Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 82060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Yes.
Seriously.
Darius had set me and Liam up.
I had fancy silver toothpicks for my drinks.
And a sophisticated martini pitcher and ice bucket.
And no, I hadn’t blinked before buying either of them.
“Holy hell, I’ll pour your damned drink,” I muttered, moving to do that.
Lena sunk into an armchair and accepted the glass I poured with a loaded, “Thank you,” and a side eye to Toni.
“Please, you two, let’s get along while I use you to hash all of this out,” I begged.
“You’re going to try to get him back?” Toni asked.
“That’ll take two seconds,” Lena said into her drink before taking a sip.
“I don’t think you’re right,” I told Lena as I sunk into my own armchair.
“Girl, he’s crazy for you,” Lena told me.
“I had occasion to be in his presence just a few days ago, and he ordered me out of his truck when I tried to talk to him.”
Lena and her false eyelashes blinked rapidly.
I needed to get an appointment for those semi-permanent falsies. They looked great. Mine were always detaching mid-day so I either had to rip them off or do a re-glue over the basin in the employee bathroom.
Not optimal.
“Where do you get your lashes done?” I asked my sister.
“There’s this place in Cherry Creek—”
“Hold up, hold up,” Toni interrupted. “Are we talking about lashes now? And not the Great and Twisted and Entirely Fucked Up Love Affair of Darius Tucker and Malia Clark, who all of us thought had an unhappy ending, which turns out might not be the end?”
“I don’t know,” I said nervously, rubbing my hands on my slacks and then reaching for my own martini.
“I say you go for it,” Lena chimed in.
“Liam told me that he was trying to get Darius to come clean and make a family out of us, but Darius refused to do it because, and this is Liam’s word, he thought he was unworthy of me…or something.”
“Huh,” Toni said.
Lena’s attention cut to her.
“He’s not unworthy of anything,” she snapped.
One could say, now that I was over The Great Deception (another such Great Deception I had committed myself, but we wouldn’t get into that), I was glad I didn’t have to clear the hurdle of talking Mom, Dad, Lena, not to mention Dorothea into not being mad at Darius and me for our, well, Great and Twisted and Entirely Fucked Up Love Affair.
“Calm down, sis. I didn’t say he was,” Toni replied to Lena. “I said ‘huh.’ That’s got a lot of meanings. And in this particular instance, my meaning was, ‘oh yeah, that tracks as to why he had his head up his ass for a long, long, long fucking time.’”
Lena sat back, crossed her arm along her belly, rested her drink elbow on it, and murmured, “Well, all right then.”
I put my drink down and clapped. “Can we focus ladies?”
Toni looked at Lena. “Did she just clap at me?”
Lena looked at Toni. “She did. And she clapped at me too.”
Oh my God!
Someone kill me!
I collapsed back in my chair.
“The drama, Malia,” Lena grouched. “Really, just tell the guy you want to work things out. I don’t know what happened in his truck, but he’s head over heels for you.”
Still in a slouch, I tried to reach my martini.
I should have put it on the side table.
I had to curl up, grab it, but then I slouched right back.
“I’m not sure he’s over his father’s murder,” I noted.
“Well, duh,” Lena said. “You never get over that. But I bet if he finally had his woman and his son under his roof, that’d help.”
I bet the same thing.
“What’s holding you back, sis?” Toni asked the pertinent question.
She didn’t let me bat it away either. She kept at me.
“You love him. He loves you. You both love Liam. All that was keeping you apart isn’t there anymore. He lied to you. Clearly, you’re over it.”
“As she should be,” Lena cut in.
Toni threw her a look and came back to me. “So why the hesitation and the big show of martinis with the girls when you already know what you’ve got to do?”
“Because what if…”
I couldn’t finish it.
“What if, without the obstacles and the danger and the history and the bullshit, you two can’t hack it together?” Toni asked.
“Yeah, that,” I said weakly.
She looked to Lena. “I see she forgot her big speech to me on my wedding day.”
“I still don’t know what she said,” Lena replied.
“In a nutshell, woman up,” Toni told her. “I was being a wuss. Go be with the man I love and make a life with him.”
Lena turned her attention to me. “Right. Do that.”
“Easier said than done,” I muttered and sucked back some martini.
“You know, I know you all think Kenneth’s touched,” Lena declared.
Toni ducked her eyes.
I grew fascinated by a plant in the corner.
News: Lena married Kenneth.