Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
It felt heavy.
With meaning. With plans. With our hopes for the future.
“Okay. Alright,” Max said, rushing toward me as soon as I opened the door, hands up. “Remember how much you love me?” she asked.
“What’d you do?” I asked. “Take my sister to a male strip club again?”
“In my defense, I didn’t know it was a strip club,” Max said. “And it’s really not my fault that she volunteered to go on stage. But, no. Well, you know how I had a job this morning?”
“The salt & pepper shaker collection, right?”
Max snorted. “That’s the one.”
“Did it go alright?” I asked, stiffening.
As much as she worried about my job, I worried about hers as well. Even if time had shown she was a fucking pro at what she did.
“What? Yeah. Totally fine. Four generations of silly shakers all handed back to their rightful owners. No, it was just… I was on my way out and I heard something. Then I… saw something.”
“What? Like a crime or something?”
“More like a… cat or something,” she said as two kittens came walking out from behind the kitchen island. One was light gray with a white nose and socks. The other was gray and white striped. “Actually… two kittens,” she said, wincing. “I had to take them. They were all alone and crying. And they ran right to me when I came up. And it’s going to freeze tonight.”
“Sugar,” I said as she looked about ready to cry if I said I didn’t want them around. “It’s fine. I think Hissy has been lonely. Besides, it’s a big apartment.”
And I’d already been looking for bigger ones.
Now that I was a capo, that I had not only my brothers—but some other men—working for me, I had more than enough money to finance getting us our forever place. As much as we both loved this apartment, we both agreed that kids were in the five-year plan. I wanted to get us settled in a place with some extra rooms.
Which also meant there would be plenty of room for an extra cat or two. Or three. Or… however the fuck many she found on the street and needed to love on.
“At least these ones don’t want to flay us,” I said as the one with the socks rubbed itself against my leg.
“They’re sweet. And I already had Brio look them over and give them a bath. We have a vet appointment tomorrow.”
“What does Hissy think of them?” I asked.
“She’s treating them like her little lost kittens. She keeps picking them up by the scruff and moving them around. Whether they want to or not.”
“Sounds like her,” I said, reaching down to scoop up the striped one. “Nicole is never gonna be able to visit now.”
“She said the allergy shots are working. Tyler’s mom has cats. And now they’re going to be visiting all the time once the baby comes…”
Max and I weren’t the only ones about to have wildly different lives. Not long after Megs and Nicole moved in with Tyler, Megs had gotten pregnant.
I was excited to see Max as an aunt.
While the Costa family as a whole had about a thousand babies running around, my personal branch of it had none yet, so I hadn’t gotten to see her with any kids yet. But if the way she loved on every cat or dog she came across was anything to go by, she was gonna be great with them.
“So, do you have names picked out for them?”
“This one,” she said, coming over to scoop up the one with socks, “is Don.”
“Don, like…”
“Mafia don,” she said with a smile.
“And this one?” I asked, jiggling the one I was holding.
“Bandit,” she said with a smile.
A mafia don for me. And a bandit for her.
“Perfect,” I decided.
She ducked down to set the wiggling kitten on the floor, and I went ahead and grabbed the ring box, flipped the kitten on his back, then stuck the box on his belly.
“Shit, sugar. This one has something…”
“Something like… what’s that?” she asked, reaching for the box absentmindedly.
It didn’t even click as she flipped the lid.
But as soon as her gaze landed on the ring, her eyes widened and her lips parted.
“Is this…”
“The diamond that you stole from me?” I asked. “Plus a couple of others. Yep. You gonna marry me, sugar?”
“That depends,” she said, but her eyes were already glassy. I had my answer. She just had to be difficult. And I loved that about her.
“On what?”
“If you stop bitching about my blanket collection or not.”
“I’m working with Ant to build you a space-saving way to store them all in the closet of our next place.”
“Well then,” she said, pressing her forehead to mine. “I guess we’re gonna get married then.”
Max - 11 years
“Dude, how many times have we talked about the shoes?” I grumbled, nearly face-planting with my arms full of grocery bags.