Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 90019 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90019 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
My stomach twisted.
“What’s wrong? You been crying?” he asked softly as he wrapped his arms around her.
Ani’s voice was muffled when she answered him, so I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but the second his hand started to run soothingly up and down her back I’d had enough. We were in my parents’ entryway for Christ’s sake, and it looked like he was about to fuck her against the wall.
I snorted, bringing Trev’s eyes to me. I ignored the glare he sent me over her shoulder as I turned and left the room.
* * *
“How’s that new site coming along?” Mom asked, trying anything to break the silence at the dinner table.
Friday night dinners had become something of a tradition at my parents’ house when we were just kids. While all our friends had to be home on Sunday night for dinner, dragging their hungover asses to the table, our parents had decided that making us sit down as a family before the weekend got crazy would be a better way to keep us in line. They weren’t wrong. Sitting down at the table with your parents at the beginning of the weekend was a good little reminder to not fuck up during the rest of it.
For a while before we’d all grown up and moved away, there were eleven of us crammed around my parents’ dining room table. Mom and Dad, me, my twin brother Alex, my little sister Katie, and from the house next door my aunt Ellie and uncle Mike and their boys Trevor, Henry, and their foster son Shane. Anita didn’t move in until after I had already moved out, but before my brother Alex had left for the Army.
I wasn’t sure why we always ate at my parents’ house, but it had been that way for as long as I could remember. Aunt Ellie usually came over to help my mom, sometimes taking over her entire kitchen while she cooked, but we rarely ate at Uncle Mike and Aunt Ellie’s house. Maybe it was because, when we were all home, we didn’t even fit at Ellie’s dining room table, though getting us all in the same place at the same time rarely happened anymore.
We were all scattered around the country now. My little sister Katie had moved to San Diego years ago and eventually married Shane, who was stationed down there with the Marines. Henry was down there, too, with his own Marine unit. My brother Alex had joined the Army when we were almost twenty and was stationed in Missouri. Trevor, Ani, and I were the only ones left in Oregon with our parents.
We were also the only ones who showed any interest in our family’s logging business.
“The new site’s going fine,” Dad mumbled as he shoveled more food into his mouth. “Everything’s on schedule.”
“Well that’s good,” Mom said brightly. “Maybe you guys can take a break when Katie gets here.”
My head snapped up, and I saw Ani’s do the same. “When’s Kate coming up?”
“She said she was going to find tickets for next month. I guess one of the airlines is having a sale or something,” Mom answered with a smile.
“She’s going to need it with all those munchkins,” Trevor said with a chuckle.
“Why do you think we never went anywhere when you were kids?” Dad asked Trevor, leaning forward to grab a serving tray. “Your dad and I realized early that, if we wanted to take you kids on vacation, we’d have to rent a passenger van and drive you. Too expensive to fly.”
“Remember that time we went to see Mount Rushmore?” I asked Trev, grinning.
“Fun trip,” Trevor replied, nodding. “Would have been better if Henry didn’t puke all over me every two hundred miles.”
Anita snorted, and I couldn’t help but laugh. We’d had to drive the entire way with all the windows down, it had stunk so badly.
“Poor Henry,” Mom said, smirking. “That boy always got carsick.”
“And I always had to sit next to him!” Trevor bitched.
“Well, I wasn’t sitting next to the puker. He’s your brother,” I said seriously, glancing up from my plate to meet Ani’s eyes.
She was smiling, but it was small. The kind of smile a person wears when they aren’t part of the joke but are trying really hard not to look out of place.
My mouth snapped shut.
“Well at least none of Katie and Shane’s kids get motion sickness,” Mom said, leaning back in her chair.
“There’s no way Katie’s making that drive again,” Ani finally piped in, smiling at my mom. “She said, the last time they drove home, it took them twice as long as it should’ve because they had to stop a thousand times.”
“Little bladders,” my dad said, making us all chuckle.
I glanced at my watch and pushed my plate back. “Thanks for dinner, Mom.”