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)
CHAPTER 16
Echo
I did it. We did it.
No, not that kind of doing it. Well, maybe that kind too, but I’m talking about spending the night. I wake up with a smile and not a heart attack. It’s so early that when I check my phone, I realize I beat my work alarm by a few hours, which is a good thing because I plan on calling in sick due to lack of sleep and extremely sore, pleasantly sated muscles. I’m kidding. That’s not my excuse. Sick is good enough. I know no one will question me because I haven’t called in sick there, ever. It won’t look suspicious that it’s a Friday, and people do that all the time to give themselves a long weekend.
Echo Field doesn’t do things like that.
Echo Field also doesn’t spend the night with her husband, wearing out her previously only slept-in bed because her whole life was extremely boring, and she had no idea just how much until things got changed up by one Vegas visit.
Orion is asleep on his side. I’ve spent the past five minutes since I woke up shimmying out from under his arm while trying not to wake him. I move slowly, slipping my feet out of bed and letting the rest of me follow. But I do look back since I can’t help myself, and when I see how peaceful he looks asleep, my heart makes an awwwwww sound in my chest. He’s adorable, even though he snored in my ear for parts of the night when we actually slept.
I’m exhausted, and I wasn’t joking about being sore, but this is the kind of sore that gives a person a special kind of glow. I feel glowy, at any rate. And that trace of light in the bedroom? I swear it’s not the hall light. It’s all me. I tiptoe around the room, smiling like a goober since it’s totally the light from the hall, but I feel really good anyway. I throw on a pair of fuzzy blue pajama bottoms with bright pink pugs on them. And yes, I’m well aware pugs aren’t supposed to be pink. That’s why I bought them. Because they’re awesome. I throw on an old black tank top, then slide my phone off the nightstand and creep out of the room, closing the door soundlessly behind me.
In the kitchen, I quietly make a pot of coffee. I’m getting ready to call in sick to work—I have to coach myself on what to say beforehand since I’m a terrible liar when it involves something like this—when a soft knock stops me mid-dial. I set my phone down before walking over to the door.
The only person who could be knocking on my door so early is Mrs. Johnson. I worry about her, and at her age, I doubt an early morning knock means she’s having a can I borrow a cup of sugar emergency. Then again, she could be making cookies at five in the morning. I suppose that’s as good a time for delicious cookies as any.
I don’t check the peephole because I’m so sure it’s her that I nearly fall over, straight onto my face, when it isn’t her at all.
No, the tall, curvy blonde on the other side of the door looks like an older version of me.
“Mom?” I gasp, blinking hard, sure that I’m currently seeing things, and at any minute, she’s going to morph into Mrs. Johnson.
Maybe calling into work sick is legit because I appear to be hallucinating.
“Hey, baby!” She opens her arms and rushes at me. I’m too shocked to move and get out of the hug zone, so she sweeps me up in a huge bear hug that feels completely foreign. She might as well be an alien dropping down from space in the body of my mom.
The last time I saw her, I was seventeen years old, and I can’t remember how many years it’s been since she hugged me. How old was I? Fourteen? Fifteen? Younger than that? I can’t remember.
“What…what are you doing here?” I stammer when she steps back.
When I said she looked like an older version of me, I should have said she could pass for my older sister. Time has been kind to my mother. Time and some work, perhaps. She’s hardly got a wrinkle on her face. Her eyes are just as blue and bright, her hair just as platinum blonde as mine. Her body is toned and curvy, and she’s sporting a bright pink mini dress and a black cardigan that doesn’t button up around her ample chest region. She could pass for a twenty-five-year-old if she were hard-pressed. No one would guess she was in her late forties.
I cross my arms and block the doorway, determined that I’m not going to let her in. “How do you even know where I live?”