Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 67490 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67490 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
I nodded as I leaned against the counter next to the grill. “That’s cool, I guess. I’ve never really done the golf thing before.”
“Why not, it’s fun?” Quaid asked.
I shrugged. “My dad didn’t allow us to do that kind of thing when we were younger. Then I went into the military, and golf never really became a hobby while I was doing that, either. Then I came back after I got out of the military and immediately started working with the circus and my sisters… and there was just never any time. Plus, I think you need to have some sort of control and patience to play golf… of which I have neither.”
There was silence, long and loud, and I looked toward the six of them to see them staring at me like I was a poor, pitiful creature they’d just been presented with.
I hated being looked at like I was pitiful. Ugh.
“Why are you all looking like that?” Ande asked as she came out onto the green, stopped next to the bright pink ball that Quincy’d been using, and kicked it across the green on purpose.
“Hey!” Quincy cried out. “I was winning!”
“You were cheating.” She rolled her eyes.
“Cheating is literally sometimes the only way that you can move forward in life,” he countered. “Which you would know, since you cheated all through high school.”
“I didn’t cheat!” she said. “That was Addison!”
They all laughed, and I had a feeling they knew something I didn’t.
“What am I missing here?” I asked.
Germaine brought his golf club down, and gently swung the club so that the ball would land into the hole about four feet from him.
Except, at the last minute, Ande stuck her foot out and stopped it before it toppled in.
“Ande Paige Carter, I will knock some sense into you!” he growled.
He didn’t make a move, though.
Ande didn’t move away, either, knowing that her dad was all bluster.
Her brother, on the other hand, waited for her head to be turned before he started for her.
And, as if she sensed his movement, she moved so that I was between her and her brother.
I didn’t move, and Quincy sighed, throwing up his hands. “I wouldn’t have hurt you… too bad.”
A skinny hand reached around my torso and extended out as far as possible, middle finger up.
I caught that skinny hand and curled my fist over it. “Okay, so what’s the cheating story? Because you definitely have me curious.”
Quincy walked back across the course to where his ball was, but Germaine filled me in in the interim.
“Ande was better at taking tests than Addison was. Addison knew the material, but she just couldn’t produce the same results during tests. So, from the time they were like sixteen on, Addison and Ande would switch on test days. Addison would do Ande’s homework, and Ande would take both tests. We didn’t know this until well into their senior year when both girls were in the running for valedictorian. Ande was pissed because she felt she deserved to win. Addison pointed out that she did all their homework. And eventually, they both started doing their own work, and both of them fell to the point where they weren’t in the running for valedictorian.”
“It was mutiny in the Carter house,” Quincy said as he made to lunge toward Ande who’d slowly crept out from behind my back.
Of course, in the instinct to bolt, she showed how clumsy she was and tripped over her own two feet in her haste to get out of the way.
She would’ve gone down, too, but I caught her and propped her up against my side.
Quincy laughed and sank his putt.
“We graduated second and third in our class. We were tied for points and everything.” Ande smiled sadly. “I miss the hell out of her.”
Then her eyes went far away, and I saw her head drop.
I pulled her into my arms, one bicep going over her face when she buried her head into my armpit.
Quinn and Quaid replaced their putters in their bags before hauling the bags to the room beyond the putting green.
Gable, Garrett, Auden, and Atlas did the same, leaving Germaine and Quaid.
Taking a long breath as she calmed herself, she turned so that her face was outward.
Germaine smiled sadly, then said, “Do you mind?”
I released her to her father’s arm, and Quaid jerked his chin for me to follow.
I did, waiting for him to drop his own bag into the room before he said quietly, “I don’t know what to say to her.”
“I don’t think you can say anything at this point,” I admitted as I stuffed my hands into my pockets. “Just being there helps.”
He murmured something before catching the door to the kitchen.
I followed inside to find all of the brothers gathered around the large bar.
I took the only remaining seat and said, “It smells delicious in here.”