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)
That’s how I feel right now, being the center of some very unwanted attention. When I chose right now to come over and demand a divorce, I had no idea the house would be full of people. Yes, I can do my research, but it seems I got a little bit ahead of myself.
“Shit, fuck, mother fucker of a pickle, you bastard!”
I freeze at the stream of cuss words coming from somewhere else in the house. The voice is all soft and feminine. It can’t be the old lady. It just can’t be.
“Granny, are you okay in there?” one of the guys calls out, though not the one that looks most like Orion. It’s another guy with a huge beard.
“I’m good. Just had a flour explosion,” the voice calls back. “You’ll all have your cookies, don’t you worry.”
It was totally the granny swearing like a sailor. Gah, I think I might be in love with this family.
Not really. I’m kidding about that.
Orion rests his elbows on his knees and stares at me hard like he’s trying to figure out if I’m really here or if I’m a hologram conjured by technology he doesn’t quite understand yet. I know for a fact that my lawfully wedded husband doesn’t get stumped by technology very often. Since our wedding day—okay, so it was technically three in the morning at a twenty-four-hour chapel—I’ve learned a thing or two about Orion Von Rippenstein, other than that his real name is so much more exciting than Cody Grosseldorfbiscuithopper.
That literally might be the best fake name on the planet, so imagine my surprise when I found out his real name actually topped it.
“Married?” the guy who is Orion’s twin brother asks. “How could you forget to tell us you were married? That’s like…that’s like ordering anchovies on pizza and ‘forgetting’ to inform everyone else because you know you’d be voted down because it’s hecking gross.” He glares at the guy with the beard. “That’s like not cleaning out your fridge for four months and finding something crazy nasty growing its own science experiment at the back because you forgot that fridges should be cleaned once in a while. That’s like—”
“I think you had better explain.” That’s stated with forced calm by the guy sitting beside the lady with the baby. He might be looking at me, but he chucks the baby on the chin like he’s petting a puppy, and awwww, that’s for sure his kid. The look of extreme love on his face, combined with all the protective dad expressions in existence, confirms it.
“Twookies!” the baby screams, clapping her chubby hands.
The baby’s mother bends over and coos softly at her, making the baby give off a lovely and adorable bubbly laugh.
“Wait, I know! Let me take a stab at it!” Orion’s brother suddenly comes to life. His face gets animated, and when my eyes flick to Orion, I can see him shriveling into the couch.
“No!” A guy with black wavy hair and the blackest eyes to match thrusts out a hand. “I don’t think you should take a stab at this. I have a much more logical explanation. The only time someone could get married and not remember is, let’s admit it, in Vegas.” Collective groans and sighs and a gasp fill up the room. From the kitchen, something clangs, and then there’s a wet slurp of a sound, and we all freeze.
“You buttshalumugous, I’ll show you who’s boss. You think you can whip butter onto the walls? Oh, you have a thing or two to learn. Either you start mixing right, or your ass is in the trash, my friend. In the trash, I said!”
The women in the room seem to be much more relaxed, and they smile and laugh. The guy who was giving his best shot at a marriage theory ignores the interruption and keeps going.
“It was at my stag last year when Azalea and I impulsively decided to tie the knot all over again because why not? We were literally destined for each other from birth and brought together by wild schemes, kidnappings, and moving a whole family and life to another country to hide out in the woods and be super, ridiculously happy together. So why not make it doubly official? You were all nice enough to drop everything you were doing and come down for it. Maybe it’s not a good idea to have a stag the night before one’s wedding, but when has this family ever heeded conventional good advice? That would be never. We were all letting off a bit of steam and probably had a few too many drinks. Annndd, Orion disappeared out of nowhere. We looked everywhere for him, but come on, it was Vegas, and the hotel was huge.”
I decide to cut in because, so far, he’s absolutely right. I nod and start by saying, “Props to you. That’s exactly when it happened. Unless there was another Vegas trip that I didn’t know about. So, there I was. I found myself in Vegas, also for a friend, but unfortunately, the groom-to-be ended up sleeping with said friend’s best friend, which, thank goodness, wasn’t me, and the whole thing got called off as it turned into a raging mess. I went down to one of the hotel bars to have a drink to get away from the chaos, and after a few drinks, in walks this guy. He didn’t look like any guy I’d ever seen before. He was taller and broader than a grizzly and was…well, he was a big guy. The kind of guy you notice.”