Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 74916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Brady didn’t.
“Okay.” Letting out a breath, I shoved my phone back in my pocket. “All yours.”
Bates finally chuckled. “I should’ve known our date wouldn’t be traditional.”
Our day at the Air and Space Center had been amazing and anything but traditional. But I’d been hoping the rest of it would go smoothly…I should’ve crossed my fingers or knocked on wood.
I tried not to roll my eyes but they had a mind of their own. “I should’ve known better than to leave Gareth and Brady alone without supervision.”
“What did they do?” Bates reached out and grabbed his water, taking a sip as I sighed. “Come on. Your phone has been going off like crazy for the last twenty minutes.”
It was ridiculous.
“First of all, Brady made sure I knew he’d waited and waited before texting me.” That had Bates snickering. “I know. But evidently, after we left, Brady asked Gareth why he wasn’t jealous.”
It might’ve been more convoluted than that, but it seemed to be what it boiled down to.
Bates pinched his lips together and nodded. “That must’ve been an interesting conversation.”
Oh yeah.
“Gareth was helpful, but now Brady wants to know all kinds of things.” But he would have to wait or I’d sic his mother on him. “But he’s going to be patient while we enjoy the rest of our date.”
Or day together?
At the very least, he was going to wait while we enjoyed an early dinner. Bates had picked a great little seafood restaurant, probably with Gareth’s help, and I wasn’t going to let Brady ruin it.
“I’ve certainly enjoyed it so far.” Bates reached across the small table and took my hand. “But I have to admit to being very curious…and I can’t help wondering what Jude will think of the questions too.”
“Ugh.” That sounded stressful. “You can deal with him. I’ll take Brady and I’ll make sure Gareth knows to watch him better.”
For some reason that made Bates laugh and shake his head. “You guys are great.”
I was pretty sure that was a polite way of saying we were insane, so I just ignored it. “Alright, before we were interrupted you had a question?”
I just couldn’t remember what we’d been talking about that led up to it. Brady was distracting as hell and he’d scrambled my brains.
But my reminder had Bates going quiet and he looked down at our hands. “I was actually going to ask about Gareth’s past since he’s not here, but now I’m wondering if that would be inappropriate.”
He seemed to forget who he wanted to discuss.
“It’s Gareth we’re talking about. His level of inappropriate would be something completely insane. Me telling you about his past wouldn’t even begin to approach that level.” He wouldn’t even understand why it was an issue. He’d made it clear Bates was family and that was it in his mind.
As Bates laughed, looking less worried, I shrugged and tried to explain. “Besides, he’d say that you’re family and wouldn’t understand why you shouldn’t ask about something you were curious about.”
Gareth just might not understand how to explain growing up with parents who kept forgetting he existed.
“Then he’d try and bribe me with a…reward.” Bates’s leering grin said he was thinking something wicked. “Okay, I won’t get stressed over it.”
Glad I could make the nosy Dom happy, I had to laugh even though the subject wasn’t very pleasant in itself. “Good, Gareth wouldn’t want you to get stressed if he wasn’t here to fix it for you.”
That got another wicked laugh from Bates before he settled back in his seat, barely caressing the tips of my fingers. “You took care of him a lot, didn’t you?”
It wasn’t where I thought he’d start, but I nodded. “Yeah, my mom wasn’t as bad as his but neither of them really wanted to be parents. It was more about playing house and his mother just seemed to be the type to put her doll down and walk off.”
Bates winced. “That’s…”
As bad as he was imagining.
“One of my earliest memories is Gareth coming over to play and him saying his mom had left him alone. We weren’t even in kindergarten yet.” I had a vague memory of her running errands but it might not have been connected. “She and my mom wanted to do everything together, so she’d gotten pregnant too. She just didn’t know what to do with him after he was born. So my dad raised us like brothers.”
I couldn’t give him a lot of credit because he’d checked out once we were old enough to take care of ourselves, but that seemed to be more about the issues in his marriage than us. “And I took care of Gareth and he took care of me. He describes it as me being the parent, but it wasn’t like that. If I had problems with homework or something like that he’d help, and if he needed help, I was there.”