Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 154890 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154890 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” she asks a few minutes later, her tone now unsure. “Sunday lunch with your family. I feel like I might be intruding.” Her answer is a variation on a theme. I could type up her list of attempts to get out of coming today and have enough words for a dissertation. Or I could paint the excuses to canvas and make a show out of them. Bottom line? She’s tried really hard to get out of this.
“It’s not intruding when you’re invited.”
“Come on, this is awkward. You know it is. You only have to glance my way, and I blush today!”
This time, I give in to the urge to grin. “I know. I love it.”
“Your brothers are going to love it too,” she mutters.
“What?”
Her lips twist. “Really? That’s what you picked up on?”
“Can’t help you bring out the caveman in me,” I mutter. I stretch back in my seat. For the first time since I bought this car, it feels uncomfortable. Too close. Too confined.
“Just don’t go trying to drag me around by my ponytail,” she says, touching the top of it.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve left my club back at the cave.” I don’t need it. Threats are usually enough to deal with my brothers.
“I can’t believe we’re actually doing this.” She folds her arms, turning her attention back to the windshield.
“You saw Polly’s text. She doesn’t take no very well.”
“I know, but after what you said about her desperation to become a grandma, do you really want me there?”
“She’s not going to hold you down while I impregnate you on the dining table. She’s not that unsubtle.”
“Neither of us want your brothers to know about us, though.”
Weird. I find I’m not opposed to them getting the hint somehow. I don’t think she’d appreciate my attempts because I wouldn’t be too delicate about it.
“Maybe I should just text and say I can’t make it, last minute. You could drop me at a bus stop, and I’ll—”
“No chance. Besides, it’s no good texting back with an excuse. Polly’s notoriously bad for paying attention to her phone.” On purpose, mostly. “She will have already started cooking.”
“With three grown men at the table, I’m sure her efforts wouldn’t go to waste.”
“Five. Archer, Heather’s husband, will be there. Not that it matters because you couldn’t possibly put me in the situation of turning up empty-handed.”
“I’m not a bottle of wine. Oh gosh.” Her expression is suddenly stricken. “Wine. Or flowers? Whit, you have to pull over somewhere so I can get some chocolates or something.”
“There’s really no need. It’s just Sunday lunch. She does it at least once a month.”
“I’m not going to your mother’s house empty-handed!”
Fine,” I mutter. “There’s a florist back the way we came. I’ll just…” I flick the indicator and pull over.
“Thank you.”
I realize she’s twisting her hands, so I press mine over them. “Are you really that uncomfortable?”
“I feel like it’s a test I’m going to fail. You said your mom has… ideas.”
“Of me settling down, you mean?”
“Yes. It’s freaking me out. What if she picks up on something? Aren’t you worried Heather or El might say something to her?”
“Like what?” I give her hands a reassuring squeeze. Is the prospect of being tied to me so awful? “That I took you home because my idiot brother took a fancy to the waitress?”
“Server,” she corrects. “And Heather knows it didn’t go down like that.”
“Heather is a vault.” I move my hand back to the steering wheel. I don’t know who she thinks she’s kidding. How can she want to date other men when she was in such a strop this morning because she didn’t sleep in my bed? “Just don’t think you can get out of lunch. Polly will send out the flying monkeys to find you.”
“The flying monkeys? Like the Wicked Witch of the West? That’s an awful thing to call someone as lovely as your mom!”
“She’s certainly got some kind of witchy magic, but it’s me you should have pity for.”
“Because she wants—horror upon horrors—for you to be happy?”
“You won’t be singing that tune when she pulls out the baby photographs.”
“Oh, I will,” she scoffs. “I’d love to see some of baby Whit’s cutey patootie.”
“Why, when you have access to his grown-up… one of those?” Whatever a patootie is, chances are, I’ve still got one. “As for Polly being a witch, who do you think that makes captain of her flying monkeys?”
Hooking one hand into my armpit, I begin a terrible impersonation of an ape. Totally worth it to see her smile again.
“You’re crazy!”
I’m crazy something all right.
“Remember, don’t sit next to me,” Mimi says as I push open the garden gate. “And don’t sit across from me, either.”
I half lift my arm and sniff my armpit. “Why? Do I smell?”