Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 68576 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68576 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
She got up without another word and slunk off.
If she’d been a dog, her tail would’ve been tucked underneath her back legs.
I wanted to shoot myself in the face.
Fuck.
I hadn’t meant to hurt her.
“You just totally cock blocked yourself,” Garrett muttered as Pepper slid into the bathroom and closed the door.
“I didn’t mean to,” I admitted, “but I wanted her to stay. By any means necessary.”
Garrett got up, cut up the pieces of spaghetti on Pepper’s barely touched plate, then dumped the whole thing onto Forest’s plate. “There you go, buddy.”
“Tanks.” Forest patted Garrett’s arm with a spaghetti hand.
Garrett didn’t seem to notice the spaghetti as he twisted to look fully at me.
“How are you going to get her out of the friend zone, though?” he asked. “It’s obvious you have feelings for her. After what you just did…”
Yeah, I’d really shot myself in my own foot, hadn’t I?
“I’ll figure it out.” I left it at that.
He grumbled something underneath his breath. “Fix it, dummy.”
I gritted my teeth, forcibly stopping myself from saying ‘fuck you’ in front of my son.
That would be perfect. Teach him curse words so when we went in front of the judge, the court-appointed lawyer for Forest could tell the judge all about Forest’s new vocabulary.
“I’m gonna go grab Boss,” he said. “Try not to break her heart anymore while I’m gone.”
I gritted my teeth.
He was out the door just as Forest said, “Done!”
“You have a pretty good vocabulary for a two-year-old,” I said to my kid. “At least your mama did something right.”
I picked him up and lugged him, arms outstretched so he didn’t get spaghetti all over my clothes—and failing miserably because Forest thought it was the funniest thing in the world to touch his hands to me as we moved—to my bathroom.
I had a sunken shower that also acted as a bathtub.
I turned the water on while I let Forest explore.
“Can you get naked, son?” I asked him.
He could.
And he was standing there, arms outstretched overhead, showing me his accomplishment in less time than it took me to undress.
“Good job,” I said as I gestured to the shower. “You want to hop in here?”
He did.
Exactly that.
He hopped all the way to the shower, his butt in the air.
A soft laugh had me looking over my shoulder to the woman who was standing there, watching with a small smile on her face.
“Hey,” I said. “Didn’t see you there.”
“You seem to have more entertaining things right in front of you,” she mused. “I’m headed outside. I’m guessing Garrett went to get Boss?”
“You’d guess right,” I said. “I’ll be out as soon as I’m done here.”
“Don’t bother.” She pushed off the door frame. “I’ll be back when I’m ready.”
Then she was gone, and I inwardly cursed myself again.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Why had I said the words like that?
I watched, a small smile on my face, as Forest spun around in the sunken shower, creating a small whirlpool.
I helped him wash the spaghetti off his face, arms, and hair.
I even helped him brush his teeth.
When we were done, and I had him wrapped up in a towel, I headed back to his room and got him ready for bed.
I had no clue what a normal bedtime was—all of the Carter kids were a little bit of everywhere—so I was just guessing.
“What time do you usually go to bed, bud?” I asked him.
“Never.”
I chuckled as I zipped up the footie pajamas, idly thinking that he’d have to have a new size soon.
Two years old and 2T didn’t necessarily mean the same thing, apparently.
“How about we wind down, then maybe think about going to bed?” I asked him.
I reached for him again, and I was glad to notice that the hesitancy that’d been there at the hospital was no longer there.
He came easily, then rested his head on my shoulder.
The front door opened and closed, and I headed out to the living room to find her standing there, looking lost.
“There wasn’t anything there,” she breathed a sigh of relief.
“I suggest tailing her tomorrow,” Garrett came inside with Boss. “She won’t know that Pepper quit. She’ll still try to plant it. If she’s going to.”
“That’s if she was actually going to plant something,” I pointed out.
Pepper shot me an annoyed look. “She’s got something up her sleeve.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I said. “I’m more pointing out that maybe she just wanted you to uproot your life like you did. Maybe it was never about planting anything. It was just about making you think she was going to.”
Pepper crossed her arms over her chest. “I think that I would know more about my sister’s actions than you.”
I sighed. “I’ll have my dad made aware of the possibility.”
“I’ll take Boss in and hang around the precinct tomorrow,” Garrett offered.
“Maybe you should go hang out at the hotel,” I suggested. “If she shows up, then you can be like, ‘Oh, hey!’ and then Boss will be able to note it if she has it.”