Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 77793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
My hand trembles as I slowly stick it out. I only manage to get it a few inches, then the granny shoots forward and captures my hand with hers. Her grip is unsurprisingly firm, but I totally saw that coming. There is nothing conventionally old ladyish about this old lady.
“Come along, dear,” she tells me softly after releasing my hand. “Let’s go to the kitchen and talk.” Orion breaks away from the wall beside me, becoming more than just a shadow and reminding me that, oh, yeah, he’s the reason I’m here, but the granny gives him a withering look. “Give us half an hour. Then you can join us.” She pauses and seems to consider something. “Have your brother take you out to get some cherry pie to go. In my experience, it’s a great first step toward an apology.”
CHAPTER 3
Orion
“She’s really pretty.” Of course, Cass would say that. She also turns around from the front seat and graces me with a huge, hopeful smile. “She’s actually super, super pretty. Like in the realm of gorgeous. I love her hair. She’s not just a boring sandy blonde like me. She’s got that whole interesting strawberry thing going on that I wish I had.”
“I love your hair,” Lennox says reassuringly to her. He holds the wheel with his left hand, and with his right, he takes a strand of Cass’s hair between his fingers and sighs in a lovesick satisfied way that makes me throw up in my mouth just the tiniest bit. And when I say “tiniest bit,” I actually mean a lot.
“That’s very sweet.” Cass might be giggling and using sarcasm, but she means it. She’s so in love with my brother that I get to see the product of it all day, every day. I’m happy for them, even if they’re totally nauseating. She turns back around to study me. I’m trapped in the backseat with four boxed-up pies, keeping them safe from my brother’s driving. He’s always heavy on the brakes and even worse with the gas. “Her eyes. Oh my gosh, did you see them? They’re like floating in a crystal blue ocean on top of an iceberg, but you wouldn’t freeze or get hungry. You’d just be happy to be there, experiencing the vast beauty of nature.”
“With narwhals,” Lennox adds. “Oh my god, maybe that’s your spirit animal.”
“Can we please not talk about spirit animals anymore?” I groan. “It’s getting overdone.”
“You know what’s not overdone?” Lennox asks, braking so hard that the pies nearly shoot off the seat beside me. I have to do a fast snatch and grab, which involves flinging my arms out to stop them from going projectile to the front.
“Those pies?” Cass finishes for him. They snicker at their own clever couple’s cuteness.
Barf, times a thousand.
“Those pies. God, I love a good cherry pie, but mostly, I love how much it makes me think of you and how I accidentally grabbed you thinking you were Ayana because she and Ransom had a lot of stuff to work out, and we needed to convince her to stay. Granny was so mad at me that she made me apologize by driving you home and buying you pie on top of it all.”
“Cherry pie,” Cass sighs. “The most delicious cherry pie. I’ve missed getting them from that place. I swear, no one makes a pie the way they do. Your granny said that pie fixes everything.”
“She was right. She was so right.”
Before I hurl back here, I interrupt and say, “I’m pretty sure cherry pie can’t fix the fact that I had no idea I’ve been married for the past year.”
“The divorce papers could, though,” Lennox deadpans.
Cass smacks him on the shoulder lightly. “Stop that. You don’t know that they should get divorced. Your granny’s right. The lady obviously has serious skills, and she’s a real badass. She’s like a young Granny. If there’s anyone in the world who will fit right into this family, she’s it.”
“You’re pretty lucky,” Lennox throws out there. “You could always refuse to sign the papers. Then she’d have to stick around while you woo her and make her fall in love with you, and then you could just stay married.”
“Oh my god! There isn’t going to be any wooing!” As soon as I picture Echo’s face, I’m sucked back into my seat, though that could be Lennox’s lead foot on the gas. I suppose I can’t blame my tight seatbelt for my inability to breathe properly.
Echo is pretty. She’s the kind of pretty that hits you like a rogue toad when you’re walking through dewy grass at night. Toads and frogs are usually abundant, and they’re super cute and can’t always get out of the way on time, so I always walk with a light on at night in the summer. I may or may not have been smacked in the shin by a leaping toad a few nights ago while taking a late-night walk to clear my head. Yes, even in the city. And no, I can’t exactly say what I needed to clear my head about. I just couldn’t sleep.