Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 73043 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73043 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
“Is anything easy worth it?” I asked cautiously.
“Taking a nap is easy,” she said. “And naps are always worth it.”
She had me there.
My lips twitched.
“Scoot over.”
She frowned. “I don’t know you.”
I shrugged. “I don’t think I’d be in your house right now if I wasn’t a person that was supposed to be here.”
I mean, I had to pass by at least twenty fucking bikers to get in here…
She nodded. “Mommy wouldn’t have let you in.”
I agreed with a nod. That had been true, too. I’d been documented by no less than thirty women, too. Including this one’s mother.
“Fine, I’m Ashe,” she said, scooting over. “Do you know how to play?”
I tilted my head up and down once. “I do.”
“Then show me what you got, because I’m this,” she held up two fingers about a quarter inch apart. “Close to quitting. I might as well play soccer if it’s going to suck this bad.”
I would’ve held in the laugh if I could have.
But I couldn’t.
It just burst free before I could try to choke it back.
“I’m glad someone finds my life amusing,” she grumbled.
Apparently, the life of an eight-year-old forced to play the piano was not an easy one.
“I know you can’t hold your hands quite like I do yet, but when you get older, and with more practice, you’ll find that you can,” I said.
Then I proceeded to teach her the basics. Something in which she’d likely already learned if she was taking lessons as she said. But, you had to have a solid foundation to be able to build on it.
So that was where I started.
“Wow,” the girl breathed. “Can you play faster?”
I grinned. “Can I play faster?”
I then proceeded to play “Great Balls of Fire” by Jerry Lee Lewis and thoroughly impressed my student.
As well as the audience at my back that showed a few notes into the song.
***
Janie
My eyes followed Rafe’s progress around the room, and toward the sound of the piano playing, and I grinned.
“I know that look.”
I looked up to find Tru staring at me.
“What look?” I teased.
“The one where you look like your heart is walking around this room, and you want to go find it,” she said. “You look like you’re in love, honey.”
“I am,” I admitted. “But…I’ve always been in love. With him. At least for the last couple years since I could understand what love really was.”
“So, this is him.”
I looked over at Sebastian’s wife, Baylee, and grinned. “This is him.”
“He really is a lot older,” she surmised. “But he’s cute. And that graying thing he has going on is hot…just like mine. I swear to God; the first time Sebastian saw that gray in his beard he freaked. Your man looks like he rocks it, though.”
Rafe really did.
Though most of his hair was still jet black, a few bright and shiny strands at his temple and top of his head were coming out. His beard, though? Yeah, that thing was rocking the gray beard hairs like crazy.
It was hot as hell, I had to admit.
And there was something to be said for an older man seeing as Rafe knew exactly what to do…
“Older men are better, in my opinion,” Sawyer, my grandfather’s wife, said with a smile, echoing my thoughts. “They know how to do stuff more…efficiently.”
“Grosssssss,” my stepmother, Shiloh, cried. “I do not want to hear how efficient my father is!”
Everyone burst out laughing, as they always did when this came up.
“I agree,” Sebastian came up to Baylee’s back and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, pinning her to his body. “Where’s this Rafe character? I feel like he’s been gone too long. We didn’t scare him off, did we?”
I pointed in the direction I’d seen him go and then saw Sebastian’s eyes narrow.
“What’s he doing back there?”
“Bathroom?” I suggested teasingly.
“Hmm,” Sebastian grunted. “Guess we’ll have to check on him to make sure he didn’t fall in.”
Then he started to walk away while calling out for Torren in the next moment.
I sighed and started to follow, shaking my head at the two of them as they moved.
“Sometimes I wonder if y’all are actually grown men,” I called to their backs.
Torren threw a grin over his shoulder at me.
Then all words were halted when we arrived in the hallway to hear a little girl’s laughter, followed by Rafe’s deep worded reply to that laughter.
“What the fuck?”
Torren sped up and came to an abrupt halt at what he saw in the room.
Sebastian stopped shoulder to shoulder with him, and I had to squeeze through shoulders and arms to see, too.
And what I saw was quite honestly amazing.
Rafe was showing the little girl a few things with the piano. A note. I wasn’t sure because I had no clue what all that gibberish was about.
“Wow,” the girl breathed. “Can you play faster?”
Rafe grinned at the young girl. “Can I play faster?”