Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 79509 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79509 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
“I’m gonna miss it.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re gonna miss making me pregnant is what you mean…”
“No. I’m gonna miss both.” I watched Derek talk to Dex like we weren’t there, talking about the different kinds of fish in the lake and how deep the water probably was at the center. “Derek is already ten…time goes by so fast.”
“They’ll always be our children, no matter how old they are.”
“I know.” Dex said my name in a different way than Derek did, and I got attached to that quickly. And hearing a beautiful little girl call me Daddy…would probably kill me. If she looked like her mother, I wouldn’t be the disciplinarian like I was with the boys. It would just be too hard to say no, not to give her everything she wanted.
Cleo turned back to the boys and watched them, loving them equally like they were both her biological kids, like she’d carried Derek to term even though another woman had, a woman we hadn’t heard from in years. Distance made her move on, made her call less, made her start over with a new family…until she seemed to forget Derek entirely.
But Derek was fine—because he had Cleo.
She was a better mother than Valerie had ever been.
The first time he called her mom, she cried.
She turned back to me. “Should we head back in the morning? I’m sure there’s a lot sitting on your desk right now.”
I was just as dedicated to my work as usual, but my priorities were definitely different. Being a father to three and a husband to one made me realize my happiness was just as important as the data sheets on my computer. “Let’s stay another day.”
“Yeah?” she asked, smiling.
“Yeah.” Derek was out of school for the summer, and Cleo was on maternity leave. I was the only reason we had to leave. But I blew off work…because I’d rather live in these moments as long as possible.
“Good. Because I don’t want to leave…maybe not ever.”