Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 85322 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85322 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
“Fuck you,” was Finn’s response. “I’m fine as fuck. She wants to get healthier, and it’s still Alfie’s fault—his damn videos on Insta.”
I chuckled and helped West put out the last of the toppings on the kitchen table.
“I’mma grab a quick smoke before we eat.” Finn headed out, and Liam tagged along.
I hauled out the toaster before I pulled my man in for a hug.
“Hey.” I kissed him quick.
He smiled. “Hey back. Did you get your criminal work done?”
“Shit’s in motion.” I locked my arms around his neck, just needing a moment of peace. “Finn mentioned you talked to one of his guys about security for Mom and Dad.”
He hummed and stroked my back. “I had to do something. I woke up so angry about it all.”
I hugged him harder and kissed his neck. “I love you, you know that? What you’ve done for me the past twenty-four hours alone makes me wanna pop the question.”
He chuckled and inched back enough to nuzzle his nose with mine. “Proposing is my privilege, and it’ll happen soon enough, I assure you.”
I beamed, and he kissed me.
On a more serious note, I had to come up with something to show him how much this mattered to me. He’d annihilated countless of his own boundaries to accept all my…uh, complications…so I had to make up for it. I wanted to.
“Let’s head out to Ardmore after we’ve been to see Ma,” I murmured. “I wanna start looking at houses.”
“Oh yeah?” He lifted his gaze a few inches as he combed back my hair with his fingers. “Do you have an area in mind?”
I did. I hadn’t meant Ardmore as in, let’s go home to where we currently live. I meant that it could be our future home’s location too. “Yeah. Do you remember the blue four-bedroom we checked out on Linwood?”
He knitted his brows together. “That’s in Ardmore.”
“It was also, according to you back then, way too close to Lancaster.”
“Where nobody in their right mind wants to live.” The Main Line snob came out to play, and I grinned.
“What about a little closer?” I asked. “It doesn’t have to be either-or, does it? We don’t have to live so far out that it’s basically the wilderness.”
“Spoken like a true city boy,” he chuckled.
I shrugged and scratched my nose. “If we were a little closer to restaurants and shit, I’d be more than happy to stay in Ardmore.” I removed a piece of lint from his shoulder. “You know, the Suburban Square or whatever it’s called—we could actually walk there if we lived nearby. Spontaneous dates, losing track of the kids, one shop at a time…”
He smiled and brushed his lips to mine. “Well, when you put it like that…”
“And I solemnly swear we’ll find a place far away enough that you won’t hear the train.”
“Sold.” He smiled before he deepened the kiss, and his hands went down to my ass. “I admit, it would be nice to get away from a neighborhood with the nosiest neighbors.”
Because there was nothing else to do out there!
“I admit, it would be nice if you railed me sometime soon,” I retorted. “I have needs.”
He rumbled a laugh into the kiss and pinched my ass. “I apologize for neglecting you.”
Okay, that was good to hear.
I settled in for a nice, tongue-teasing kiss that seduced me good and proper, but he ended it way too soon.
“Are you really sure about Ardmore, though?” he asked.
Hadn’t we just covered this?
“I understand wanting more of the hustle and bustle, but no matter where you live in Ardmore, it’s not going to be like Center City,” he finished.
Rather than dismissing him with a quick, “Yeah, I’m sure, and now we can make out again,” I eased back a little and looked him in the eye.
“Last time, I was scared I’d move too far away from everything I was used to,” I admitted. “It wasn’t just the location. It was losing my routines, my organized chaos—”
“Which has never been very organized,” he teased.
I laughed through my nose. “But you catch my drift?”
He sobered and nodded. “A valid fear, in retrospect. I took too much from you.”
“You didn’t take shit, papi. I was a grown man. I agreed.”
He didn’t seem satisfied. “Nevertheless, we’re not moving anywhere unless we both love the place.”
I knew what would make me happy. We could live in the area he loved, a nice, quiet street within walking distance of civilization, without prolonging the short commute to the kids’ schools, as long as that home was really fucking ours. We both paid for it, we both decorated it, we both agreed that I should always be in charge of the music, and we both wanted a bulletin board in the kitchen for my map of Philly’s takeout favorites.
Not that my folder with sixty-seven restaurant apps wasn’t organized as fuck.