Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 102781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Bennett took another sip of wine and offered me the now-half-empty glass. But when I went to take it, he didn’t let go. Instead, he leaned in close while our fingertips touched. “Tell Mom not to worry. My boys are healthy.” He winked at me and let go of the wine. “I prefer commando.”
I chuckled and watched him walk to his car. He loaded his presentation supplies into the trunk and slammed it shut.
“Hey!” I yelled.
He looked up.
“Do you ever sketch yourself? Commando could be a good superhero name.”
Bennett circled to his car door. He opened it and held onto the top as he yelled back. “You’ll be dreaming about it tonight, Texas. And I don’t have to guess what part you’ll exaggerate.”
Chapter 6
* * *
Bennett
“You’re late.”
I looked at my watch. “It’s three minutes after twelve. The 405 had a backup.”
Fanny wagged her crooked, arthritis-stricken finger at me. “Don’t be bringing him back late just because you couldn’t get here on time.”
I bit my tongue, holding back what I really wanted to say in favor of, “Yes, ma’am.”
She squinted at me, seeming unsure whether my response was patronizing or if I was really being respectful. The latter was impossible since you need to have respect for a person in order to show them some.
We stood on the porch of her little house, staring at each other. I looked around her into the window, but the blinds were drawn.
“Is he ready?”
She held out her hand, palm up. I should’ve realized that was the hold up. Digging into my jeans pocket, I pulled out the check, the same payoff I’d given her every first Saturday of the month for eight years so she’d let me spend time with my godson.
She scrutinized it as if I was going to try to rip her off, then tucked it into her bra. My eyes burned from accidentally seeing some wrinkled cleavage as I watched.
She stepped aside. “He’s in his room, punished all morning for having a foul mouth. Better not be getting that language from you.”
Yeah. That’s probably where he gets it. It’s the five hours every other week I get to spend with him that screws him up. Not your drunk-ass fourth or fifth—I’ve lost count—redneck husband who yells shut your fuckin piehole at least twice during my five-minute pick up and drop off.
Lucas’s eyes lit up when I opened the door to his room. He jumped from his bed. “Bennett! You came!”
“Of course I came. I wouldn’t miss our visit. You know that.”
“Grandma said you might not want to spend time with me because I’m rotten.”
That made my blood boil. She had no right to use my visits as a scare tactic.
I sat down on his bed so we were eye to eye. “First, you’re not rotten. Second, I will never stop visiting you. Not for any reason.”
He looked down.
“Lucas?”
I waited until his eyes made their way back to mine. “Not ever. Okay, buddy?”
He nodded his mop-top head, but I wasn’t so sure he believed me.
“Come on. Why don’t we get out of here? We have a big day planned.”
That brightened Lucas’s eyes. “Hang on. I need to do something.”
He reached under his pillow, grabbed a few books, and walked over to his backpack. I figured he was putting away his school stuff until I got a good look at the cover of the top book in his hands.
My brows drew together. “What is that book?”
Lucas held it up. “They’re my mom’s journals. Grandma found them in the attic and gave them to me after she read them.”
A memory of Sophie sitting on the curb writing in that thing flashed in my head. I’d forgotten all about those journals.
“Let me see that.”
The first book was a leather-bound journal with an embossed gold flower on the front, which had mostly faded away. I smiled as I flipped through the pages and shook my head. “Your mother wrote in this thing on the first of every month—never on the second, and always in red pen.”
“She starts the page with Dear Me, like she doesn’t know she’s writing the letters to herself. And she ends them with these weird poems.”
“They’re called haiku.”
“They don’t even rhyme.”
I laughed, thinking back to the first time Soph showed me one. I’d told her I was better with limericks. What was the one I’d recited? Oh wait… There once was a man named Lass. He had two giant balls made of brass. And in stormy weather, they clung right together, and lightning shot out of his ass. Yeah, that was it.
She’d told me to stick to drawing.
Once, in high school, she’d fallen asleep when we were hanging out, and I got my hands on this one and read it. She was pissed when she woke up and caught me almost done with it.