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)
“Roe?”
Adam and Callie are next to me.
I blinked and stayed still, acutely aware I’d fallen asleep with the twins by my side. Heavy sleeps were behind me. Except, I’d evidently slept heavily enough to miss that someone had kidnapped the twins.
I yawned and sat up, wincing when I felt a pain in my neck.
Jake—he was here. Right, he’d called my name. He stood in the doorway. I squinted at him. The fucker had showered. He wore a pair of jeans—and had just a towel around his shoulders. Sweaty basketball game?
“Where’s Adam and Callie?” I muttered.
“Elsie and Mira took them for a walk,” he replied, dragging a towel over his head again. “Gen and Peyton showed up too.” Angus’s and Cullen’s wives. “They headed out with the other kids for ice cream.”
All right. I grunted and got out of bed, and I rubbed the back of my neck and put on my shoes. “Okay, so what’s up?”
Jake cleared his throat. “We have that business appointment—but I can reschedule if you wanna sleep. You’re here to rest up.”
No, I wanted to see what this “business” was that he’d refused to tell me anything about.
“I’m good to go.” I tidied up on the bed before I headed out and down the stairs, and I typed a text to Sandra on the way.
“You wanna eat first since you missed lunch? Elsie made you a plate.”
“Nah, I’m not hungry.” I stopped in the hallway and excused myself to take a quick leak first.
I heard him sigh before I closed the door.
It was nice to feel numb at the moment.
As I undid my jeans, I scanned the text before firing it off.
Hey, hon. Hope you got some sleep. All is well here. The kids are out on adventures with the family. You wanna FaceTime later? We could order pizza and just watch TV together. No pressure.
I didn’t care how long recovery took if she would just see the doctor. I wasn’t particularly impatient by nature, but we were stuck in this limbo now. Everything felt dead. I felt dead.
After I was done, I washed my hands and ran a hand through my hair in an attempt to look less electrocuted. Then my phone vibrated, and I was a little surprised that Sandra had replied so fast. I’d figured she was resting.
Just stop, Roe. No, I don’t want to FaceTime and have pizza. Please leave me alone. I’m not feeling better. I just had a fight with my mom because I said you might as well move out and take the kids with you.
She didn’t mean that. She didn’t mean it. She’d said similar things before. It was the depression talking. But what if… I blew out a breath and scrubbed my hands over my face. Maybe I should talk to Dr. Carlson. I didn’t know the protocol here. Because what if some space helped her? Maybe seeing the children every day just reminded her of the demons telling her she wasn’t a good mom. Or perhaps that would just postpone the inevitable. I didn’t fucking know.
It was settled. When I came home, I was calling the doc.
For now, I rejoined Jake and ignored the urge to reply to Sandra. It would be of no use when she was in the mood to push people away.
Jake had apparently squared things with my sister, so we borrowed her Prius, and the Southerner I traveled with plugged a Sunset Park address into the GPS on his phone. Sunset Park was just north of Bay Ridge, and I had no damn clue who we knew in that area. Over the years, we’d made plenty of connections with industry people in New York, but they tended to have Manhattan addresses.
It was a nice area we were going to, though. Brownstone central, not too far away from the harbor.
“We won’t find any offices or studios at that address,” I stated. It was all residential, two or three-story brownstones filled with younger people who worked in the city.
“Correct.” He made a turn and then sped up when the lights ahead turned yellow. I was a little proud of him. He’d learned to drive like a New Yorker under my influence. “Did you have an argument with Sandra earlier or somethin’?”
I glanced at him and frowned. “No…? You mean before we left the house?”
“No, before lunch. You kinda disappeared, and then Elsie said you were asleep upstairs.”
Ah. Nope, no fighting with the missus. Only seeing the love of my life flirt and possibly hook up with my big brother. Good times.
“I was just tired.” I looked out the window again.
There was nothing else I could do. This was me, lying in the fucking bed I’d made. I didn’t ask any of the questions I was desperate to know the answers to. Like, did he still miss me like he’d told me fucking yesterday? Did he think about me? Want me? Because it wouldn’t be fair to him. I couldn’t string him along when I had, for all intents and purposes, moved on.