beef!”
“Yes, we can,” I said. Since I was clearly not getting any support here. I turned to Sarah, setting our sibling bickering aside. “Text me when you’re done. I’m not sure where we’ll be. Ben and I have turned into hand-in-hand, lose-track-of-time walkers lately. Yesterday, we walked like twenty blocks for no reason at all.”
She snickered and reached up to kiss my cheek. “That’s sweet. I’ll text you.” She turned back to her boy and bent down. “I’ll see you in about two hours, baby. Be good to your uncles, okay?”
Uncles.
I shot Ben a smile, and he squeezed my hand.
“I promise to try,” Chip said firmly. “Bye, Mommy.”
Sarah straightened. “I feel so dismissed.”
“I think that was the point,” I supplied helpfully. “Bye, Sarah.”
Sarah looked up at Ben. “Remember, no returns on this one.” She jerked her thumb at me.
Ben exhaled a laugh and draped an arm around my shoulders. “Unfortunately, he’s reeled me in for life, but I’ll do my best to tame him.”
He’d do no such thing. He didn’t want me tame.
I liked the “for life” part, though.
Half an hour later—’cause fuck, the place had a line—we finally had our beefs and managed to snag a table in the window just as a couple left. So hard work was already paying off.
Chip was clearly in a chanting mood, and as I unwrapped his food, he shook his butt in his seat and went, “Wet beef, wet beef, wet beef for the win!”
“You can barely tell he spent his first few years in Boston now.” I was proud.
Ben grinned and bit into his own beef. He and I wanted ours dipped, though.
“Okay, remember to hold with both hands.” I carefully handed Chip his beef, and he grabbed on, sending some meat flying.
It happened to the best of us.
Before long, all our focus was aimed at the food, and we only took breaks to get more napkins and drink our pop. And discuss next weekend a little.
Alvin was visiting for the second time, and Ben had worked on his future room all week. Officially, it was a guest room, of course. A place Alvin was going to help us decorate. There was no bed yet—because Ben knew Alvin would want as much of his old furniture as possible—but we’d found two small fish tanks for cheap. Ben had also fixed up an old desk, and he’d bought a desk chair. Same kind Alvin already had.
Ben’s hope was to ask for Alvin’s advice on a color for the walls, because the kid loved blue, but they weren’t allowed to paint the walls at Elsie’s place. So maybe that would sway Alvin just a bit.
“Can I meet Alvin?” Chip asked. He’d given up on holding his beef and was now dipping his face into it, taking bites from it. “How old is he?”
“He’s eighteen, and one day, yeah,” I replied with my mouth full. Fuck, this was good. Some of the best giardiniera I’d had. “You know how I don’t like people very much?”
“Ya, except for me and some people,” Chip said.
I nodded. “Alvin’s like that. He likes people, but too much noise is painful for him. He gets tired and worried.”
“Oh.” Chip probably didn’t get it, but I didn’t wanna tiptoe around the topic either. Bit by bit, he’d understand eventually. “I thought he was little like me, but he’s old like you. Eighteen is big. Mommy’s almost a hundred.”
Ben and I did our best to stifle our amusement.
“I see where he gets his math skills from,” he said under his breath.
“Hey, fuck you,” I laughed.
Chip gasped. “You said fu—”
“Don’t even think about it,” I replied quickly.
This wasn’t my first rodeo.
“But if you can say it, then I can—”
I shook my head. “No. You said it yourself, I’m eighteen—I’m a grown man. And your ma’s a hundred. When you turn eighteen, you can swear all you want.”
He scowled at me.
I mock-scowled right back.
“I’m gonna say a bad word,” he whispered. “Jagoff.”
Oh, but… “That’s fine.” I shrugged. “Jagoff ain’t really a bad word. Mommy just says so, and she’s a hundred years old.”