Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 88078 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88078 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Keller was acting like a pod person had stolen his body. Shane ignored me. Sage was still worried I wouldn’t pick her up from school. I wasn’t sure that Gavin was talking as much as he should be.
And I was pregnant and too sick to even make it to the toilet to vomit.
It was too much. I felt like I was slowly unraveling.
I took a deep breath as I heard Shane talking to the boys in the kitchen and pulled one of the hand towels off the rack to dry my face.
Nothing would get done if I hid in the bathroom, and I had no idea why Shane was even home. I needed to get myself together.
I walked back into the kitchen to find Gavin and Gunner just finishing up little cups of yogurt and Shane pouring himself a cup of coffee. Damn, that coffee smelled good.
“Sent Keller to his room,” Shane told me softly, handing me the cup of coffee he’d just poured. “You wanna explain what that was about?”
“Pancakes,” I replied bitterly, pulling a package of wipes off the counter so I could start cleaning the boys’ hands and faces.
“I didn’t mean—”
“You can’t do that stuff, Shane,” I cut in as I helped Gavin out of his seat. “That’s why Keller acts like that. I mean, we all know you’re the boss, okay? We all know. But every time you bitch at me because one of the kids is throwing a fit, they think they don’t have to listen to me.”
“I don’t—”
“You do.” I picked Gunner up out of his high chair, and he snuggled his face into my neck, obviously still a little overwhelmed from all the noise.
“I’m their dad. They should come to me.”
“I’m not saying they shouldn’t—” Dammit, my eyes started filling with tears again, and I cursed the stupid pregnancy hormones racing through my body. “I’m saying that you keep undermining me, and now Keller thinks he can boss me around like I work for him or something.”
Gunner wiggled to get down, and I set him on the ground so he could crawl into the living room where Gavin had turned on some cartoons.
“You treat me like shit, Shane.”
“No I don’t! I barely fucking see you.”
“Exactly! You barely say a word to me unless you’re asking me to do something, and anytime I’m disciplining the kids you step in—”
“They’re not yours to discipline,” he stated flatly, making me suck in a sharp breath.
“You’re right. I absolutely had no right to send Keller to his room for being a demanding little brat.”
“Don’t call him a brat.”
“If it looks like a brat, and talks like a brat, it’s usually a brat.”
“You couldn’t just make him some fucking pancakes?”
“Are you shitting me right now?” I hissed, stepping forward. “I don’t mind making Keller pancakes! If he’d asked, I probably would have said, Sure, baby, you want some chocolate chips in those? But he didn’t ask. He demanded pancakes.”
“He’s four.”
“He’s five. And he knows better than to talk to adults like that.”
“You’re blowing this out of proportion,” he said dismissively, turning back to the coffeepot to get his own cup.
“So it’s okay for him to hit me? Is that what you’re getting at? Give him what he wants so he doesn’t throw a huge-ass tantrum?”
“I told him he shouldn’t have hit you—that’s why he’s in his room right now.”
I sat down heavily at the table and rested my tired eyes on the heels of my hands. Shane wasn’t hearing me. He was so fucking wrapped up in his own importance, and he couldn’t even see where I was coming from. “What are you even doing home?”
“Got let out early since it’s Friday and there wasn’t shit to do,” he answered, coming to sit across from me at the table.
“Okay, well, I’m going to go say good-bye to Kell before I go.” I stood wearily from the table.
“We need to talk. You got a few minutes before you leave?”
“Yeah. Let me go check on Kell first,” I replied, turning toward the stairs.
I hated stairs; they seemed to mock me and my lack of energy.
When I got to Keller’s room, he was passed out across the foot of his bed. Throwing the gigantic hissy fit must have worn him out—either that or the hissy fit had been because he was so tired. God, I missed the sweet little boy who thought I was God’s gift to nephews.
“He’s asleep, exactly what I’m going to be the second I get home,” I informed Shane as I made my way back into the kitchen.
“You look like you’ve lost weight,” he said out of the blue.
“I probably have. What did you want to talk about?”
“Can you still stay with the kids while I’m on deployment?” he asked nervously.
“It’s a little late to be asking. What if I said no? You have like three weeks, Shane.”