Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 90919 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90919 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Noel nodded. “Yeah, just give them a rinse. I washed their hair last night, and you know how Diana’s skin gets if you use soap too often.”
“Quick dunk,” Titus said, standing with both girls in his arms. “Got it.”
“I wanna play,” Diana squealed as he carried them upstairs. “Can I have toys?”
“He’s going to have a heck of a time giving them a quick bath,” Noel said as I followed her to the kitchen. “They’ll need time to wash every single fish, safari animal, and doll in the bath toys.”
“Better him than me,” I joked.
“I’m just glad I don’t have to do it tonight,” she said with a smile as she sat down at the kitchen table. “I’m tired.”
“You good?”
“Yeah, but if you could have a little conversation with Ruthie and convince her to sleep through the night, I’d be better.”
“Are you still wakin’ your mama up at all hours?” I asked Ruth. She slapped my cheek in response.
“It’s totally normal,” Noel added. “That’s what I tell myself at three in the morning when she’s thrashing around.”
“I don’t know how you do it,” I replied, rubbing Ruth’s back. I loved the girls, they were one of the best parts of my day—but I didn’t have to parent them. I could hang out and play with them as long as I wanted and then escape when I was done.
“I actually love it,” Noel confessed with a grin. “But it is a lot of work.”
A loud thump came from upstairs, followed by Titus calling out that everyone was fine.
“There’s four of us kids and I don’t know how the hell Mam—Aoife,” I corrected, “stayed on top of all of it.”
“Your sister raised you guys, right?”
“Pretty much.” I nodded. “From the time I was nine. Aisling was only four.”
“Wasn’t Aoife only like fifteen?”
“Fourteen,” I corrected. “Yeah.”
“I can’t even imagine.”
“You weren’t much older when you had Ariel,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but that was just one baby. Not four of them at once.”
“Fair point,” I mumbled. I looked up at Noel. “I was actually kind of surprised when she told me she was havin’ Sean. I figured she’d be done with raisin’ kids now that Aisling’s grown.”
Noel shrugged as she got up from the table. “Titus and I want a big family. Even as tired as I am most days, we still talk about adding a couple more.”
“A couple?” I asked in surprise.
“Yep.” She laughed.
“Jesus,” I mumbled.
“Not anytime soon,” she said dryly as she carried a big pot of something that smelled incredible over to the table. “But once Ruthie’s a little older.”
“You two are nuts.”
“We’ve always wanted a big family,” she replied. “Even when we were kids, we talked about it.”
“I’d be good with two,” I said, letting Ruth bounce on my thighs, her little toes digging in for traction.
“What does Myla want?”
“How the hell would I know?”
“You’ve never talked about it?”
“Uh, no.”
“Interesting.”
“Me and Myla aren’t together.”
“Yet.”
“Say what?”
“You aren’t together, yet. And honestly, I don’t know what you’re waiting for.”
“She’s a friend.”
“She’s a friend who sleeps in your tent at the club parties,” Noel teased.
“That happened once,” I clarified. At least the tent part of it, she’d slept in my bed more times than I could count. Slept being the operative word.
“Sure.”
“She was drunk.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I woulda done the same thing with anyone else,” I argued. “Well, probably not Frankie, ’cause she gets handsy when she’s hammered. But Lou, definitely.”
“You would not.”
“I would.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Noel said, pausing in the middle of the kitchen to look at me. “And you know you wouldn’t—because you wouldn’t want to give Myla the wrong idea by having one of her best friends spending the night with you.”
My mouth snapped shut.
“Now, ask yourself why that is,” she wheedled.
I just looked at her silently until she burst out laughing.
“I’m no expert at relationships,” Noel said as she went back to setting the table. “But even I know that you and Myla have been circling around each other since before Titus and I got back together. What the heck are you waiting for?”
Thankfully, I didn’t have to answer her because the sound of little feet came pounding down the stairs just as the back door opened and our other roommate, Bas, stepped inside.
“Where are my best friends?” he asked as he toed off his boots.
“Uncle Bas!” Ariel screamed from the living room. She and Diana came racing in, hitting him at a run. He lifted them both up and roared.
Ruth didn’t even stir in my arms. We were all used to the chaos that happened the moment Bas got home.
“Why don’t they do that shit for me?” I asked the room.
“Because Bas is the one that wrestles,” Noel said, grinning at me from across the room. “You’re the one that sits with them for hours doing puzzles.”
I scoffed good-naturedly as Ruth squirmed in my arms.