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 felt something warm overtake my heart once again for the millionth time that day.
“I love you, daddy,” I whispered.
He winked at me.
“Your mom made his favorite, you know,” Dad said.
“What?” Booth exclaimed, his ears perking up.
I laughed.
Booth was in love with my mother’s lasagna for some reason.
Hell, I thought it was just plain old lasagna.
Booth, however, freakin’ loved it.
“I made lasagna,” my mother exploded excitedly.
Booth left us without another word, leaving us all laughing like we used to do.
“I see he hasn’t changed,” my mom said with amusement.
I shook my head.
No, I guess he hadn’t.
Not where it counted, anyway.
Dinner was almost like it used to be before he’d left…except for Daniela’s trilling laughter not being there.
She loved Booth almost as much as I did, in a brotherly way of course.
She really used to have a crush on Booth’s step-brother, but they’d never progressed past anything but friendship. I think that was more on Daniela’s part rather than Aaron’s.
“Do you want more, Booth?” My mom held up the spatula with a small, pleased smile.
Booth eyed the pan as my mom was about to scoop him another slice from, and groaned in defeat.
“I can’t,” he said. “I’ve had way more than I could handle, and I’ll be lucky if I’ll be able to roll my way out of here.”
My mother smirked.
“You can take some home,” my dad offered. “She made two pans.”
“Score,” Booth crowed, leaning back and patting his full belly with one hand.
Not that you could tell it was full.
His abs still stood out blatantly despite his three pieces of lasagna.
Me, I’d had to unbutton my pants after the first piece and a half.
Not that anyone had noticed that I’d had to do it.
A strange beeping sound had me turning to see Booth staring in horror at a…pager?
“What is it?” I asked worriedly.
He sighed and stood up, trying not to grimace.
“SWAT,” he said.
Just one word had the power to bring me to my knees.
“What?” I asked.
He nodded. “I’m on the SWAT team, and there’s been a callout.”
On the SWAT team…and there’s been a callout.
“Since fucking when are you on the SWAT team?” I barked in horror at him.
He froze, looking at me with wariness now.
“Can we talk about this when I get back to your place tonight?” He asked carefully.
“If you get back to me tonight,” I muttered under my breath, staring at the table.
When next I looked up, it was to see Booth exiting the kitchen door and not looking back.
Shit.
Chapter 12
For fox sake.
-Coffee Cup
Masen
I tossed and turned in my bed, finally settling on my back and glaring at the ceiling in annoyance.
I wasn’t going to sleep.
Not until I knew he was safe.
I moved my head to look at the clock on my nightstand and sighed, getting up to face my day.
It was only five in the morning, and I didn’t have to be at work until eight…but I couldn’t lay here anymore, worrying.
He’d been gone for well over eight hours now, and I’d been tossing and turning for six of them.
Throwing the covers off of me in a snap of fabric, I stood up and snagged my pants from the floor.
Yanking them on, one foot at a time, I grabbed the first pair of socks from the top of my laundry pile and sat on the side of the bed to slip them on. Then grabbed my tennis shoes from where I’d kicked them off earlier, when I’d come to bed, and shoved my feet into them without untying them first.
Then I walked out of my room and grabbed my taser/flashlight that hung right inside my back door.
Then, without another thought, I exited out my back door and rounded the corner of my house.
A house that I’d rented from my grandmother now that she’d moved into a retirement home.
It needed quite a bit of updating and could really use some special love and care, but I never planned on staying here that long.
It wasn’t really a place that I could see myself staying in for the rest of my life, and I knew for a fact that Booth didn’t like it.
He hated the location when my Grammy lived here and had always wanted to be somewhere far in the country.
Then I got even more upset with him because I didn’t know where he lived.
So I started out my run pissed off with the situation.
I’d texted Booth four times throughout the night, too scared to call him because I didn’t want to interrupt anything.
But surely he could’ve sent me a text message, right?
I ran for about four minutes before I got too tired to move my legs. Or maybe it was because I couldn’t breathe.
No matter the reason, I was walking when I realized that I wasn’t alone.
“Shit,” I said, whirling around.
A man stood there, not ten feet behind me, and I smiled at him. A smile that I hoped didn’t look more like a grimace.