Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77959 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77959 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Chapter 11
WHERE ARE THE GIBLETS? WHAT THE HELL ARE GIBLETS?
FAWN
“Who’s going to cut the turkey?” Mom asks, looking between Levi’s mom and me. I shrug, taking a sip of beer, which I normally hate, but I need alcohol to get through today and there is no wine in the house.
“I think Levi should cut it since he’s the man of the house,” Lisa says, smiling at me, and I fight the urge to roll my eyes at her the way I would if my mom had just said the same thing. My reaction to her isn’t a surprise—after spending the day with Levi’s mom and mine I’ve realized why they were such great friends. They have the same personality, neither of them understands the meaning of boundaries, and they are both crazy as hell. I mean, they’re even wearing similar outrageous Thanksgiving-themed sweaters with sparkles and bedazzles.
“Oh, I love it, Levi and Fawn’s first Thanksgiving together. This is just too perfect.” My mom claps as she looks at me, smiling.
“Mom,” I warn—not that she’s paying me any mind. No, she’s been like this all day. Which means she’s in make-believe mom heaven, where Levi and I are past the point of dating and onto the baby-making part of our relationship and I’m planning on giving her ten grandkids.
“This is just so exciting,” Lisa gushes, looking at me. “You are so much better than Levi’s ex-fiancée. Ugh, I hated that girl.”
Um, what? I feel my eyes get wide, and my heart skips a beat as I stare at her.
“Levi was engaged?” My mom voices my question, and I wait with my fist clenched for the answer as I study Lisa, who is suddenly looking anywhere but at me.
“It was years ago,” she says, waving it off like it’s not a big deal when it most definitely is. Or in my head it is. In reality it shouldn’t even matter, since I didn’t even know him then and am just getting to know him now. “Let’s not think about that right now.”
“Right,” I agree quietly, knowing that’s all I’m going to be able to think about for the rest of the day.
“Now where are the giblets?” she asks, looking around.
“I don’t know, what do they look like?” I look around myself, wondering what the heck giblets are.
“They were in a bag inside the turkey,” she says, and my head flies in her direction.
“There was something inside the turkey?” I ask, and both sets of mom eyes land on me.
“You didn’t find them when you were stuffing the turkey?” Mom asks, and I shake my head no.
“Oh dear,” Lisa whispers, and I look through the clear glass door on the oven at the turkey inside—a turkey I stuffed myself, a turkey I’ve been basting off and on all day—and know instantly I messed up. Big. “Don’t worry, it’s fine.” She waves once more, and I can tell she’s fighting back a smile.
“You’ve been cooking the turkey with the bag of giblets inside it,” Mom says, fighting back her own smile.
“This isn’t funny.” I shake my head at the two of them as they smile at each other.
“It’s a little bit funny, sweetheart.”
I glare at them as they start to laugh. “I’ve ruined Thanksgiving. I can barely make mac and cheese, and you two thought I should be the one in charge of cooking the turkey.”
“Don’t worry, Levi can cook,” Lisa says through her laughter. “You won’t starve with my son around.”
“I tried to teach my girls to cook, but they never wanted to learn.” Mom smiles, and I look at the ceiling. She never tried to teach us to cook—she secretly liked us depending on her for sustenance.
“I’ll just take out the stuffing and get the bag out of it. Maybe it won’t be so bad,” I mutter to myself when the two women who were supposed to be teaching me to cook the damn turkey start to laugh again. “I don’t even know why you think this is so funny,” I growl, digging through a drawer for a spoon to scoop out the stuffing.
“What’s going on?” Levi startles me as he comes into the kitchen, and I feel my face heat. I wonder if his ex-fiancée did all the dumb things I can’t seem to stop doing. I doubt she did—she was probably perfect in every way.
“Nothing. Your Fawn is just funny,” Lisa says softly as Levi gets close to me, wraps his hand around my waist, and places a soft kiss to my forehead.
“What’d she do?” he questions, with a smile on his face that says, She’s always doing stupid shit, so what did she do this time?
“Nothing,” I cut in before they can tell him about my latest disaster. “Do you need another beer?” The guys have been over at his place most of the day watching the game, only coming over now and again to get food and beer that they stocked in my fridge while everyone else was watching the parade and walking around in Times Square, since Madeline has never been to the city before.