Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 72669 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72669 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
I ignored that comment.
Maybe I would…but most likely I wouldn’t.
It didn’t work that way if I never found someone to have sex with me.
I’d been in a sexual rut for eight and a half long years, and it didn’t help that I found fault in nearly every man that showed interest in me.
Bowe, for example.
He was a great guy.
Kind, loving…sexy.
But he just wasn’t Booth.
And I’d had to sit him down yesterday and explain things.
He’d understood and now we were officially just friends.
A friendship that I was beginning to depend on almost as much as mine with Mia.
“Alright, so from what I understand, you do not want to know. You want me to hand over the verdict to this young lady right here so she can throw you a party,” the young woman asked.
She was cute.
I’d also heard that she belonged to one of the SWAT team.
“That’s right,” Mia confirmed.
Tai’s hand tightened visibly.
“Are you sure?” He asked with the cutest whine in his voice that I’d ever heard.
She smacked his hand. “Yes, Tai. I’m sure.”
Thirty minutes I sat in my car and ripped open the envelope, excited to see what the verdict was.
And I smiled.
A girl.
“Eeeek!” I squealed in excitement.
Excitement that was crushed with a battering ram when I looked up to find Booth in front of me.
With his wife by his side, and his child in his arms.
I instantly stilled, watching the trio like one would a predator.
The wife didn’t see me, but Booth did.
And it hurt. Oh God, did it hurt to see him holding that baby.
A baby that should’ve been ours, not theirs.
I closed my eyes as pain stabbed me in the heart.
I started the car without opening my eyes, dropped the envelope onto the seat beside me, then opened my eyes, immediately turning, so I could back out of my parking spot.
Which then only afforded me a view of Booth strapping his child into a car seat.
I started to pant through the pain.
Biting my lip until I tasted blood, I backed out of the parking lot and slowly made my way back to work.
I’d spent my hour before work in the doctor’s office with Mia, and now I was headed to work.
Well, I was going to be late. Seemed like a good cry was in my future.
***
Two days later
I was walking out to my car, not paying attention at all, when I ran into a brick wall.
Well, a man that resembled a brick wall.
“Ooomph,” I said, bracing my hands on said brick wall.
“Sorry darlin,” a man said.
I looked up and smiled at Drew.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.”
He patted my shoulder and let me go, and it was then that I saw Booth.
He was glaring at me…well, where Drew’s hands had been on me.
I looked away and scooted past them, trying hard not to look behind me.
My eyes were already welling with tears.
Wasn’t this supposed to get easier?
***
Five days later
I had my foot on the gas, holding it down lightly so my Jeep was at a constant rev.
I was on my way to my parents’ house for dinner, and I was running late.
I didn’t have time for my Jeep to break down…nor the money.
My student loan payment was due tomorrow, and I had exactly enough in my bank account to cover my groceries and a tank of gas for the week. Not enough to pay for any towing bills, let alone what it would cost to fix whatever was wrong with it now.
I was what one would call ‘irresponsible’ with my money.
If I saw something I liked, I bought it.
Which was why I had a brand new pair of cowboy boots sitting in their box in the back seat. I had a new purse that cost around two hundred dollars, and also, I had gone out to eat five times this week.
“No, Mom. I’m almost there. I had to stop and put air in my tires, and then got sidetracked with someone at the gas station that was selling banana bread,” I said to my mom.
“Okay, well just don’t take too much longer. You know how daddy likes to have his dinner right at six,” my mother explained.
I knew what my father liked.
He was a man of schedules. He did everything exactly when it was supposed to be done.
If he had to take a shit at four, and he’d scheduled it in at five, then he’d wait the requisite hour until he could shit on his schedule.
Well, he might not be quite that bad, but the man was trying, I could tell you that.
He’d always been that way.
Jim Albert Crisfield was fifty-nine years old, and according to my Mimi, he’s been that way since he was old enough to walk.
No matter his shortcomings, I still loved the hell out of him.