Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 117820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 589(@200wpm)___ 471(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 589(@200wpm)___ 471(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
“We just need to somehow show her that we aren’t going to do either, that we just want to love and support her.”
Kane releases me and pushes a hand through his hair. “I’m gonna talk to her.”
All eyes, including mine, fly his way.
“Alone.”
David looks uneasy.
“Enough of this pussyfooting around her. She’s gotta listen eventually, it needs to be now.”
“What are you going to say to her?” David questions, trying to be a good protector of our child but I know Kane’s brute energy frightens him.
“What I say to my kid is between me and my kid. But I ain’t gonna threaten her or anythin’ like that.” Resolute, he cups my face with his hands. “Trust me?”
“With our kid? More than anyone.”
He kisses me and looks across the field then around the room. “Save your objections. Your way isn’t workin’.”
David holds up his hands. “Wasn’t gonna object.”
Kane dips his chin, looking so handsome and sexy and determined. Then he strides from the room and we all watch him conquer the length of the field with big steps, looking confident and willful. I keep my fingers crossed that Connie finally listens, just enough for her to let us in.
Connie
I hear his big feet before I feel him sit down beside me. I’m annoyed he is upsetting my moment but I don’t run, not again. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of thinking I’m a brat. He called me that the other day, I heard him. Said I act like a brat and then Immy said, just like you then.
Instead I scowl ahead and scowl deeper when his eyes hit my face and his lips twitch. He thinks I’m funny and cute. He said that the other day too.
“Why you throwin’ stones at open bars?” he questions, an amused lilt to his voice.
“Why do you care?”
He lifts a shoulder. “Guess I don’t. Was just curious about what’s goin’ through your head. Can’t be good things, not with you convincin’ yourself that you’re unlovable and your friends are unlovable. That’s not a nice thing to say about yourself, it’s especially not a nice thing to say about your friends.”
“It’s true. They’ve gotta stop gettin’ their hopes up. I’m sick of hearing them sob when it doesn’t work out right for them.”
Kane pulls on the end of my braid.
“Ouch.”
“You’re a cynical little git ain’t you.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means you don’t trust nothin’ or no one.”
I think on it for a moment and file that word away as my new word of the week. “What’s your point?”
He rests his hands over his bent knees and stares in the same direction I am. “You wanna know somethin’ about us kid? You willin’ to listen?”
“Do I gotta choice?”
He laughs and it kinda sounds like mine. I’ve been seeing a lot of things that remind me of myself in both of them since we met.
“When I was around your age, your momma in there was playin’ with her brother when I beat his ass and stole his bike.”
He said ass. That’s so cool.
“That’s mean.”
“Absolutely. And for years after I shoved her around, called her names, bullied her so bad.”
“Why?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know, I can’t explain it or excuse it, she just rubbed me the wrong way, bein’ all prissy and lovin’ God like she did with what looked like such a perfect family. I bet you know the type.”
Don’t I ever, I think but don’t say.
“My momma was not a good lady, and just like you I got it in my head that I was just as unlovable as she said I was.”
“She said that to you?”
He nods, his lips a flat line. “She said a lot of things to me that messed with my head before my daddy stepped in and took me away but the pain stayed, the betrayal stayed and I clung to it so tight I wore it like a second skin. I couldn’t understand why my momma didn’t love me but I thought it must have been somethin’ I did so I kept on making people think that, kept on treatin’ people like crap so that none of them would ever try.”
I look up at him into his eyes that are as blue as mine. “What happened?”
“Exactly what I wanted. I had friends but not many, my daddy was fed up, my step-momma was fed up. I stopped gettin’ invited to parties and everything I thought was true about myself came true. Nobody loved me, nobody wanted me. I was a burden and even though I brought it on myself I couldn’t break outta that cycle.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“So if you were so mean to my momma, how did you make me?”
He laughs like I’m hilarious and this time I don’t mind it. “Well I wish I could tell you, kid. Your momma saw somethin’ in me I was sure I had never shown her. She loved me regardless and hell if I didn’t love her too. She completed my world, made the most unlovable boy in the United States, become the most loved. Ain’t nothin’ she wouldn’t have done for me and ain’t nothin’ I wouldn’t have done for her.” He pulls on my braid like before trying to make me look into his eyes again. “So don’t you be telling me you ain’t loveable because I’m tellin’ you right now, if that lady can love me for me… she certainly can love you for all that is you.” He leans in. “Give me your eyes, little darlin’.”