Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 75248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
We’d kissed just a handful of times and, truthfully, what we had resembled more of a friendship than a romantic relationship.
With my mind on other matters, I pulled into her driveway and immediately pulled Nathan out of the truck to set him free.
He walked to the closest tree and proceeded to pee on it.
“That’s not fair,” Hannah said with a laugh in her voice. “We can’t do that.”
I looked at Hannah and her daughter, and I smiled.
“No, you sure can’t, can you?” I asked, tweaking Reggie’s nose, causing her to giggle in the sweetest little voice I’d ever heard.
“Don’t do that, Wolf!” Reggie growled. “Or I’ll sic my Uncle Michael on you!”
I snorted and ruffled her hair. “We wouldn’t want that, now would we?”
Reggie shook her head, face serious. “Of course you wouldn’t.”
Grinning at Hannah, I turned to survey Nathan’s whereabouts before gesturing to Hannah to let them play.
Hannah placed Reggie on her feet, and she immediately ran to her swing set.
“Push!”
Nathan, of course, did all he could to push her, but all he did was manage to get her forward momentum going enough for her to come back and knock him off his feet.
Laughing my ass off, I walked to him and dusted him off, dropping down on my haunches to stare into his tear-filled blue eyes.
“You’re okay,” I told him.
He nodded. “I’m okay.”
My heart clenched.
His father, my best friend since I was in grade school, was shining out of his eyes in that moment.
“I love you, boy,” I told him.
He beamed at me.
At four years old, he was small for his age.
But his father had been small his entire life.
His kid was just like him.
“I love you too, Wolf,” he told me somberly, tears still staining the tips of his lashes.
I grinned at him, my heart clutching slightly in my chest just like it always did when I saw him.
Nathan knew I wasn’t his biological father.
I’d made it a point since he was small to tell him who his real father was. To tell him what a good man Garrett Cox had been, and what he’d done to change my life.
Nathan knew almost all there was to know about his father. The rest of the stuff, the good stuff, I’d wait to tell him until he was a lot older and could handle the stories—both good and bad.
“Go play, buddy. We’re gonna leave soon, so you better get it all in now.”
He nodded his head at me, then disappeared around the side of the play gym. A monster three story affair that Michael, Hannah’s brother, and I had put up two months ago.
It was just about as good as it got for a kid, and I knew he wanted his own.
Something I planned on giving him soon—if I ever found the spare time.
“I need to tell you something,” Hannah said softly from my side.
I gave Reggie a push and backed up until we were under the shade of a tree just to the right of the play gym.
“What?” I asked, keeping my eye on Nathan, who was now climbing arm over arm to the top of the rope that was dangling the length of the play house.
“I’m…we’re…,” she hesitated.
I looked over at her with a raised brow.
She blew out a breath.
“I’m not feeling you and me anymore,” she blurted.
I grinned.
“You’re not feeling us?” I knew where she was going.
Relief poured through me knowing I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.
“Yes,” she blew out a breath. “I…I’ve met someone…and I’d like to pursue something with, um, him.”
“Oh, Jesus,” I said, a smile on my face. “You’re dropping me like a hot potato, aren’t you?”
I’d stolen one of Reggie’s lines, and Hannah’s relieved smile let me know she understood me.
“I am,” she confirmed. “This thing we have between us, it’s good. But Wolf, I think we both know it’s just a friendship. I needed that friendship, and I still do, so I really hope that it will continue. It’s just…I want to find someone who’ll give me tingles.”
My brows rose. “I don’t give you tingles?”
Starting toward her, she held up her hand in worry. “You give me tingles. Just not the kind of tingles that lead to good things. Your tingles are more of an itch.”
I snorted.
“Are we still going to go to the zoo next week?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Yes.”
“Nobody’s going to understand that we’re just friends if we keep hanging out with each other,” I noted.
She shrugged. “If they don’t understand now, then they eventually will when we start seeing other people.”
I sighed.
“So, who is this man that you have the hots for?” I questioned my friend.
She grinned. “You wouldn’t know him.”
“Try me.”
“Okay.” She backed up. “I don’t know who he is. I’ve only seen him around town.”
My brows rose.
“Now you really have me curious.”
She blew out a breath.