Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 135522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
I stop stroking his hair, surprised.
That was the night I said to him—
“I heard you,” Noah tells me. “And I love you, too.”
Epilogue
Noah
“Lord help us all, this unfathomable summer heat!” groans my mom in despair as she fans herself over the snack table. “All my chocolate Doug Bugs are meltin’!”
“They still look cute,” I say from the other side of the table.
The half-eaten one in my hand looks adorably cross-eyed. My other hand is shielding my face from the sun. I’m still waiting on Cole to arrive. He’s been held up at work for some reason, though that reason seemed vague. Wait, did he even give me a reason?
“Darling, I told you it’d be better to keep them inside,” says my dad, interrupting a chat he was having with Cole’s father to come up to the table. “Nadine has got all that counter space in the house, and these would go great with Jacky-Ann’s milkshakes.”
“But it’s the Fourth of July, sugar booger! It’s an outdoor event! Everyone’s out here! Not in there!”
“I know, muffin baby, but chocolate’s no match for the sun whether it’s got a cute ol’ face on it or not.”
“Gosh dang it, honey bunny, I think you’ve got a point, and I hate it.” She sighs. “Well, help me take ‘em in, then, will ya?”
“Sure thing, sweetie-poo.” The pair get to work bringing in all the trays of chocolate Doug Bugs back into the Strong house.
Nearby, Cole’s parents Lauren and Robert observed the whole exchange. “Is that the secret to a happy marriage?” teases Robert with a beer in hand. “Exchanging saccharine pet names?”
“If you ever call me a sugar booger or sweetie-poo, it’s over,” says Lauren.
Then the two look at each other.
And burst into laughter.
I guess it’s safe to say that therapy has been doing them well over the past several months. Though I would be remiss not to attribute some of Mrs. Harding’s improved state of mind to her mended friendship with my mom. Of course, I happen to be seeing her on a good day, and I know through Cole that his dad still has a lot of work to do on himself, but it’s encouraging to see the two of them laughing and smiling at each other.
Even if it’s a tiny bit at my parents’ expense.
That’s okay; my mom would probably have laughed, too, then made a jelly-filled “sugar booger” Bundt cake in honor of them.
When Mrs. Harding recovers from her laughter, she meets my eyes, then gives me a little wink.
I wink right back, then smile.
It seems like over the months, she and I have formed this kind of odd yet endearing wordless relationship with each other. She winks at me. I wink back. It’s like a love language. And this comes from the guy who doesn’t do vagueness. She expressed how much it means to her to see her darling Cole happy again, and somehow, she totally and completely blames me for it.
That’s something I don’t mind being blamed for at all.
The truth is, we love our parents and the family we’ve created in bringing us all together. Yes, sometimes my parents cramp our style when Cole and I try to enjoy some alone time at my house, and my dear mom suddenly has a middle-of-the-night “tasty new addition to the Jiggle-Wiggle family” she wants us to taste. Or my dad asks Cole if he’d like to hear the latest exciting happenings in Windville—to which Cole is always compelled to say, “Of course, Mayor Windville! Lead the way!” And though we do eventually get to enjoy our time alone together, my house is beginning to feel smaller and smaller by the day.
But that hardly compares to the cock-blockage at Cole’s.
It seems like nearly three times a week that Anthony shows up unannounced to give Porridge her “overdue lovin’ n’ snuggles”, he calls it. Half the time he’s drunk, won’t leave, and eventually crashes with us, usually after a slurred soliloquy about how we’re his best pals in the world. Cole’s Nan woke up once in the middle of the night to find him on the couch as silent as a stone, with his mouth wide open and tongue hanging out, and kicked him just to check if he was dead. Porridge, who was usually found sleeping atop his legs, would just pop her sleepy head up.
No matter where Cole and I are, we’re surrounded by family and loved ones.
And while that’s amazing most of the time, it has inspired us to engage in some entertaining pastimes, one such pastime being looking at houses for sale, pretending we have the income to buy one, then fantasizing about what our life can be like living alone together. “Is it too soon?” I asked him one time as we drove back to my house. He quirked an eyebrow and shot me a look. “Don’t you mean, ‘it can’t happen soon enough’?”