Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 96284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
“That’s one way of puttin’ it,” he replied tiredly. “I might take a nap after the podcast.”
I nodded in understanding. “What’s Sam up to today?” I knew Nikki was picking them up later, but I doubted Sam was well enough to go to day care.
“She’ll be with Haley,” Jake said. “Ain’t that right, sugar? You’re going with Auntie Haley today.”
Sam nodded and shoveled more pancakes into her mouth. Half her face was covered in jam, which meant picture time. I brought out my phone and took a couple photos.
They grew up too fucking fast. Bad enough that Sam had recently turned two, but that Colin was starting first grade a year from now? And Casper turning three later this fall? Fucked up was what it was.
Maybe we could take a family picture soon. It’d been a while. Last one was from a food-truck Thursday. We’d run into a friend there, who’d taken a picture of us all stuffing our faces.
Those photos were glimpses of a dead fantasy, but they were all I had.
“You’re Off Topic with Roe Finlay and Jake Denver. I’m Roe, and Jake’s about to fall asleep in his chair. How you doin’ there, bud?” I grinned faintly and took a swig of my coffee.
Look alive, man. We had a big announcement to make. Rather, we’d confirm some rumors that’d circulated since this past spring. Followers had read a certain press release—some had watched local news—and heard about two filmmakers being involved in an incident.
“Ugh.” Jake yawned and sat up a little straighter. “Children may be a blessing, but fuck ear infections.”
“Amen. Jake’s daughter’s had a crappy weekend,” I said. “I remember the first time I had to give Casper penicillin. I think that’s when a parent really shows their creativity, especially if the kid won’t take the liquid variety. Even I won’t touch that. It’s fucking foul. We had to blend it with ice cream and caramel sauce.”
Jake chuckled tiredly and nodded. “Bear was all right, but with the princess, we gotta crush pills with banana or mix it with macaroni and a shit-ton of ketchup.”
Damn, now I wanted mac and cheese for lunch. “I’m Team Ketchup all the way. There’s this dumb, snobby grown-up rule about ketchup being for kids, and I’m like, gimme that fuckin’ ketchup on my mac and cheese and don’t you dare hold back. By the way, we’re having mac and cheese for lunch. I have a craving.”
Jake rumbled a laugh at my rant. “Mac and cheese, it is. But there won’t be any ketchup in Alaska.”
Oh, fucking excellent transition.
“Annnd that brings us to our next topic,” I said with a grin. “We can’t divulge the hows and the whens just yet, partly because we don’t know them ourselves, but this week marks the beginning of our preparation for a future project. Jake has signed us up for survival training, self-defense classes, and target practice. We’re gonna get fit.”
“Because I don’t trust Roe to last a minute in the state called the Last Frontier,” he deadpanned.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha.” I let him have his moment, but dammit, he was gonna see. “Whatever. Stay tuned for Insta photos of my abs becoming more pronounced—than they already are, I wanna add.”
He shook his head in amusement. “But before Roe starts hashtagging his bulging biceps and awesome abs all over social media, we’re gonna share a little story about the day we discovered we don’t necessarily have what it takes for action-packed documentary adventures.”
It was the perfect moment for one of our only three sound effects. I hit the button on my laptop, and a recording of an audience going “Oh no!” blared out.
“Dork,” Jake chuckled.
“It’s actually the theme of this week’s episodes,” I went on. “Not me being a dork but…well, let’s call it risk assessment and shit that can go wrong. On Friday, we’ll have Joel Hayward back for another interview. You might remember him from this spring—he’s a sniper in the Coast Guard. And he’s bringing with him the highly trained TACLET operator, Mark Dunn, whom we were fortunate to meet somewhere off the coast of San Diego in March.”
“When shit went sideways,” Jake filled in.
“Royally. Consider this our confirmation of your questions about whether we were involved in the smuggle operation the Coast Guard intercepted a few months ago.”
“Roe was helping the Colombians bring in coke to—”
“Oh, fuck you!” I laughed. “I didn’t mean it like that!”
“Then why did you say it?” Jake was having too much fun. “What Roe means is, we were there to film the Coast Guard intercept a drug smuggle operation—with successful results after a couple mishaps.”
“A couple mishaps?” I chuckled incredulously. “A boat caught on fire, and we almost died. If you call that a mishap, I don’t wanna know what you’d call a disaster.”
He shrugged and leaned back in his seat, still amused. It was a good look on him.