Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 139147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Sadly, she knew that better than me.
“You’re part of the family, Raye. You need to be in on this intervention,” Scott declared.
I loved he thought that, and he was not wrong.
I’d moved to Phoenix when I was nineteen and met Luna at my first job working at J. Crew, which meant I’d only known them for eight years. But Luna and I had been thick as thieves from the moment we bonded while folding T-shirts on a board my first day.
And Scott and Louise adopted everybody, and I was no exception.
I spent holidays with them, just sayin’.
Louise pressed her lips together.
I had so many things to say to Dream, I didn’t hesitate to accept his invitation.
“Tell me when and where, and I’m there.”
Scott nodded his satisfaction with my response because Scott was Luna in dude form, so he and I were tight.
“She’s in a delicate way right now,” Louise said, hinting at why Dream was like Dream was.
Louise was a pushover, and Dream was pushy.
“Women drop kids while working in rice paddies or dragging buckets of water three miles home from the closest well,” Luna stated. “Dream can be knocked up and sit in the living room she grew up in and hear some home truths.”
“Word on that, sister,” I chimed in, just as my phone vibrated in my (today, mint green, it clashed righteously with the black, knee-length tank dress with the side slit I was wearing) server apron.
Even if I hoped it was Cap, saying something like, thinking of you, can’t wait for tonight, I ignored it due to the sitch at hand.
“She needs a job, she needs to learn responsibility, and she needs to get those deadbeats to pay for the babies they made,” Scott proclaimed.
“Right on, brother,” I cheered.
Louise looked uncomfortable, or more uncomfortable, and I knew why.
None of those guys had signed on to be baby daddies.
Sure, they got the good stuff, and everyone on the planet above a certain age knew how babies were made, so if you didn’t want one, you took precautions.
But we all knew Dream was Dream, and honest to God, I wouldn’t put it past her to tell them she had things covered when she didn’t in times she was ready to pop out another kid.
They still needed to be involved, monetarily and otherwise. She had two kids from two different guys, so at least whoever this joker was who’d put that bun in her oven was either a moron or he thought solely with his dick (which was another term for moron, but there was a nuance of difference).
Scott knew what Louise was thinking, which was why he said, “You do the crime, you pay the fine.”
Louise stretched out her lips.
I couldn’t hold on these drinks any longer, neither could Jessie delay on her Jessita specials. Late delivery cut into your tips.
So I repeated, “When and where and I’m there,” before heading out with the drinks.
I glanced at Tito on my way, and it didn’t surprise me he wasn’t scribbling, reading or staring out the window.
His sunglasses were trained on Luna, Scott and Louise.
It was weird, but he missed nothing.
And honestly, if he had superpower hearing, and he could hear what was happening at the bar, it wouldn’t surprise me if Luna had a fifteen-hundred-dollar bonus in her next pay packet.
’Cause that was how Tito rolled.
Case in point, the new tires I needed for Tweety last March that would have cut into my saving-for-a-house fund were reimbursed just like that.
You didn’t say thanks. You didn’t make a big deal of it. You didn’t demur. Not that Tito would get pissed or insist. He’d just wander away from you while you were talking, so it’d be a wasted effort.
I’d dropped the drinks, and my phone had vibrated again to remind me of the text, so I pulled it out on my way back to the bar to get the water pitchers and do a loop on refills.
And I stopped dead in the middle of the space.
The text was not from Cap or anyone else I might expect.
It was from the person I would least expect.
The person I spoke to briefly on my birthday, his birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas…
And Father’s Day.
It was from my dad.
Feeling a feeling I knew but never liked, my hands shaking, I opened the text and read, Hey there, darlin’. Coming out for a visit next week. Staying at the Hermosa Inn. I know it’s short notice but would love it if you could carve out some time for your old man.
I jumped and nearly dropped my phone when I heard a growled, “What is it?”
Scott was standing close.
I forced a smile toward his hard-with-disquiet face (was I that easy to read? yikes!), shoved my phone in my apron and said, “Nothing, just my dad.”
Louise had also gotten close and they exchanged concerned glances.