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)
“Pool. Yes!” he decreed, heading back for his shirt.
He stopped to tap one of the bald-headed men doing push-ups on the head before continuing on toward his shirt.
“I’ve never seen a kid approach Thuy like that,” Germaine admitted. “Kid has balls.”
“He’s my kid. Of course he does.” Atlas chuckled.
Forest came back, shirt on backwards and inside out, and held his hands up to Atlas.
No longer was I the favorite.
I kind of loved that a lot.
Atlas had him in his arms as he asked, “What’s the plan for the rest of your day?”
I shrugged. “I thought I’d go to the chicken place that shall not be named,” I admitted. “When I was done with that, I planned on using the pool for a bit. Helping him learn how to swim some more.”
Atlas looked over at his child.
The one who went nuts over Chick-Fil-A.
The first time we’d given it to him a few weeks ago, he’d acted like he’d never been before. Now he wanted it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
And asked for it… a lot.
Since I happened to love it myself, I chose to indulge both of us for lunch.
“He’ll like that,” he murmured. “I’ll see you in a little bit, buddy. Okay?”
“’Kay!” He threw his arms around his father’s neck and squeezed.
Atlas’s eyes closed, and the silent man at my side said, “Best fuckin’ feeling in the world.”
I looked over at him. “What?”
“Having your son love you.”
A pang of longing hit me.
Yeah, I bet that was the best feeling in the world.
I was in such a good mood after picking Forest up from daycare that I never expected to run straight into the psycho coming out of Chick-Fil-A.
There were eighteen freakin’ Chick-Fil-As in the DFW area, and she happened to be at the one that I would frequent in Sunnyvale?
Doubtful.
Forest was busy playing with his book, talking up a storm, when we came face to face with Sage.
“Well, well, well,” Sage drawled, her eyes intent. “Look who we have here. Does Emory know you’re playing mommy?”
I tried to go around her, but she stepped in my way, stopping my forward progress.
My phone rang, and I ignored it, too intent on dealing with the bullshit in front of me.
“I’m not comfortable speaking with you,” I said carefully.
“Well, that’s too damn ba…” she started, but like a freakin’ avenging angel, Auden swooped in and planted himself in front of me and Forest.
Thank fuck.
I nearly dropped my head on the spot between his shoulder blades as he said, “I think that you might need to go, Sage.”
“I’m not hurting anyone,” she argued.
I looked over to see Maven waving her hand at me wildly.
I backed up and went back into the restaurant, breathing a sigh of relief when Maven caught up to me. “I hate her.”
“I hate her, too,” I grumbled. “When did y’all get here?”
“We were in the bathroom. We came from Dallas, and I was dying.”
“Oh,” I said. “That’s good. I’m glad that you were here. I can’t deal with her. She makes me nervous when I have Forest.”
More than nervous. As if there was a bomb waiting to go off when she was around.
“I guess you’re lucky that you didn’t run into her before now.” She looked past me out the window. “What’re the odds that she shows up at this Chick-Fil-A?”
“That’s what I thought!” I agreed.
I glanced over to see Auden walking back inside, Sage storming off through the parking lot to her car—a new car I hadn’t seen before.
Auden walked up to me and snatched Forest from my arms, bending over and blowing raspberries into his neck.
“Stop! Stop! Unca Daddy!” he cried.
That was new, too.
Last week, Forest consistently started to call Atlas Daddy instead of ‘peas offer.’
The next day, he’d called Auden Uncle Daddy, and we’d all had a good laugh.
From then on, that’d been what Auden had been referred to.
I was so focused on Auden, Maven, and Forest, that I didn’t see the woman coming up behind me until she was all the way past me.
“Oh, isn’t this rich?” Emory said as she came into the middle of all of us. “Just one big happy family with a stolen child.”
Forest, with his scared little eyes, all but disappeared into Auden’s solid frame.
Anger at the way Forest reacted upon being faced with his mother had me fuming.
“What the fuck?” Emory sneered. “Let me see him!”
Auden turned so that his body was shielding Forest, obviously seeing what I saw.
Maven stepped in front of Auden, blocking both with her angry form, leaving me to move around the two to head toward Forest.
“Let me have him,” I said softly. “Can you help deal with that?”
I knew that Atlas wouldn’t agree with my entertaining her in any way, and Auden was a whole lot more competent seeing as he was a police officer—and in uniform at that.