Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 51122 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 256(@200wpm)___ 204(@250wpm)___ 170(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51122 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 256(@200wpm)___ 204(@250wpm)___ 170(@300wpm)
“Hey!” she cried out. “My phone. What if…”
I tossed her onto the bed, watching in satisfaction as she bounced twice.
“Do you want another baby?” I asked her.
Her eyes widened in alarm. “What?”
“Do. You. Want. Another. Baby?” I said more slowly this time.
She was already widening her eyes as she tried to deny it, but I knew better.
She loved being pregnant. Loved even more that I loved her pregnant.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I said as I ripped her pants off.
She squeaked as she started to turn over to get up, but before she could get farther than her stomach, I caught her up and pinned her to the bed with my body.
“No, Pace!” she cried out. “You’ll rip the sheets again with your prosthetic.”
When I had the blade on as I did today, there were times that it caught on the sheets and ripped them.
Normally, I would take it off. But I had a feeling that if I did, she’d try to take off on me.
“Fuck the sheets, baby,” I said.
Fuck the sheets indeed.
Twenty minutes later, we were lying in bed, exhausted.
“I can’t believe you did that to our sheets again,” she grumbled.
I twisted her so that she was facing me, and then curled my hand around her ass and said, “That’ll be a boy.”
She pinched my chest, right above a scar.
When I’d been blown up by that bomb, I’d had no clue what life had in store for me.
Ten years ago me wouldn’t have believed my luck.
My phone rang, and I got up.
Heading back to the living room naked, I came back just as I answered Viddy’s call.
“Everything okay?” I asked as I headed into our bedroom.
“He’s okay,” she said. “He has a brand-new ball and everything.”
With that comment and her subsequent hang up, I laughed.
Then I relayed the news to my worry wart of a wife.
“He better be here when this next one decides to come along,” Oakley breathed.
“He will be, darlin’. He will be.”
CHAPTER 8
Life’s perfect.
-Viddy’s secret thoughts
VIDDY
One year later
“Three babies by three different children,” Trance said bemusedly. “This is the best birthday present ever.”
“That it is, baby. That it is.”
I looked over at my husband with his three newest grandbabies in his arms and couldn’t help but send a prayer of thanks up to the man upstairs.
Who knew this would be my life?
Best birthday present ever, indeed.
TITUS’S CHRISTMAS WISH
CHAPTER 1
You said everything would be back to normal by June. Juleyed.
-Titus to Banner
TITUS
She’d aged well.
It’d been ten years since I’d last seen her, and not a one of those years had been unkind to her.
Blue was still just as short as she was in high school, but now she had an air of allure about her that sent my heart galloping twice as fast as it used to.
Ten years.
Jesus Christ, how had it been that long?
“What are we doing here again?” Slone muttered darkly. “I couldn’t stand these people ten years ago. I really can’t stand them now.”
“We’re here because you love me, and you want Blue to be my wife,” I whispered conspiratorially.
Slone rolled his eyes.
Banner, who had walked up behind me just as I’d said that, started chuckling.
“You couldn’t get her in high school, what makes you think you can get her now?” Banner asked curiously.
I’d have punched him straight in the balls had there not been so many damn teachers around.
Seriously, I’d been gone from the school for ten years now, yet being in the building again was bringing back that crippling anxiety one feels at the idea of being in high school.
I’d had a fairly decent high school experience…at least, if you didn’t count your best friend almost getting murdered by the school resource officer.
I’d grown a lot since I’d left the halls of Kilgore High School.
Yet, there was still that one constant.
Blue Spurlock.
She’d been the center of my teenage world and was still the star in my adult one.
No one compared to her.
And though there’d been a lot of time and separation between us, any time I came into contact with the girl—now woman—all those feelings rushed back to the surface.
“Let’s go over there,” I suggested.
“Let’s not,” Banner said as he walked toward the bar. “Let’s get a drink first. That way, I can have alcohol with the show that’s about to be put on.”
I flipped him off.
Banner grinned.
This was a guys’ night.
Slone’s wife, Ari, and Banner’s wife, Perry, weren’t here. They were at Banner’s brother’s home.
With both of them newly pregnant, neither one had any desire to come tonight.
I’d had no problem with that, though. It meant I got to spend some time with my boys, sans kids—even my own.
I loved Annabelle a hell of a lot, but there was just something about having an adult interaction without a kid that made me feel like I could breathe again.
Annabelle was the light of my life, but she was a handful.