Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 76075 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76075 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
“You called her your neighbor?” I asked, a smile growing on my face.
He shrugged. “Yeah. That’s what she is.”
I burst out laughing, and his ears tinged pink. “What was I supposed to say?”
“That your cousin’s wife went into labor and that you were reluctant to leave your cousin who was freaking out,” I suggested.
“I wasn’t freaking out,” Hoax denied.
Bayou leveled a look on him. “You were freaking out. You were also hyperventilating, and I was honestly worried about you driving.”
Hoax opened his mouth to deny that fact when he changed his mind and snapped it closed. “I can’t wait to see your face when you have a kid.”
Bayou crossed his arms over his chest. “I refuse to have any. I don’t want to pass on any of my” —he directed his hand back at himself— “issues.”
Dad, who’d been listening with half an ear, focused on him fully.
“Issues?” he asked.
“Issues,” Bayou confirmed.
He didn’t expound, which was the reason my father had directed his question toward him in the first place. They were in some weird stare off where Bayou waited for him to ask a question that he felt like answering, and Dad waited for more information that he wasn’t going to get.
In the end, I turned to Bayou and said, “From what I understand, the ‘issues’ you speak of aren’t really ‘issues’ but ‘idiosyncrasies’ that you don’t let control your life. You’re doing better than ninety-nine percent of the population with what you perceive as issues but really aren’t. You’ve overcome, adapted, and done well for yourself.”
He didn’t reply.
I looked up to find my dad winking at me.
Dad remembered everything. He wasn’t oblivious to my fascination of a young man at two parties when I was fifteen and sixteen. I didn’t pull anything over on him. Ever.
My mom? Yeah, I could do almost anything and get away with it from her.
She just wasn’t as observant as my father.
“What way did they decide?” Hoax questioned, stretching his arm up high over his head.
I returned a smile to my father and stood up, the bundle in my arms making a protesting sound when he was jostled with my movement.
I walked up beside Bayou and pointed to the hand sanitizer on the wall. “You forgot to clean your hands.”
He walked to the wall and squirted some into his hand, going all the way up to his forearms with the liquid.
“They decided to continue funding the prison despite the city’s desire to quit,” Bayou said as he readjusted his watch on his wrist. “The city wasn’t happy with the decision, by the way. They also weren’t happy with my decision to go over their heads when I didn’t like their answers.”
“Good,” Hoax muttered. “I don’t understand their reasoning for wanting the prison gone, anyway. The prison was here before we were. It’s like asking someone to move a road because it’s too close to your house.”
I walked up beside Bayou and said, “Here, hold him.”
“No, no, no.” Bayou shook his head vehemently. “I don’t want…”
I thrust the baby into his arms, and he froze.
“Really, I don’t…”
I walked away and grinned at Hoax who was smiling like a loon now.
“What’s wrong, Bayou?” Hoax teased. “They won’t break.”
“It’s not that I don’t want them to break,” he murmured, looking down with wide eyes at the baby in his arms. “It’s that I don’t want to fuck it up.”
The rest of his words were said under his breath, making it almost impossible to hear him.
Hoax must’ve, though, because he walked over to his cousin’s side and squeezed his shoulder.
“Now that you’ve held the baby,” my mother said from her position beside Pru. “You’ll want one of your own. It’s biologically coded into your genes,” my mother teased. “It’s called baby fever.”
Bayou scoffed. “Even if I wasn’t worried about other things, I don’t have time for a kid.”
“You never have time for a kid,” my father said, walking over to Bayou. “Switch me.”
Bayou switched with him, and the new baby in his arms opened his eyes.
“He has your eyes, man,” Bayou muttered almost to himself.
“Yeah,” Hoax grunted. “For now. I’ve been told they’ll change.”
“Fifty percent chance,” Bayou said just before his watch beeped. “I have to go. If I don’t leave now, I’ll never get any of my work done today.”
He walked over to where I was standing and handed Dean back to me, looking so relieved to be rid of the baby that I nearly laughed.
“I’m assuming you won’t be at work?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I’ll be there. As much as I’d like to stay here until they wonder if my sister and I are in a polygamous relationship with Hoax, I do have to pay bills. I have mouths to feed.”
He frowned. “How many and what kind of mouths?”
“You only thought I had a zoo,” Pru laughed, wincing the moment she did and placing her hand to her abdomen. “And you agreed to allow her to move into your rental.”