Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 137310 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 687(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 458(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137310 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 687(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 458(@300wpm)
“Babe,” he said quietly, “it’s gotta get done.”
He was talking about the fact that he knew what her mood was about.
He’d told her he was riding back up to Denver with Dutch and Jag on Wednesday.
“I know,” she mumbled.
“Snap’s in to help renovate my place,” he reminded her. “He texted today and said Hound’s already been over there to start gutting the kitchen.”
Her eyes rounded in surprise. “Really?”
“Hound likes to destroy shit.”
Her mood shifted again as she started laughing.
“Earned yourself a Club name,” he muttered, loving the fact that she had down to his bones.
Both Georgie and Archie started calling her “Blue” the minute they hit her pad that night when they all met up to go have something to eat before the gig.
Her mood entirely shifted as she beamed at him. “I’m official.”
“Already were, baby,” he murmured.
That bought him a kiss.
He gave that back before he ended it and rolled her this way and that to turn out the bedside lights.
He was tired, he’d come hard, and they had a big day the next day. They had to get some shuteye.
They cuddled front to front, like every night. Though, he usually shifted, and they woke up with her tucked to his back, or sometimes, she shifted, so he was curved to hers.
But they started connected and ended connected.
Every night.
Hugger didn’t think about it, not once, not since the beginning.
Because this was Di.
So he didn’t think about it then, when he felt her drift asleep in his arms, and he followed her.
And he didn’t think about it hours later, when he woke, curled into her back, holding her close.
That afternoon, Hugger pulled himself out of Nolan’s pool, shook the wet from his hair and grabbed one of the thick beach towels from the stack that had been put out so he could towel down.
He then walked to the gigantic cooler filled with beer and helped himself to one.
He twisted the cap, tossed it in the trash bin sitting near, and turned to take in what was happening in the pool.
There was semi-loud music playing, and thankfully, it wasn’t ambient. To fit his generation, and theirs, Nolan had set the music to nineties grunge, which worked for both.
Di was riding a pool noodle wearing a sweet red two-piece that had a halter top with a little ruffle, and it plunged way low in the front showing a good amount of her tits. The pants came up high at the waist, had some gathers at the belly and showed nice ass cheek.
It was sexy as fuck.
They’d hit the mall that morning and got him some extra-long board shorts in army green. Di had wanted him to buy a red pair, but he wasn’t a red guy. Now he was glad he pushed back on that, or they’d match, and that’d be goofy as shit.
But he reckoned this was why she pushed for the red, so they’d be goofy, she’d be cute, at the same time a pain in his ass, something he also found cute.
Mel, Charlie and Georgie were riding noodles too. Bernie was sitting next to Nicole on the edge of what Di told him was called a Baja bench in the pool. The women all had melting frozen drinks in their hands in fancy, but plastic glasses and they were forming a huddle.
Jagger appeared to be asleep on a float that looked like a massive pillow. Dutch and Gerard were in the lounge chairs set on the Baja bench, drinking beers and rapping. Pete was completely conked under a lounger at the side of the pool, and he had company. Shannon was reading a romance novel in the lounger next to Pete’s.
So, yeah.
Another plus for Phoenix, that view right there.
Larry hadn’t come. He apparently was all in for Diana to have her family around her, so Nicole had shocked the shit out of both Di and Hugger when she showed, but it’d probably take a while before Larry was fully down with partying at his wife’s ex’s house.
Said a lot about the man that Nicole was there, though, just as it said a lot about Nicole.
Grudges will fuck you up, it was best to avoid them.
Though, Hugger hoped Di kept hers against her mother for the next twenty-five years.
When he heard the door open behind him, he turned and watched Armitage stroll out.
The man looked to the pool, his face went soft, then he looked to Hugger and came his way.
He got his own beer and stood beside Hugger.
“You’re not a man to mess around,” Hugger noted, tipping the neck of his beer bottle to the pool.
“It would appear you aren’t either,” Armitage replied, then took a drag from his beer. “Diana tells me you’re moving down here.”
“Yup.”
“That’s quite a sacrifice,” Armitage remarked. “Takes you away from your family.”
“My brothers will get it. And Di doesn’t live in New Zealand.”