Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 55769 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55769 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
“It’s not set in stone he’ll get early release. We could be waiting years,” Sadie noted.
“You’re in my bed, mi cielo, your clothes in my closet. Not mine. Ours. This house has been ours since the first time you walked in the door. Fuck knows it is now, since you talked me into yellow cabinets in the kitchen.”
“They’re butter,” she mumbled irritably, the irritation probably coming from remembering the throwdown they’d had about it.
“Whatever,” he said on a grin.
“It’s clean and sunny and cheerful, and fits the age of the house.”
“Right,” he muttered.
“Ugh,” she grumbled.
He gave her a squeeze. “What I’m saying is, you got my ring on your finger. You got my ink in your skin. You got my commitment. I’ve got yours. Who cares when we get married? If it’s next year or three years from now, you’re mine, I’m yours, that’s it. A wedding just makes it official.”
“I’m not sure I can keep Ralphie and Tod getting along for that length of time. There was a heated discussion about champagne fountains in Art yesterday that nearly caught the place on fire…again.”
Hector smiled at her.
But…fuck.
He had to do it.
Since it was for her (mostly), he did it.
“It would kill him to miss your wedding.”
She pressed her lips together.
Then she ducked her head and moved in, putting them to his ear.
“I love you loads and loads, Hector Chavez.”
Yeah.
She knew he did it for her.
Worth it.
He gave her a squeeze, “Love you too, mi corazón.” He turned his head and returned her gesture, putting his lips to her ear. “Now, lose the bottoms.”
Her head went back, and he liked that glitter in the ice of her eyes most of all.
She shifted away just enough to shimmy out of her bottoms.
And then she came right back.
He wanted to leave that room like he wanted someone to drill holes in his head.
But he had to.
He kissed the tops of two heads before he went, heading to the waiting room.
He walked in and all eyes came to him.
“It’s a girl. All systems go. Sadie is a fucking warrior,” he announced.
Cheers rang up.
Tex boomed, “Fuckin’ A, bubba!”
Buddy cracked open a box of cigars.
Ralphie and Tod hugged.
Eddie clapped him on the back then came in for a hug.
He got the same from several dozen more people before he found two sets of eyes.
Those two followed him back to Sadie’s room.
The instant she saw them, his mother babbled in Spanish until the tears overtook her, and Hector had to pull her in his arms.
Once su madre got her shit together, she got her first.
It was hard to get her away from her grandmother, but he did, then he took her to her grandfather.
Carefully, Hector eased his daughter into Seth’s arms.
The man stared down at her like he’d never seen anything so beautiful.
Obviously, he was right.
Nothing in history was as beautiful as the baby Hector and Sadie made.
Seth moved that look to his daughter.
“Lola?” he asked to confirm the name Hector already told them.
“Lola Elizabeth,” Sadie whispered the whole thing for the first time.
Hector heard his mother’s soft sob.
But he watched the tear slide out of Seth’s eye.
“She’s perfect,” he said gruffly, not taking his gaze from his own girl, and Hector suspected he wasn’t the only one in the room who wasn’t sure which “she” Seth was referring to.
Hector walked out, eyes to white sand that melted into sparkling turquoise, then azure, then Mediterranean blue.
But mostly they were on the three females playing on the beach.
One, a little black-haired toddler wearing a red and pink polka dot one-piece. One, a curvy strawberry-blonde fairy princess beauty. And the last, his mother.
He handed a bottle of Mythos to the man rocking in the rocker on the porch.
Seth took it and Hector folded into the other rocking chair next to him.
“He good?” Hector asked.
Seth gently patted the diapered bottom of Gus where he lay, on his belly on his granddad’s chest, head turned Hector’s way, his little pink lips pursed, eyes closed, the wispy black hairs on his head swaying in the breeze.
“He’d sleep through a hurricane,” Seth replied.
“Thank fuck,” Hector muttered.
Seth chuckled.
They sat in the shade sipping beer in comfortable silence, while the women messed around under a Cretan sun.
Seth broke it.
“I never thanked you. High time I did.”
“For what?”
“You know what.”
He did.
“I loved her,” Hector explained simply.
“Even then?”
Hector took a sip.
When he was done, he replied, “From the minute I laid eyes on her.”
“I know that feeling.”
Finally, Hector looked to his father-in-law. “I know you do.” He gave it a beat, taking in the man beside him, who was no less fit and vital than he’d been the first time Hector met him, and he advised, “You should find someone, man.”
Another pat on Gus’s diaper and, “I’m an old granddad now.”
Not even close.
“You’re not even sixty.”
Seth’s focus sharpened on him. “I think you know, there’s only one one.”