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)
But really, being pretty isn’t the thing that grabs me when I look at Echo. That’s not what makes her stand out. It’s her confidence. She might be built in a slim, tall, gorgeous package, but she also comes with poise and an inner strength that anyone can almost visibly see. It’s as though she wears it like perfume. Or, maybe I’m just reacting to her pheromones, which could be an indicator of good chemistry.
Really? Are you even listening to yourself?
She’s my wife. Drunk me must have thought there was something awesome about her to want to marry her in the first place.
Drunk you would have married a broom if you saw it leaning up against a building.
Drunk me definitely would not have married a broom. For fuck’s sake, it’s beyond weird to legally marry an inanimate object. She’s. My. Wife. How is that even a thing? You shouldn’t be allowed to drunk marry someone. There’s a distinct likelihood that marriages starting that way will end in problems. And by distinct likelihood, I mean one hundred fucking percent chance.
“Granny seems to have a plan up her sleeve,” Lennox insists, ending my inner argument. It’s my brain against my brain, and it’s starting to make my head ache. He takes a hard right, and I realize we’re almost back to the house we’ve rented for two weeks while we’re here in San Diego for Ransom and Ayana’s wedding.
“That’s a horrific prospect.”
He huffs. “Leave it to you to look on the bright side.”
“Granny wants her to join the family. Just like, oh, welcome to the hacker family who rights wrongs in the world and fights crime, all mostly online, and takes down legions of bad guys to make the world a better place. It’s all very hackerish and cloak-and-dagger, but since you don’t have any family to speak of and you also have mad skills, just join right up. Here’s the dotted line. Sign away your soul. It doesn’t matter at all that you’re also Orion’s long lost—and by long lost, I mean completely freaking shocker, didn’t know, don’t remember a thing—wife. It will be just fine. Not at all weird. Oh, by the way, have a cookie. And some pie.”
Lennox and Cass can’t help it. They break into laughter, and I sit and brood in the backseat, ruminating on all the ways my life has gone to total basic shit in the past hour. No, not basic shit. Living the life we live, even though I love it, makes a person wish they were basic. I don’t even really know what that is, but sometimes I hear it, and I think it must be nice.
Boring. Normal. Regular. Those aren’t always bad things.
It’s only a few more minutes before Lennox pulls our black sedan into the garage. We enter the house through the garage door, each of us with a pie in our arms, me with two, to find Granny and Echo still sitting across from each other at the kitchen table. Everyone else is giving them space, so they’re probably all still in the living room.
Lennox and Cass set their pies down on the kitchen counter, wave at Granny, then hightail it out of there. I try and pull a fast one, but two pies make it impossible to move as fast, and by the time I’ve set them down, Granny is already crooking her finger in my direction.
Apparently, I’m not getting out of this anytime soon.
Granny has a big smile on her face as I round the table. I try hard not to look at Echo. I don’t know how to compose my face, and I’m scared she’ll read my panic. To be fair, who wouldn’t be panicking a little bit right now if they were in my shoes?
I sit down beside Granny. She turns to me, and she’s radiant. She has the look of someone who already got what they wanted. The kitchen smells divine, but not even the sugary sweet chocolatey goodness of Granny cookies could induce me to eat a single bite of anything right now. My stomach feels like a brick—a freshly made, tough-as-nails brick.
“Did you tell her what we do and all that?” I ask softly, just to start somewhere.
Granny beams at me. “I did. She knows all about how we hack and attack and fight crime. But first, she asked if we were the mafia.”
“We get that a lot.”
“I’m kind of right here,” Echo chimes in.
I still can’t look at her. I’m a little bit afraid to look at her. Like if I do, she’ll suddenly be more real, and by real, I mean more married to me. How the actual fuck can I be married? Real, stand up in front of a Justice of the Peace, say the words, and do the deed married?