Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 83190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Laughing a little loud thoughtlessly happens.
“I want you to go because bonding with the team is important, not just for them, but for you. Yeah, they need to respect you and welcome you into the club; however, you need friends in town, Brendan. Support. People to be around when I’m working. Or when I’m out of town for work. Or just when I’m sick of your face and you’re sick of mine.”
“Never gonna happen, baby.”
“Fine, when you’re sick of only talking to the twins for two hours straight and need adult interaction that isn’t with the eighty-year-old nanny.”
“We’re not hiring an eighty-year-old.”
“Fine, eighty-one.”
“For cripes sake, we’re not hiring someone that old to watch our kids.”
“Well, we damn sure aren’t hiring someone younger than me.”
“Oh, come on, Harlow, that’s not fair. You’re ancient.” The age jab causes her to fling an empty can my direction. It’s easy to dodge and that simple fact seems to irk her more. “How about I shower off and join you for the next few seshes of What’s Cookin’, Good Lookin’?”
She excitedly nods, picks up a lemon pepper wing—my favorite—and rewinds whatever portion it is she just missed.
I casually stroll to our ensuite bath, grin growing wider and wider by the step.
I’ve got a great job.
Great home.
An amazing fucking wife.
Kids on the way.
Real friends in the making.
Who knew the play of getting a little too wasted in Vegas could lead to shit this fucking phenomenal?
I will say this though…There’s a tiny little voice in the back of my mind cautioning me to skate carefully.
To be aware that when a game’s going this fantastic it doesn’t stay that way.
That when your goals are this high and you’ve scored so well for this long, to brace yourself, not to take a midgame celebration shot because the worst penalties are yet to come.
I just hope we survive whatever relationship PK I know we’ll be inevitably thrown into in the coming months.
I just hope we make it through the shit in the one way it matters.
As a team.
Harlow
Margot releases a piercing squeak from her position on the opposite side of the kitchen island. “You’re acting like the toddlers you don’t even have yet!”
I drop my mouth in preparation of a counter to the statement but change gears mid thought to ask, “Ooo, speaking of, how’s the nanny sitch? Any prospects?”
“No.” Her hands lift to rest on her maroon dress pants covered hips. “You’re whole ‘not younger than me’ perameter make the task a tad more difficult than I assumed it would be.”
Yeah, Brendan thought I was fucking bullshitting with him about that.
I wasn’t.
Secure or not with my own shit, there’s no fucking way I’m letting some chick closer to his age, come up in our house, with her everything is where it’s supposed to be body and her let me take my top off to prove it to you while your baby sleeps attitude. Fuck that. Fuck all of that and the skates they glided in on.
I’m not looking to make my life any messier than it already is.
And it’s already a pretty big, industrial sized pile of bullshit.
How and why Brendan chooses to stay are questions that would keep me up at night if he didn’t fuck like a single guy fresh to the NHL with a line of puck bunnies just begging to be knocked up for a free ride.
Between his dick and his tongue, every night I’m home, I end up out like a rookie at his first training camp.
It’s glorious.
And shit I can’t stop bragging about to my besties.
“Back to the topic at hand,” Margot commands on an unhappy wave of the palm. “You are going to this event. It is not up for negotiation.”
Deciding to make a different play has me winding my Dalvegan green sweatshirt covered arms around the midsection it doesn’t cover. “But I’m-”
“No,” my best friend glares in disapproval, “you’re not faking sick twice in one week to get out of shit you don’t wanna do, Hennington.”
“Fine,” I plant my hands on the nearby counter, “but in my defense, budget meetings are one of the most boring things on this planet that they purposely fucking drag out and I know that because everything he had discussed during it was wrapped up in a short and sweet email, which had he just done to begin with could’ve saved us all some goddamn time. Time that could’ve been better spent tracking Tye Gray’s complicated status with the Camelot Cheetahs that does not seem to be improving.”
Frustration flares her hazel gaze at the time she squawks, “You’re fucking going!”
“You know, Cujo,” Brendan’s voice suddenly joins the conversation as he strolls into the space, “I don’t mind coming home to you being here, but I don’t love coming home to you barking at my wife.”
“And I don’t love having to bark at her like she’s seven instead of thirty-seven.”