Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 86126 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86126 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
“Okay, you know the rule,” I said, standing up.
The girls started to sing an old lullaby at the top of their lungs as I raced into their room and pulled a few plastic toys out of their extra full basket. As I dropped them into the tub, they stopped singing and cheered.
“You guys like it here, huh?” I asked, watching them play from my perch on the closed toilet seat.
“Yeah,” Ariel shouted, throwing her arms in the air. Diana copied her.
“The play thing has a rock wall,” Ariel told me, her eyes wide and excited.
“It does?” I gasped, leaning forward. “Is it hard?”
“It’s pretty hard,” she replied, nodding. “But I can do it.”
“Me do it,” Diana added.
“Mr. Bas helped Nana,” Ariel told me behind her hand.
“That was nice of him.”
“Mr. Bas is nice,” she said, swooshing a little plastic giraffe through the water. “Mr. Cian is nice, too.”
Diana muttered something unintelligible and dropped her little toy into the water.
“I like Uncle Titus best, though,” Ariel said easily.
I pressed my lips together wondering if it was weird that she called Titus her uncle. It had come naturally because that was what Flora and the other kids called him, but now that we were living in his house and he loved me, it felt a little strange. I thought about it for a few minutes while they played and eventually let it go. There was no way to explain it if I started making them call him something else when they called all of Otto’s other brothers their uncles too.
“Make sure you don’t say that to other people, okay?” I said softly, reaching over to brush her hair out of her face. “You don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, right?”
“Right,” she replied immediately. She looked up at me seriously and then smiled. “But I still like Uncle Titus best.”
We eventually went downstairs so I could finish dinner and found the men on the big couch, watching some kind of show about cars.
“That was some good singin’,” Bas said, looking over the back of the couch at us. “Loud.”
I laughed at the proud way Ariel grinned.
“I’m going to finish up dinner,” I announced, letting Diana down.
Instead of following me to the kitchen, they hurried toward the couch.
“Girls, come with me,” I ordered uncomfortably. If I was going to be cooking, I needed to figure out a system where they weren’t off bothering our roommates.
“They’re okay in here,” Titus said softly, raising his eyebrows.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
Titus loved me.
That night, dinner was pretty easy. Heather had been right when she said it was hard to find everything at first, but once I’d gotten the lay of the land I was able to whip up a batch of biscuits and then start the noodles. Whoever had stocked the kitchen hadn’t scrimped and I stood in the pantry for a full five minutes staring at the huge bags of flour and sugar and baking soda. There were canned foods and snack foods and cases of water, a huge roasting pan, bowls in every size imaginable—it was incredible. By the time I’d finished everything and set the table, the men and my girls wandered into the kitchen and found seats. Unfortunately, Diana screamed at the top of her lungs when I tried to put her in the high chair and as my face burned with embarrassment I eventually relented and let her sit at the table with everyone else.
“This smells fantastic,” Cian announced as he sat across from Ariel.
“Yeah, how come you’ve never cooked like this?” Bas asked Titus.
“My expertise lies in reheating frozen foods,” Titus joked, waiting for me to sit before he sat down, too.
“Biscuits?” Bas groaned, making Ariel giggle. “You made biscuits too?”
“They aren’t anything fancy,” I replied, reaching out to grab Diana as she tried to stand on her chair. “Go ahead. Dig in.”
Surprisingly, the guys helped put servings onto the little plastic bowls I’d found in the cupboards first, making sure Diana and Ariel had their food before they got their own. My eyes widened as Titus handed me his full bowl and stole the one sitting in front of me so he could dish up himself.
The guys were quiet as Ariel prayed over her dinner, and then the table erupted in conversation as they all started eating. There was something highly satisfying about watching people move in for second helpings of the food you’d made. I couldn’t take credit for the soup, but the twelve biscuits I’d made were gone before anything else.
“You haven’t seen The Little Mermaid?” Bas asked in disbelief, staring at Ariel.
“No,” Ariel replied, her mouth full of food. “What’s that?”
“It’s a movie.”
“Okay.”
“It’s a kid’s movie,” he said emphatically.
“Okay.”
“You’re named after the main character.”
“I’m named after somethin’ in the Bible,” Ariel countered.
Bas looked at me, waiting for me to correct her.