Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 68538 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68538 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Ellodie:
Oh my God. I hope that never happens to us.
Shayne:
Happened to us just yesterday. Do you think the family has this sixth sense about us getting some, and tries to make things as awkward as possible?
Me:
I got back at him and asked him to stop by Walgreens for pregnancy tests. He’s going to do it, too, because he’s got to prove he’s not a pussy.
There was more texting going on, but I shoved my phone in my purse and got to work.
No, it wouldn’t do to be too late. Pepper was awesome, but she hated dealing with customers if she didn’t have to.
I got to work only twenty-three minutes late.
When I arrived, there was already a line out the door.
Two tables were already taken up by the old men who posted up shop every morning rain or shine.
I waved hello to them and was unsurprised to find Shasha and Nastya there at the counter ordering.
They came in every single day like clockwork as well, though they were usually much later than this.
“What are y’all doing here so early?” I wondered as I breezed past and pushed behind the counter.
“We heard from a little bridie that we needed to be here,” Nastya admitted.
I frowned and had just turned the corner to the break room when I saw the single cream cheese pastry on the counter waiting for me.
On the pastry was something really shiny.
I walked to it and gasped, staring at a ring with a note next to the plate that said, “Marry me, Sunshine.”
My hand covered my mouth, and I turned, expecting to find Pepper or my siblings, but instead found Auden there, chest heaving, staring at me like he’d been poleaxed.
“I was supposed to beat you here,” he breathed heavily. “But you didn’t do your usual coffee run, and then you just dropped that bomb and left.”
I giggled. “I’m sorry.”
His eyes narrowed. “I still had Garrett run to Walgreens.”
I felt my smile getting wider.
“Well?” I asked.
He looked down at his shirtless self and said, “I was supposed to be wearing something nicer than this, but I got distracted by you this morning. Then your news…”
“Just get down on the knee and ask, Carter!” I heard my brother bellow.
Auden got down on one knee, plucked the ring from the pastry, and offered it to me. “Will you marry me, Sunshine soon-to-be Carter?”
The presumptuousness of this man…
“Of course I will.”
Then I launched myself at him.
Garrett came in while I was licking the icing off the ring.
He had a bag stuffed full of pregnancy tests which he tossed on the floor, and left.
Dima took one look at the boxes—when he’d come in, I didn’t know—and shook his head. “Mom and Dad would be ecstatic right now.”
I felt tears well in my eyes. “I think they’d be dying right now.”
“A new baby, and their own baby back?” Milena asked. “They would be inconsolable. So happy they’d be unable to breathe through their tears.”
A tear of my own fell down my cheek at the loss of a set of parents who loved me so.
“Get into that bathroom and test, baby,” Auden said. “I’m dying to know.”
I wasn’t speeding on purpose, Officer. It was the music.
—Maven to Auden when he pulls her over going 23 over the posted speed limit
MAVEN
7 years later
Getting out of the house with three children was always a rather daunting task.
Today, however, it was worse than even I expected.
It was only after I had the kids all strapped into their seats that I asked my youngest child a question.
“Guess what, baby?” I asked my toddler, who was so much like my husband it hurt.
For someone who didn’t want a third child, this one turned out to be exactly like him. Redford Carter was Auden’s little sidekick.
He did everything his daddy did, and only what his daddy did.
His first word was ‘daddy.’
His second word was ‘my.’
He then paired those two words every time I was in the vicinity of his ‘my daddy.’
“What?” Redford asked grumpily.
I’d had to wake him up from his nap, and like his father, he didn’t like it.
Auden glanced into his rearview mirror as he started to accelerate to get onto the interstate.
“I love you!” I sang to him, reaching over to grab Auden’s hand as he merged.
Auden squeezed my fingers, keeping his eyes on the road.
Redford’s cute little voice came so sweet from the back seat.
“Aww, that’s sweet, Mom!” he sang. “Guess what?”
I looked at my dear little Redford over my shoulder and asked, “What?”
“I’m gonna kick your ass!”
Auden choked on his own spit, coughing and spluttering as he tried and failed not to laugh.
I rolled my eyes.
“I fucking hate you sometimes,” I muttered under my breath to my husband. “Seriously, I do everything for this kid. I walk the halls with him at night when he has colic. I bathe him. Clean him. Feed him for two damn years from my own bosom. I pour my heart and soul into this third kid of mine because that was our deal when we had him. I do all the work. You reap all the sweet benefits. And what has it got me? Nothing. Redford likes you more than me, and how is that fair?”