Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 95295 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95295 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
“I am, and then I’m going to leave,” she confirms. “So it’s silly to introduce me to your son. Which, even if I wasn’t leaving, would be nuts since I’ve known you for three days.”
“But you’re family,” I point out, “so you’ll be there for Sunday barbecue, and you’ll be there for the Christmas Eve celebration.” Her eyes look shocked. “You can’t think that you’ll be in town and my uncle, grandparents, and cousins would leave you by yourself.” I shake my head. “There is no way in hell.” She doesn’t even try to argue with me because she knows it’s true. “I’m going to get Colson, and then we will swing by and get you. All he is going to know is that you are a family friend, and we leave it at that.” She stands there looking at me, thinking about how to turn me down. “You have thirty minutes.” I don’t give her a chance to change her mind or come up with another excuse. Grabbing my jacket from the floor, where it fell when we were frantic to get each other naked, I put it on. “Be good, Sweetheart.” I look at her standing there watching. I wink at her before I walk out of the door, going to my truck, and pulling out my phone at the same time. I dial Patricia, who answers after one ring. “Hey,” I say, “just got in the truck.”
“He’s ready on the couch,” she replies.
“Be there soon.” I hang up the phone and make my way over to my ex-wife’s house. Patricia and I met in high school. She was my high school girlfriend, and we were madly in love with each other. Fast-forward, we married at twenty and had Colson right away, but we grew into two different people. We grew apart, and in order not to end up hating each other and making each other miserable, we did the most responsible thing as adults—we split up. Colson was two at the time, so he didn’t even notice. Now we split him half and half, one week on, one week off, but if he wants to come to my house when it’s Patricia’s week, he comes, and when he wants to go to her house when it’s my week, he goes. We’ve never used him as a weapon against each other.
I pull up to the house my parents gave us when we got married. A house that she paid me for when we got divorced. A house she now has a family in, including two other children with another man, a decent man. He’s a deputy and works with my grandfather. The whole front of the house is decorated for Christmas, and the front door opens as soon as I open my truck door. “Dad!” Colson shouts, running down the stairs wearing jeans and a T-shirt with his jacket on. “I’m ready.”
“Hey, kiddo,” I say, hugging him and kissing the top of his head. “Where is your bag?”
“I’m going to come back here tomorrow after school. Finny,” he says of his little brother, “has his Christmas play.”
“Okay, let me go and talk to your mom,” I tell him, and he nods as I walk up the three steps and knock on the door before it’s opened.
“Hey, sorry,” Patricia says, holding on to her one-year-old in her arms. “I was feeding Meri,” she says of her daughter, “and your son just skyrocketed out of the house.” I smile at her. “I just wanted to remind you that we are taking off on Christmas Day.” I nod. “If it’s still okay, we are going to go stay with Eric’s parents.”
“Sounds good. I’ll get him Christmas Eve, and we can do gifts Christmas morning, then I’ll drop him off.”
“That works.” She smiles at me. “Have fun today.”
“We will,” I assure her, turning and walking down the steps and heading back to the truck where Colson sits in the back, his seat belt already on.
“You ready?” I look over my shoulder, starting the truck and pulling out of the driveway. I wait until we are on the way before I speak to Colson. “So you know Sofia’s husband, Matty?”
“The hockey player?” he asks me, and I nod. “He’s sick. I watched the highlights this morning, and he did something with the stick and the puck, and you didn’t even see it go into the net,” he gushes over Matty.
“That is him.” I look in the rearview mirror. “Well, his sister came to stay for a couple of weeks, so I invited her to come with us today.” I watch to see if he’s going to have a reaction, but he doesn’t.
“Cool,” he says, totally unfazed by the fact I’m bringing a woman with us, maybe because she’s family, I have no idea. He’s never seen me with a woman before. I vowed I would never introduce him to anyone I didn’t see a future with, which has been no one. Until now, which is a catch-22 since she is leaving in two weeks.