Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
“Clothes are overrated,” I told her. “I hope you know what you’ve done now, though,” I said before taking a bite of my mozzarella stick.
“What’s that?”
“Made it possible for me to beg you to cook for me from now until eternity.”
“Well, not just you,” she said, and it took me way too fucking long to realize her hand went to her belly when she said that.
“No shit?” I asked, placing my hand over hers.
“No shit. And it better not kick me in the bladder like you kick me in the shins at night.”
“Hey, I told you how to handle that,” I said, giving her a smirk.
“Sitting on your face isn’t the answer to everything,” she insisted.
“No?” I asked, putting my fork down and reaching for her. “I would like to test that theory…”
Theo - 2 years
I was just organizing the baby supplies we’d been accumulating into different piles.
Things to wash. My job.
Things to assemble. Dezi’s job.
Things to ask one of the mom’s about because I couldn’t make any sense of it.
That was when there was a knock at the front door.
Which was, well, weird.
Who knocked on the door anymore?
The only neighbor we had was my father to the one side. And he would just waltz right in, usually bringing something positively ostentatious for the baby. Like a eight-foot-tall giraffe for the nursery.
Delivery people never knocked or rang the bell, just put stuff down and left. And anyone in the club would have texted to say they were dropping by.
Weird.
And also why I went ahead and grabbed one of Dezi’s guns and tucked it into the waistband of my pants just in case.
Especially because he wasn’t home.
I was uncharacteristically hesitant as I went to the door.
But, I guess, that was because it wasn’t just about me anymore. When it was just my own safety to worry about, I’d been just this side of reckless. Now? Not so much. I now triple-checked before hitting the gas pedal after being at a red light, making sure no one was running their light from the opposite direction.
Reaching for the door, suddenly a little annoyed that I hadn’t gotten the doorbell with the video camera that I’d been debating, I pulled it open.
And immediately relaxed.
Because it wasn’t some machete-wielding guy there to kill me.
It was a woman.
With medium-brown hair with a bit of a wave that was cut just to her shoulders, a soft, feminine face, with big, big brown eyes.
And, suddenly, something Dezi said was coming back to me.
About how cute his little sister had been. About her big eyes.
And that wave she had to her hair? It was exactly like the wave her big brother had.
“Demi…” I said, sounding like all the air had rushed out of me, because it had.
At the sound of her name, she jerked back a bit, brows drawing together as she looked at me.
She took her time, examining my face, then moving down to settle on my belly before moving back up.
I took that opportunity to look at her, too.
She was shorter than Dezi, and much slighter. Almost too small, if you asked me. And that was the opinion I had of her with a kind of bulky leather jacket on. I bet if she took that off, she’d be almost frail-looking.
“How do you know my name?” she asked, a voice all milk and honey.
“Because Dezi talks about you all the time.” More so lately, in fact. Probably because the baby coming soon had him thinking a lot about his own childhood. And hers.
“So he does live here?” she asked, looking up, and I suddenly almost felt ashamed of the opulence of the house before I reminded myself that I’d grown up with very little as well.
“Yes. Do you want to come in? I have fresh coffee. Dezi isn’t home right now,” I added. “But he should be in an hour or so. He just had some work to do.”
“Work,” she repeated, following me inside. “I thought he was a biker.”
“He is.”
“Then how does he afford this?”
“Well, ah, me. I had a long-lost dad who is very wealthy. So… yeah. Oh, sorry, do you like animals?” I asked as Rosita came running in the kitchen grunting, thinking someone was going to give her a snack.
“You have a pet pig.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
“In a mansion.”
“Well… yes,” I said, feeling judged but needing to remind myself that this girl had been through hell that Dezi knew about. And who the fuck knew what he didn’t know about.
“You can put the gun down,” she said, taking a stool on the other side of the island. “You’re not going to need it. Is that his baby?” she asked, looking toward my stomach again, her face going tight.
“Yes. We’re married. I wish we knew where you were, so we could have invited you. He’s looked for you, you know. I actually… I was thinking of hiring a private investigator to track you down to see if you’d be interested in coming to his birthday party.”