Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 67553 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 338(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67553 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 338(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
And, as if they’d realized that there was one more, Dima and Shasha turned.
It was Shasha who said, “Maven. Come on in.”
Maven came carefully, and when she was close enough, both brothers drew her into a hug.
It was soft and sweet, and nowhere near as boisterous as the ones that the sisters had just given.
“How are you, Maven?” Dima asked.
“Good. How about you?” she replied back.
“Would be better if you’d have dinner with me this weekend.” Dima smiled and let her go, but not too far. Still close enough that she could touch him or hug him if she wanted. “My brother here seems to think that this is the perfect weekend to go see to some business down south.”
That had me curious, but I was trying to disappear into the background so I could witness it all.
I’d never seen Shasha look so…happy.
He was always so stoic and hard to read.
“I have to go,” JJ whispered. “But they’re so pretty I don’t want to leave.”
I giggled.
And that sound seemed to draw Shasha’s attention like a beacon.
One second his gaze was on his sister, and the next he was staring at me with an intensity that had me squirming in my chair.
“Is that the guy?” she whispered. “The one McCoy was talking about a few days ago?”
I swallowed hard, unable to break the eye contact with the man across the room, and said, “Yes.”
“He’s gorgeous,” she whispered again. “The red tie with the black suit is…wow. I thought I only liked a man in cowboy boots and Wranglers. This is a definite positive.”
I’d only ever dated men that were a bit more rugged.
And I wasn’t saying that Shasha wasn’t rugged, because he was. I’d felt his hands on me, and they definitely weren’t smooth, baby-face hands. They were rough and callused, denoting a level of work ethic that you didn’t get from not working with your hands.
But he cleaned up really, really well.
“I feel like I need a fan,” she whispered. “He’s looking at you like you’re his personal kryptonite.”
I snorted. “He wants nothing to do with me. Every time I’m near him, he’s warning me away.”
“Well,” she said as she stood up, forcing us to break eye contact with her body. “I’d love to stay and chat, but there is a bottle calf that needs to be fed here in a bit. McCoy is running ragged, and I promised her I would help. Check in when you get to Houston. If you stop, text. When you go anywhere, text.”
I smiled at my sister and stood up, too.
It was time for me to leave as well.
Even if the last thing I wanted to do was leave the coffee shop where Shasha was.
“I’ll call or text,” I promised as I turned my back on Shasha. “And if you and McCoy still need help Tuesday when I get home, let me know. I don’t go back to work until Wednesday of next week.”
“Aces.” She smiled. “You know she can always put you to work. I have to go to work Monday, so I won’t be there.”
We said our goodbyes and the two of us walked out of the coffee shop.
I was very much aware of the eyes on me the entire time, though.
I only looked back once, and when I did, it was to see the woman who was standoffish with her family staring hard. But not in a bad way. In a way that had me thinking she was very much aware of something that was between her brother and me, she just didn’t know what.
Yet.
I had a feeling she would find out what it was that Shasha and I shared, even if it was a whole bunch of nothing.
I’ve wasted half my life telling people how to pronounce my name.
—Brecken to Shasha
BRECKEN
I hated teacher work conferences.
I hated even more that continuing education was mandatory for a job that I already worked a whole lot of overtime for.
Yet, there I was, at a teacher conference with ten other teachers from my school and was getting separated from them into ‘houses.’
See, to make it “fun” the organizers of this conference had a great idea.
That ‘great idea’ was separating us ALL up and putting us into Harry Potter houses. Or, maybe not actual Harry Potter houses—I was loath to admit this, but I’d never read Harry Potter once—but houses that were loosely based on Harry Potter houses.
Protos, Altruismo, Reveur, Amistad, Isbindi.
The only reason I knew the names at this point—even though they were said about eight thousand times by the organizers—was because I had a pamphlet in front of me explaining what was about to happen.
“I don’t understand why this is something that we’re supposed to find entertaining. Just teach the lecture already,” my seatmate, who also happened to be in the Amistad house with me, said.