Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 135847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
She didn’t hide how happy that made her.
He didn’t hide how her happiness made him happy.
They got up and held hands as she guided him inside.
Cheddar came running to inspect what was happening at the front door, saw Hale, and didn’t stop. When he made it to Hale, he started clawing his way up Hale’s jeans.
Hale bent, pulled him off and lifted him up to his chest, where Cheddar rubbed his shirt and throat with his ear.
Frosty came out too, saw Hale, trotted right to him, so he stooped to scoop up his other boy as well.
Frosty started purring.
“Daddy’s home,” Elsa murmured, taking them in with a look of supreme contentment on her face.
Oh yeah.
Daddy was home.
CHAPTER 28
STUFFED LION
Corey
Then…
“Daddy, Daddy! Look!” Hale shouted from his seat in the kiddie ride that was going around and around.
Corey stood there in abject terror, even if he’d strapped his son in himself. Even if he’d watched that ride go around for five turns before he gave into Hale begging to get on it. Even if it wasn’t going very fast. Even if he’d crouched for two of those full rides so he could inspect the mechanism that worked it to see that it seemed clean and well-oiled and functioning properly.
All the kids were holding on.
Hale had his hands in the air, and he was laughing and shouting.
He needed to teach his son to be more careful.
He needed to teach his son to hold on.
The ride stopped, and before Corey could get there, Hale unclipped himself and was hustling to Corey on his four-year-old feet, arms pumping with excitement.
Another kid was doing the same, but he swerved unexpectedly, and knocked Hale on his ass.
Corey vaulted over the fence that marked space so the kids could exit without being injected right into the crowd and squatted next to Hale, but he was looking at the kid who knocked him over.
“Watch it!” he shouted.
The kid’s face folded in on itself.
“Jesus, man, cool it. They’re just kids,” some asshole chimed in.
“Yes,” Corey agreed, picking up Hale and planting his boy on his hip. “And as a kid, he needs to learn coordination and spatial awareness.”
The man blinked at him.
Corey prowled away.
“Are we leebing?’ Hale asked.
“Yes,” Corey said brusquely.
This fair was a mistake.
There were dangers everywhere.
Including thoughtless little kids who couldn’t control their bodies.
“But I want co’den canny.”
When his son said that, Corey did an about face and found a vendor who sold cotton candy.
Hale was upstairs, in bed and sleeping, and Corey needed to call Genny.
Now that they were safe at home, he was seeing how he overreacted to everything at the fair (though he still felt he was correct about that child—he might just be a kid, but we couldn’t all go around bumping into each other and knocking people on their asses).
Genny would calm him down.
And in the end, he thought it went well.
After they got cotton candy, Hale had wanted to play some game where he lifted up ducks that were floating in a stream of filthy water to look at the bottom of them and see if he won a prize (they’d gone direct to a bathroom and washed their hands after that fiasco).
This took quite some time, and two hundred dollars in tickets, because Hale wanted the massive stuffed lion on display.
And by God, right now, that stuffed lion was up in Hale’s room.
So in the end, all in all, they had a good night at the fair and Hale had his toy so he didn’t mind when they left.
It still rattled Corey.
He was about to reach for the phone when it rang.
He had caller ID, and at first, panic shot through him at seeing who was calling.
This was quickly replaced with fury.
He hit the button on the phone and took the call.
“I believe I asked you to stop calling me,” he said into it.
“Well, Mr. High and Mighty, I believe I told you I don’t give a shit,” his father replied. “And I’m done with this horseshit. Your mother and I are coming to California next week. She wants to meet her grandson. And after four years, I think you need to stop being a pantywaist crybaby and let her. It’s unnatural to keep a grandchild from his grandmother.”
“I’m assuming, considering your IQ is four points above Forrest Gump’s, and you live life like you’re still on recess in elementary school, that you think name calling will get you what you want.”
“Christ, you’re such a pussy,” his dad mumbled.
“All right, Dad,” Corey began. “I’m making quite a bit of money now.”
“No shit? You were on the cover of Time magazine, for shit’s sake.”
Corey went on like he didn’t speak.
“And I’ve hired someone who has successfully collected the originals of all my medical records.”
His father had nothing to say to that.
Not a surprise.