Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 85342 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85342 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
“What happened?” I finally kick in and my father moans from beside me. His head goes back as he looks at the ceiling.
“Never ask what happened.” He shakes his head. “Rookie mistake.”
“I just got off the phone with my lawyer,” she states, looking at me, then at Max and my father, who is now pretending that he is reading the ingredients of the beer in his hand.
“Okay,” I say, still not sure why she’s all bent out of shape. She was fine when she left to go visit the girls forty minutes ago. “Wait, why are you calling a lawyer?” I ask, confused as fuck now. I sit up on the couch.
“I called him because I never got his bill,” she says, and all the men just shake their heads including me.
“Yeah.” I knew this was coming. I mean, in reality I was hoping she would forget all about it, but pick your battles. Or as my mother says, wait until the second shoe drops. News flash, it just dropped.
“Yeah,” she repeats. “That’s all you have to say?”
“Pretend your chest hurts,” Michael mumbles as he puts his hand to his chest. “I think something we ate is bad.”
“You, zip it.” She points at Michael, who pretends to zip his lips and throw away the key. “Did you pay my lawyer bill?”
“Yes.” I laugh and see the glare back. “But this was like a while ago.”
“What?” she shrieks, throwing up her hand. “Why would you do that?”
“Well, because you’re his woman,” Max now says like duh. “If he wasn’t paying it, I would have.”
“Just like that?” she says, and she looks at each guy who just looks at her.
“Just like that,” Michael confirms. “It is what it is. He’s your man, what did you expect for him to do?” he asks her.
“I expected to pay the bill myself since it was my court case.” She points at herself.
“That’s not how it was ever going to happen,” Dylan says and Wilson just agrees with him.
“Julia.” My father looks at her. “Honey, we take care of our women.”
“And when they don’t listen, we kidnap them,” Max says to my father.
“I didn’t kidnap her.” He smirks. “I tied her to the bed with handcuffs.” Michael and Dylan roll their lips, trying not to laugh. “She loved every minute of that.”
“Yup,” Wilson says, “time for me to go.” He shakes his head. “I never want to hear that my in-laws use handcuffs.”
“You think that is hard?” Cooper says, getting up. “Those are my parents.” He looks at our dad. “Never repeat that to anyone at any time. Ever.”
Michael and Dylan are next to get up. “Remember one year when we found those handcuffs?” Michael looks at Dylan, then to my dad. “You said you found them on the street and were going to return them to the police.”
“I lied,” my father says, getting up. “Your father stole my sister.”
Max just shakes his head. “Sure did.” He slaps my father on the shoulder. “I’m going to go steel her right now.” He laughs. “Remember when we were dating and you didn’t know and I had a hickey on me?”
“What the fuck?” Wilson says. “I’m never coming to any other family function.”
“You had a sex tape.” Dylan points at him. “Everyone saw your junk.”
“Get out,” Julia orders. “I need to speak to one man at a time, and when you are all together, it’s like you share a brain.”
She waits for everyone to leave before she looks at me. “You could have told me.” She turns and walks from the room and down the stairs to the kitchen.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I admit to her. I walk down the stairs looking around at everything she did in order to make this our home. The table at the door has fresh flowers she replaces every Saturday. The pictures of us taken during the years are scattered all around the house. The first picture we took together in Hawaii all those years ago in the middle.
“No, you’re not.” She snorts out, shaking her head.
“Julia, I don’t know if you know this or not, but I paid your bail,” I finally say and she looks shocked.
“What?” She hits the counter with her hand.
“Who did you think paid your bail?” I ask her and she throws up both hands, shaking her head.
“I was assuming Jillian, but I was so embarrassed I didn’t really want to ask.” Her voice goes low and now I walk around the counter to her.
Grabbing her by her hips, I pick her up and put her down on the island. Her legs open for me to step between them. “Baby,” I say softly, “I would have begged, borrowed, or stolen to get you out of jail.”
“I wasn’t your responsibility.” Her hands come up to my chest.