Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 118459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 474(@250wpm)___ 395(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 474(@250wpm)___ 395(@300wpm)
Will jumps to his feet, looking directly at Macie. “What are you doing here?”
“Working,” she says flatly. “What are you doing here?”
“Visiting friends.”
I look between them, not sure what’s going on. “You two know each other?”
“Yes,” Will says at the same time Macie says, “Kinda.”
I laugh. “Okay then.”
“I’ll come back in a bit,” Macie says, giving Will a tiny, flirty smile before she walks out.
“That was interesting,” I mutter, looking at him.
“Fact as fuck,” he mutters under his breath. “You have no idea.”
He flashes me a trademark Will grin, says a few things to Ever, and is out the door before I know it. My daughter goes back to her cartoon so I open the envelope.
There’s a gift card to a local eatery and a note.
Jules,
I know you won’t leave her, but you gotta eat. Order stuff and have it delivered. I mean it. I won’t be able to get by there much this week, but I can’t wait to see you guys when you get home. It isn’t the same without you two here.
Tell Ever to keep fighting. Make me proud.
Call me if you need anything.
Crew
I look up at Everleigh. She’s trying to put on her new slippers, the cords getting wrapped around her arms preventing her from getting them situated. I stand and help her get them on her feet.
“I love these,” she says, admiring the sparkle woven into the red fabric. “They remind me of Dorothy’s.” She watches them catch the light before looking at me again. “Since we live with Uncle Crew now and he loves us, are we his family?”
“We were his family anyway, Ever. Remember? Uncle Crew and Daddy were brothers.”
“But he’s my daddy now, too, right?”
“Oh, Ever. No. No, he isn’t. You only have one daddy.”
She twists her head and peers up at me. “My friend Kenley, she has two daddies. They live in different houses. She used to kinda think it was weird, but her second daddy is really nice to her and her mommy. So now she thinks she’s lucky because she has two and most kids have one.”
“That’s a nice way for Kenley to see things,” I say, figuring her parents are divorced. I tickle the inside of her arm, causing her to squirm. I hope this conversation is over.
“Well, that’s like me, Mommy. My first daddy lives in heaven and my second daddy lives with us now. See what I mean?”
“But it’s different for Kenley,” I say in a rush. My hand is shaking as I untangle the wires on the side of her bed.
“How?”
“Kenley’s mommy probably fell in love and got remarried, so now she has a daddy and a stepfather. I didn’t get remarried, baby girl. You have a daddy and an uncle Crew.”
“You’re silly, Mommy. Uncle Crew loves you and me.” She rolls her eyes in a five-year-old kind of way and turns her attention back to her cartoons, leaving me speechless.
I sit down again and roll around what she just said in my head.
Does Crew love me?
I shake my head, totally unsure.
He’s nice to me. He’s twisting his life around for us. But would he do that if it was just me and not Ever?
The note he sent with Will is sitting beside me and I pick it up. It’s such a sweet gesture, something I’m sure few people get from Crew. I smile to myself, thinking back to all the sweet things he’s been doing.
This is the Crew I loved a long time ago. The Crew that would do anything for me. The Crew that was fiercely loyal to those he loved.
I’m not sure how he feels about me. Hell, I’m not sure how I feel about him. But I do know that he won’t leave us this time. I feel it.
THIRTY-TWO
CREW
“Faster. Faster. You better work, Gentry!”
My chest explodes as I sit up with a medicine ball. I clench my teeth and growl into the air, moving faster on Sal’s instructions.
“Give it to me, Crew. Come on! Five. Four. Three. Two. Work! And one. Done.”
The stopwatch clicks and I drop the ball off to the side, forcing air into my overworked lungs. My daily runs have nothing on Sal D’Amato’s workouts. Hands on my knees, my T-shirt soaked with sweat, I heave in precious oxygen while my coach watches.
The gym is closed for business, the lights in the front of the building on Seventh Street off. Will sits on a heavy bag on the floor, watching me kill myself. It’s like old times, except for the elephant sitting on my shoulders in the form of a beautiful little girl with neuroblastoma.
Sal leans back against the boxing ring set up in the middle of the room. The way he holds himself commands respect. Even if you didn’t know that he was an Olympic-qualifying wrestler back in the day or that he started one of the very first MMA gyms in Boston, you could tell he was someone just by looking at him.