Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 68576 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68576 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
“Hey,” I said to him, looking warily. “I need a favor from you.”
Garrett raised his eyebrows. “What is it?”
I gestured to my car, then inside, “Can you come inside and let me explain? I want to tell it to you and Atlas at the same time.”
Garrett fell into step beside me, and instead of knocking at the front door of Atlas’s house, he walked right inside.
We were greeted by a ton of toddler laughter.
Garrett and I made eye contact, and we pushed farther into the house.
We followed the sounds of toddler laughter, and the deeper laugh of the father, to the back door.
“Quincy is so going to kick your ass,” Garrett mused.
Atlas whipped his head around to see the two of us standing there.
His features, which had been tight a moment before, softened.
“You came,” he said to me.
I nodded. “I had a few issues.”
My gaze went to the back yard, and I frowned. “Are those raccoons?”
“They are,” Garrett chuckled. “Probably the ones that keep going through Quincy’s trash, too.”
“If he put it into a normal trash can, it wouldn’t matter. But he keeps putting it beside the back door because he’s too lazy to walk outside at night to put it into the trash can,” Atlas pointed out.
“Yeah, you can’t do that,” I said. “We used to live out in the country, too. We’d feed our outside cats, and if the cats didn’t eat fast, they’d get kicked off their food bowls by the racoons.”
“What are your issues?” he asked as he stood up, bringing Forest with him.
We all walked back into the kitchen as the oven dinged, indicating something was ready.
He opened the oven door to reveal spaghetti.
Garrett grimaced and looked away.
“You don’t like spaghetti?” I asked.
“Hate it,” he grumbled. “It reminds me of blown up brain.”
I gagged. “That’s gross.”
“It’s accurate.” He shrugged.
“Garrett,” Atlas grumbled. “Why are you still here then?”
“This one asked me to come inside,” he gestured at me. “Said she had a problem she needed my help with.”
Atlas spared me a glance as he dished up the food for his son, who was still on his hip.
The domesticated way he was taking care of his baby and providing made certain places inside of me sing in rejoice.
Why was a man providing so sexy?
And why the heck couldn’t we have figured our shit out before this new development arose?
Mostly, I started feeling bad for myself because I’d wanted him for what felt like forever. Now, when he was finally starting to be nice to me, and maybe sharing some of my own feelings, his world had been turned upside down.
There was no way on God’s green earth that I was going to push a relationship with him now.
I was going to be perfectly respectable.
I was going to be the best friend ever to him.
I was going to be a Monk… Nun?
Thoughts morose now, I looked around for a spot for Forest to eat and found a bunch of encyclopedias to stack on the chair closest to the wall.
He gave me a thankful nod and placed his son on the books before placing the food in front of him. “This is hot. You have to be careful. Watch.”
He picked up a bite of the food with a small baby fork, then blew on it.
Forest watched intently, then snatched the fork from him and blew on it.
It had all of one piece of meat on it after his exuberant snatch job.
He took a bite and said, “Yum.”
Again, my heart did that melting thing.
Plates for the adults were made next, and Garrett sat down, enjoying spaghetti even though he’d previously told Atlas he wasn’t hungry.
I studied the youngest Carter.
He looked… haggard.
If we’d had a better relationship, I’d have asked him what was wrong.
But we didn’t have that kind of relationship.
Hell, even Atlas and I didn’t have that kind of relationship.
“So what happened now?” Atlas asked, sounding hesitant.
I think it would be great if Walmart added an upper level observation deck.
—Pepper to Atlas
ATLAS
I was almost terrified to hear what she was about to say.
After the week I’d had…
“So I got home—to the hotel—today, and a bellhop that I know really well from the night shift stopped me. He pulled me to the side and said that he’d overheard a conversation today between the manager and a police officer.”
I waited, knowing this had to do with Sage now.
“So he told me that the officer explained that one of the manager’s employees was distributing drugs from their room.” She stirred her spaghetti around on her plate, looking frustrated and lost. “So I went up to my room and cleaned out my stuff. I took everything, and then quit on the spot.”
My brows rose.
“I’ll be moving into the apartment above the bakery,” she finally looked up and stared at Garrett. “That’s where you come in. I think I might need you to use your dog to see that she didn’t already plant the evidence.”