Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 72196 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 361(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72196 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 361(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
My lips tipped up at the corners.
“What kind of silly question is that?” my daughter shot back. “Of course, I do!”
“You don’t think your momma will care if I steal you away?”
God, please take her! my eyes said pleadingly.
My daughter was a beautiful, intelligent, delight of a child.
But, she was also a handful.
Beautiful, intelligent children who had an IQ as high as Reggie’s needed stimulation. My brain was tired.
It would be nice to get a few minutes peace and quiet.
My daughter looked at me pleadingly, and I changed my expression to one of contemplation.
“Mama!”
I rolled my eyes skyward and sighed.
“I think that she said yes.”
I laughed. “You would think that, wouldn’t you, Mikey?”
He winked at me, came down the rest of the stairs, and then threw his arm around my shoulder.
“I’ve missed you, sis.”
I closed my eyes and rubbed my face on his tattooed forearm.
“I love you, too, Mikey.”
Mikey didn’t do the sweetness all that often, but when he did, I savored it.
He was a badass SWAT officer. If he acted like he was a big ol’ teddy bear, then his reputation would be ruined.
Or so he said.
“Whatever,” he grumbled. “Go out. Get some food. Have some fun. Do what you said your co-worker asked you to do today.”
I snorted.
I was not going to a club and ‘unwinding’ with the sluttiest co-worker that Jefferson had to offer. It just wasn’t happening.
***
Three hours later, I was a little bit tipsy, and watching the most handsome man in the world from across the bar.
God, he was eye-catching.
He had the build of a runner. All wiry and lean. Though, that didn’t mean he didn’t have muscles, because he did. Those arms were to die for, and the tattoos? Those only made those muscles even better.
From across the bar, I couldn’t see what the tattoos looked like, but I wasn’t sure if it’d matter—as long as it didn’t say some long-lost love’s name, I was pretty okay with any tattoo!
He was wearing faded blue jeans, a gray t-shirt with ‘Hail Auto Recovery’ on the back of it in white vinyl letters. Underneath the lettering was a picture of a tow-truck…one that resembled the six tow trucks that I’d parked beside after pulling into the parking lot earlier.
Apparently, the entire Hail Auto Recovery crew was here unwinding after a long day of work.
Kind of like I was.
“Hey!” Wednesday cried out. “Are you going to drink that?”
I looked at the beer I’d been nursing for the last half an hour and shook my head.
“I was going to, but it’s warm now. Do you want it?” I asked, offering her the mug. “I was about to go get a refill.”
As long as the hottie at the bar moved.
I couldn’t walk up and ask the bartender for another beer with him sitting there. There was no way that I’d manage to do it.
I’d either A, walk up and trip, smacking my face on his barstool, or B, spill my beer on either him or myself. Both of which I’d done before.
I was what you would call an awkward woman.
I was an introvert, and on top of that, I found it hard to talk to anyone that wasn’t coming to see me in a medical capacity.
Why I could talk to patients all day long, and not talk to a man that was at a bar, I had no idea. But I couldn’t, and I’d long since decided that it was going to forever be that way.
I’d come to terms with that fact a long time ago...right along the time that I met my ex-husband.
A man that was almost as awkward as me, and quickly made me realize that I was just different.
Except, Joshua, my ex-husband, didn’t really think that. He thought I was odd, and that I’d get over my strangeness once I grew older.
When I didn’t and made an embarrassment of myself and him at a company party (his words not mine), he decided that it was time for him to leave and make it official with his co-worker, Mandy.
Mandy, the woman that I’d cooked dinner for at my home. Mandy, the woman that watched my kid. Mandy, the woman that was also allergic to dogs, and didn’t like Mogley—our dog, that we were forced to put him away while she was over.
Mandy, the whore that had been seeing him on the sly for eight months before he admitted to me that I was no longer ‘his one.’
“Thanks!” Wednesday took the beer and brought it to her lips. “I can’t believe I forgot my wallet!”
I could.
Wednesday was always forgetting everything.
She was a good girl and a great nurse…but with her everyday life? She was the epitome of ditzy.
She was what every blonde joke was made up of.
Poor girl.
She gave the regular blondes like me a bad rap.
I watched her chug the beer, and then slam the cup down on the table, drawing the attention of not just those around me, but also those not around me.