Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 77579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
“I like that he’s got a whole life going on now,” I admitted as we walked over to the couch. “But I think I need to put a tracker on him or something.” He had a phone that we paid for, so I could track that. But the man never remembered to bring it with him when he went out.
He’d done incredible after the hospital stay and stint in the rehabilitation center, getting way more strength back than he’d had going in. More energy. More mental clarity, even.
He’d gone back to the shop with gusto.
Slowly but surely, though, as he got to know the Costas, he suddenly was okay with me taking over, even with me closing early, so he could get to someone’s table for a meal.
I even needed to hire a staff.
Eventually, he almost fully stepped back, save for the occasional weekend when he had nothing else going on, and liked to go in to teach the new employees some of his endless knowledge of antiques.
The shop was doing twice the amount of business as it had been before. I attributed that to a cleaner, easier to navigate store as well as the online store.
I couldn’t help but feel a lot of pride about that.
I’d been so worried all those years I was in school and not feeling a real “pull” to any one career.
Apparently, that was because this was what I was meant to do all along. For the legacy, of course. I planned to give the store to my kids one day. Though I had no delusions about them. If we had sons, they would be in the other Family business. But if we had girls? They could have the store and a solid foundation for their futures.
Whitlock Antiques was going to stand the test of time.
I’d even taken over the landlord work, too. Updating the apartments, giving the people who lived there nicer places to call home.
When I thought about it, I’d gotten an incredible amount of things done over the course of three years. All the while getting to know my new family, getting engaged, planning a wedding, building a life, and eventually, starting a family of our own.
We hadn’t been in a rush on that.
We both acknowledged we needed more time to establish ourselves first, to work on our own relationship and dynamic. And Cosimo, well, he knew he needed to spend more time with kids before he had his own.
At Christmas dinner, someone had passed a baby to him, and he’d held it like a hot potato with a panicked look on his face.
It had been both hilarious and charming to watch him slowly learn how to interact with different age groups of kids.
The horrified way he would react when a baby cried in his arms. Or got stinky when he was holding them.
The way he could never seem to watch his mouth around toddlers who seemed to be sponges for foul language.
How he talked to young, grade school kids the same way he would to adults, and couldn’t understand when they looked up at him with scrunched-brow looks.
The mothers all smiled and assured me that their husbands were the same way before they had their own, and that it really took living with a baby through all of its stages for them to truly understand their development.
I knew Cosimo had been, but I’d never been worried.
Because I got to be on the receiving end of Cosimo Costa’s unique brand of love. And it was nothing short of amazing. He would be a great dad. Whether he knew that yet or not.
“Hey, Abby,” he said as we sat there and our ancient rescue mutt climbed off of her bed and made her way over to him, begging for his attention as she always did. She hardly cared that I existed, save for when I fed her.
We hadn’t chosen Abby.
In fact, I learned that no one in the Costa family actually ever chose their own pets.
On some random day without any warning whatsoever, you just had a knock on your door. And there was Brio. With some creature in his arms that he insisted was your new family member.
“No fucking way,” Cosimo said.
“She was fifteen minutes away from being killed, man,” Brio said to Cosimo’s raised brow look. I’d known him well enough at that time to know he was about to tell Brio to take that dog and leave.
Those words alone had me melting.
I mean, she was scraggly, arthritic, moody, afraid of the elevator, and had only half of her teeth left.
But she needed a home.
I’d never had a pet before.
My father had claimed he’d been allergic. Then I’d been in college and unable to have something even if I wanted to adopt.
“So you take her.”
“Got a house full,” Brio said, shaking his head as he reached down to release Abby’s leash. “You got none. House ain’t a home without a pet,” he declared as Abby walked over to Cosimo, sat her little fluffy butt down, and wiggled her tail so hard her whole body shook.