Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 74324 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 372(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74324 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 372(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
“Thought she was going to have a coronary when I told her to stop it,” Ridley continued.
“Why didn’t she?” Wolf asked.
I snorted. “She probably would have, but I got her calmed down enough that I could get gone before she could start back up again.”
“The last time you gave into her temper, you ended up marrying her,” Casten observed.
I sighed.
“He told her he’d go to her doctor’s appointment this afternoon,” Ridley said when I didn’t answer fast enough.
Casten laughed.
“You’re so fucked. You won’t be able to keep Annie for long. She’s not going to put up with your shit…nor your ex’s,” Casten informed me.
“I’m taking her with me, and you’re right. She wasn’t happy. But Jennifer doesn’t get a say so in how I live my life anymore, not when she’s in bed with the fuckin’ devil,” I ground out.
“You think she knew what she was doing at the time?” Wolf asked.
A whistle pierced the gymnasium’s air, and I looked up to find Annie hurrying toward me.
She had Nathan on one hip, and she was smiling as she walked quickly towards Wolf.
“I’ll let him keep the ball, but try not to let him throw it on the court. He might kill one of us since we’re so rusty,” Annie snickered, handing Nathan over.
Wolf took Nathan and sat him on the bleacher between his feet. “Don’t throw the ball, boy, or you’ll get me in trouble with the pretty lady.”
Annie laughed softly, raised a hand up to her face, then blew a kiss in my direction
I smiled, barely resisting the urge to ‘grab’ it out of midair and paste it to my lips.
I was not that far gone…yet.
“So how does this volleyball game work?” Wolf asked as the girls lined up.
I shrugged. “I thought you just hit it over the net. There are rules?”
“You get three hits,” Casten said, surprising both of us. “One player serves it to the other team, and they have three touches to get it back over the net and grounded on the serving team’s side for a point. And you can’t go out of that little box around the court once it goes to the other side. There is a little more to it than just that but, you get the idea.”
“How do you know all that?” Wolf asked what we were all thinking.
“My sister. I used to have to go to her practices since she was my ride home,” Casten explained.
He sounded like he didn’t want to talk about it.
Not even a little bit.
So we let it be and watched the game being played in front of us.
The high school team was good, I’d give them that.
But they weren’t the alumni.
Even without practicing, according to Annie, they still had incredible skill.
And although they were rusty at first, they played like a well-oiled machine.
Sadly, the varsity girl’s team didn’t know what hit them.
“Perfect dig,” Casten muttered, his eyes fascinated.
The ‘perfect dig’ was received by Annie, who placed it perfectly in the girl at the front’s hands.
The next play happened so fast that I wasn’t even sure what was happening.
“Block! Block! Middle!” The assistant coach screamed loudly.
The girls scrambled, having misread the direction that the setter was placing the ball.
And Tasha flawlessly arced around the setter, then proceeded to slam the ball down the girl’s throat.
It hit the ground with such force that the ball bounced at least fifteen feet in the air.
“Holy shit,” Casten said.
I concurred.
That was awesome.
“Wonder why she quit. She could be a professional,” Wolf observed.
“She’s the coach. The woman that’s up there now is the assistant coach,” I said.
Casten’s eyes came to me.
“She’s the girls’ volleyball coach? I thought she was in nursing school,” Casten said.
I nodded.
“She is. But she’s also working full time,” I agreed. “Annie says she’s a perpetual student, and has three degrees now.”
She was only a year younger than Annie’s twenty-six, and I also wondered how she’d gotten so many degrees at such a young age, but I never asked
Casten, however, was intrigued.
I could see it the way his shoulders had shifted, following Tasha’s movements the way I did Annie’s.
Annie switched positions when the girls finally scored on the alumni, and she was switched out with one of the other players.
This one was taller than Annie, and she took her position on the front row closer to the net.
Annie sat down next to a smiling girl who looked on the verge of being too thin, animatedly talking to her while she gestured to the court.
The game continued around us, and as soon as Tasha was switched out, our topic of conversation turned to a case Griffin, Wolf and I were working on.
“Could you please stop speaking so vulgarly?” A snotty woman’s voice said from beside me.
I turned to find a woman that looked like the proverbial soccer mom, or in this case volleyball mom.