Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 122219 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 611(@200wpm)___ 489(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122219 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 611(@200wpm)___ 489(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
She scowled before walking out of the store with her dog. I was almost certain she’d tell her friends how short and snappy I’d been. Then word would spread through the small town about how I was the mean Kingsley sister, the one people avoided like the plague.
Whatever. I didn’t care what people thought of me. At least, that was the lie I liked to tell.
Yara turned toward me with her kind smile. My sister was the master of kind smiles. She was probably the favorite sister in town. Willow would’ve been tied with her if she ever stayed in Honey Creek long enough to interact with others. Instead, she was always hurrying off on some wild adventure.
Yara walked around the counter to join me on the other side, and I smirked a little at her growing stomach, almost forgetting how annoyed I’d been. Yara and Alex were expecting a baby in a few months. My favorite little family. Alex and Yara defined opposites attract, and they worked out. His grumpy mixed so well with her sunshine.
Yara stood in her overalls with her natural hair in two big puffs on top of her head, looking as cute as ever, but I couldn’t let her cuteness distract me from my bad mood. “I hate him,” I continued.
“You hate all men, so I’ll need you to be more specific about which man you currently hate,” she quipped.
That was no secret to anyone, really. I did hate all men. Sure, Wesley was one of the good ones, but at the end of the day, he was still a walking dick. And walking dicks always had a small chance of dicking a woman around. Even the good ones.
Exhibit A: Drew.
“Nathan,” I said.
“Nathan who?”
“What do you mean, Nathan who? My Nathan. Well, not my Nathan, but that Nathan. Nathan Pierce.”
Her eyes widened as her jaw dropped. “You interacted with Nathan Pierce?”
“Yes.” My pits sweated just thinking about it.
“After working so hard to avoid him?”
“Yup. It’s even worse than that. Ray hired Nathan to be a coach for the baseball team with me.”
“No!” she exclaimed, shocked like no other. I was thankful she was as flabbergasted as I’d been. If it wasn’t for her animated reactions, I might’ve thought I overreacted.
“Yes!” I said, tossing my hands up in the air. “And! Not just to be a coach. The head coach!”
“Nooo!” she shouted. She then began wiggling her hips as she crossed her legs. “Oh my gosh, I just peed a little.”
“Yeah, I pretty much shit myself when I heard the news, too.”
“No, I mean, I actually just peed a little. It’s been happening on and off all day.”
An alarm shot through me. “Uh, do you have to go to the bathroom or something?”
She waved it off. “No. I’m wearing a pad. It’s fine. Keep going.”
Pregnant Yara was wild. Yet I didn’t want to stop my freak-out over the fact that Nathan somehow weaseled his way into my job and took my position. Like the little snake he’d been.
“I’m so mad.” I sighed. “Ray told me either I step down to assistant coach and let Nathan run the team for this season or he’d have to let me go from the team altogether.”
“Can he do that?”
“Yup. That isn’t in my teaching contract. He could cut me from the team without a second thought. He also told me I was being childish, so I told him to suck a cock.”
“Avery, you didn’t!”
“No,” I groaned. “But I wanted to. I can’t believe this is happening. These kids and this game mean everything to me, and to have Mr. Major League sweep in and take it without a moment of hesitation just seems so wrong.”
“Well, look at it this way. His knowledge will benefit everyone. It is about the kids, right?”
I narrowed my eyes at her with a disgusted look. “Whose side are you on?”
“Yours, obviously. Always yours. Screw Nathan Pierce. Sorry. Pregnancy brain has me saying bizarre things sometimes,” she joked.
“Right. Okay. Good. Because if I’m going to be delusional with my anger, I need you to be on the same page.”
“Yeah, of course, but…”
“But?!”
“But,” she continued, “last week, you did say that you wished something would give with the team. So you could make them the best they could ever be. This could be your gift from the universe.”
“Nathan Pierce? A gift? Psh.” I waved in dismissal. “You’re sounding a little too hippie-like. Have you been hanging out with Willow?”
“She did bring me a special tea blend this morning,” she mentioned, speaking of our free-spirited little sister. Willow Kingsley was the opposite of me. Where I walked on solid ground, Willow floated high in the clouds. The perks of being the youngest child. They seemed to have a lot more freedom with life than the eldest.
“But I do stand by what I said about the gift from the universe,” Yara said.