Total pages in book: 24
Estimated words: 23007 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 115(@200wpm)___ 92(@250wpm)___ 77(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 23007 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 115(@200wpm)___ 92(@250wpm)___ 77(@300wpm)
I paste on a big smile and not two minutes later, I’m giving it my all as Fanny Albright, a poor farmer’s daughter who saves the town from a nuclear reaction from the power plant on the other side of town. It’s the first role I’ve done that isn’t a children or teen movie. My ultimate goal is romantic comedies. You know the ones with one or two chaste kisses and undying love before the credits roll. I don’t want to do anything too risqué or make out with someone who isn’t my husband, but before that can happen, Holly begged me to play the lead role in the movie based on her novel. I couldn’t turn her down. Of course, I don’t even have a husband, but I know he’s out there somewhere waiting on me. I can’t, in good conscience, go to my husband anything other than pure. I know it’s old-fashioned but there is something to be said for it. There was probably a reason why all those years ago a virgin bride was best. I think a lot of things that have happened in the world in the last two hundred years that has made that virtue fall to wayside, and I get that. I really do, but I don’t have to agree with it. I want to my husband, whomever he may be, to know that I have never or will never take anyone else into my body. It’s his. It should be a sacred right and it’s the only thing I can give him that money can’t buy.
Once I finish shooting, I’m finished with all my parts. I don’t have to be here anymore. I’ve been in a hotel for months now, since we are on location in Estonia, it’s not going to be a long flight home.
I board my Regal Air flight, first class. Since it’s so late, there is no one else in the section. I fall asleep almost as soon as we take off. Less than three hours later, I’m at the baggage claim. The taxi ride to the house I bought for my parent’s is blissfully short. I’ve only been here once, but it’s my home base. I pay the driver and take my bags up to the front door.
Using my key, I let myself in. My parents are already in bed because, unfortunately, I can hear them having sex. Ugh. I mean, I guess it’s a good thing that they love each other so much, but I really don’t want to hear that. To be fair, they didn’t know I was coming home.
The lights are off, and I run into something… Something that wasn’t there the last time I was here.
“Bloody hell!” I scream, dropping my purse and keys, then lift up my foot and clutch it. My whole foot is throbbing.
“Who’s there?” a man, not my dad, shouts as he comes out of my parent’s bedroom.
Of course, I scream again. The lights flip on, and I see that it’s definitely not my dad, but his best friend. “Uncle Ray?” I ask, confused. He’s naked as hell, brandishing a cricket bat. As if he can read my mind or something, he drops the bat and covers himself up.
“Paysh?” he says, equally confused.
“Patience?” my mum says, running out of her room. Her open dressing gown billowing behind her.
“Mum?”
And then, because I needed to see this, my dad comes out of the bedroom in his jockey shorts, which isn’t that weird, but then Ray’s wife, Auntie Rita, rolls right out of there too with one wrist handcuffed, in a purple silk and lace nightie.
“Pum Pum, you’re home.” I look at my dad. It’s like he’s a stranger right now.
“I am,” I say, looking around the room. My mum has finally closed and tied her dressing gown. I take a deep, calming breath. “What’s going on here?” I gesture to group of them wildly.
“It’s not what you think,” Dad says.
“Uh-huh. So tell me.”
“We are a quad.”
“What?” I ask. My mind is racing to catch up with whatever this is.
“We are all together. We have been together for twenty-two years. Tonight is our anniversary,” Auntie Rita says.
I just nod. I don’t say anything. I can’t say anything. Ray and Rita have been in my life for as long as I can remember. I knew my mom got pregnant with me when she was eighteen and at university. Ray and Rita always lived right next door to us. They did everything with us. Holidays, my school plays which there were a lot of vacations. Even dinner, most nights. I just thought they were all best friends. I always thought of them as extension parents.
“Say something, Patience Aria Winters.”
“Which one of you is my dad?” I blurt out. I always thought I looked like Ray, but I didn’t dwell on it. As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I regret them. It doesn’t really matter, does it?