Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 74604 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74604 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
“You’re very beautiful,” she told me, making me jerk back at the unexpected compliment.
“Oh, thank you,” I said, giving her a smile.
“You know, Brock,” she said, shaking her head, full of maternal disappointment. “He tends to like a lot of this beauty,” she said, gesturing to her face. “But there isn’t always a lot here,” she added, tapping her temple. “I get the feeling you have both.”
“I like to think so,” I agreed.
“Good. That’s good. The beauty,” she said, waving a hand out like the wind wiping something away. “But the brains, those stick with you.”
“What are we talking about?” Brock asked, coming up from behind me with the silence of a damn cat.
“Your preferences in women,” I told him, wanting to catch him off guard, but he seemed completely unbothered by it. “Who is Terry?” I asked, and to that, I got a slight reaction. A bit of a grimace. Widening of the eyes.
“She is the delivery person around here.”
“And why is she looking for you?” I asked.
“Because I slept with her girlfriend,” he admitted.
I’d been expecting him to say he’d slept with her and then maybe ghosted her. But the truth had me losing my composure for a second.
“What?” I gasped.
“Look, in my defense, I didn’t know it was her girlfriend until after when I saw the couple pictures in the house.”
“I mean… can you really be to blame there?” I asked, shrugging. “She was the cheater, not you.”
“That was the exact argument that I made,” Brock agreed. “But my coworkers didn’t want to hear it.”
“I imagine that is because it leads back to pathological behaviors like this,” I said, watching as his smile went a little boyish, all charm, all guilt.
“You could say that,” he agreed.
“Too old…” Marg grumbled. “Playboys are young. You? Not so young anymore. You need a woman. And babies. Do you want babies?” she asked, looking at me.
And I never felt quite so put on the spot before as I did right then.
“I, ah, I can’t,” I told her, shrugging it off. For many, that was a gaping, painful, festering wound. For me, someone who had a sort of innate fear of childbirth, it had been a sort of roll with the punches moment for me. “Biologically,” I added, casting a glance over toward Brock, oddly wanting to see his reaction to that statement. “But I’ve always wanted to adopt. Maybe older kids. So my priceless sculptures and vases aren’t at risk.”
“Miss Coulter…” Marg said, pressing a hand to her heart. “I always forget,” she said, wincing. “It’s not something I am supposed to ask.”
“I’m not offended, really,” I assured her. “For me, it wasn’t as sad as it is for many women. Pregnancy and childbirth scare the hell out of me.”
“Sawyer has adopted,” Brock said, drawing my attention over to him.
“Really?”
“Yeah. It was important to his wife.”
“That’s nice. It has always been, you know, something I figured would happen eventually. Once I got to where I want to be professionally.”
“With a husband?” Marg prompted.
“Oh, the husband is the totally optional part,” I told her with a big smile that she laughed and returned.
“You know… sometimes they are not all they’re cracked up to be. But some of them, they’re good. Sawyer, Tig…”
“Let’s just say that I’m not holding my breath or putting my life on hold for the so-called ‘right man,’ but I wouldn’t mind if he showed up, either.”
“That is a good way to think of it,” Marg said, nodding. “That’s me,” she said when the phone rang. “It was nice to meet you. Brock, be a good boy,” she told him before picking up the phone.
“I always feel like the naughty kid when I go into the office, I swear,” he said, shaking his head when we moved outside.
“And I’m sure you’ve done nothing at all to deserve that reaction from them.”
“Oh, baby, I’ve done everything you can think of and worse,” he told me, mischief dancing in his eyes. “Come on. Let’s go get to my house so we can snag some food before heading back into the city.”
With that, we were heading back toward the suburbs where Brock drove halfway down a street of very nice, mismatched houses—a ranch here, bi-level there, a Victorian over yonder.
And parked his unexpected car in front of an unexpected house.
A quaint craftsman-style house with a big porch with a wide overhang, a partial second level, with white bricks on the lower level and warm wooden shakes on the upper.
The man even had rocking chairs and hanging plants. They were looking pretty sad, given him being away for a while and the weather taking a turn for the cool, but he had them.
“I like it,” I decided out loud, making Brock shoot me a soft smile.
“Me too,” he said before climbing out and making his way around the hood toward my door.