Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 77793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Whatever. My own hand works just fine.
And I am not thinking about my hand and myself right now during a family meeting with my brothers and Granny present.
Shudder extraordinaire.
“Granny, you aren’t…please tell me there isn’t anything wrong with you,” Ransom begs, getting everyone back on track.
Maya clasps the front of her adorable yellow dress with red hearts all over it and looks at Granny. “Gwanny?” she asks in her perfect, sweet, baby voice.
“Awww, my heart,” Lennox exclaims, clutching at his chest.
Atlas sniffles. “I think I have something in my eye.”
Sniffles. Major sniffles. All around the room.
Granny cuts that right off at the pass with a throat clearing and one of her pointed Granny stares shot nowhere in particular. It somehow seems to catch all of us even without her looking directly at any of us. “There’s nothing wrong with me, but you all might not see it that way. I know you’ll think I’ve gone senile or that I’ve finally lost my mind for good this time, but that’s not the truth. Seeing so much love around me, I guess it softened my resolve to spend the rest of my life alone, fighting crime. I’m still going to fight crime. I just don’t know if I want to do that alone. I mean, as a single person. So…no, I’m not sick, and no, there’s nothing wrong with me beyond what you’ll all agree is the usual, and that’s said under the context of me being a particularly strange old woman when it comes right down to it, strange even as strange goes. I’m not dying, and nothing’s wrong with the business. No one’s tracking us down, and no one is onto us. We’re all good. It’s not bad news. It’s just…I suppose I haven’t had my head in the game over the past few months, and I have to apologize for that. I would never endanger anyone, but I’ve had some other things on my mind. Things I didn’t have room for before.”
Atlas practically vibrates with high energy while the rest of us are puzzled, trying to figure out just what exactly that means. “Oh my god, are you getting a puppy?”
“Yeah, Atlas, I’m getting a puppy.” Granny lets out a hoot of laughter. “A seventy-year-old man-puppy who happens to be called Bartholomew.”
Lennox looks befuddled. “That’s a strange name for a dog.”
“What’s a man-puppy?” Atlas asks Victoria. She gives him a look that says he’s an adorable dolt, but she’s completely head over heels in love with him anyway. “That’s a strange way to refer to a male dog.”
Are we talking about dogs?
I finally say something because I feel like I have to. I’m not usually the silent one in the group. Besides, my twin needs me to step in, and the twin code means not leaving the other one hanging out to dry when one can take down the laundry and fold it up neatly. “We’re talking dog years here, right?”
“I think it’s a cute name,” Ransom adds, but he sounds unsure, as though we might not be talking about dogs.
Lennox turns to Cass like she can offer some clarification. “We are talking about a dog, aren’t we? Why do I get the vibe that we’re not talking about a dog?” Cass just bites her lip to smother a smile and refuses to say anything.
I think we all come to the same conclusion at the same time, but before we can say anything, Granny beats us to it. “We’re not talking about dogs. You boys are brilliant hackers, but sometimes, I wonder. You’re giving me a hard time, aren’t you? Putting me on?” No one says anything. The room gets suddenly hot and uncomfortable. “I met someone! I met someone months ago, and yes, it was an online thing, but now I think I’d like to meet in person. There will be no ass-kicking, and no, he doesn’t know what we do or who I really am. Yes, I was ultra-careful, and no, maybe I don’t want to spend the rest of my life alone. Mhmm, I’m very happy—not that I wasn’t before—but there’s always room in my heart for a little more happiness and a little more love.”
“Whoa, mic-drop right here,” Victoria announces and giggles. It’s clear she knew we weren’t talking about dogs all along.
“Pheeeewwwww, mindblown,” Azalea adds, doing the whole head explosion thing with her hands.
Ayana just sits there, grinning and bouncing Maya calmly on her knees because, yeah, she probably knew what Granny was talking about the whole time, and Cass finally lets loose with her own smile beside Lennox.
Apparently, he’s literally not going to take that sitting down. He leaps up, breathing heavily. “You’re seeing someone? Over my dead body.”
Alden, who is generally the calmest one of us and perfectly suited to bush-living long before he did it because he has the temperament of a patient owl combined with the gentleness of a rabbit—maybe those are his spirit animals—makes a down boy motion with his hands. “In our line of business, that could be arranged,” he says with more than a little bit of snark in his tone.