Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 73192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Not the actual truck from the movie, but one similar to it.
“If you’re done, I gotta go. I have to go meet my sisters, nieces, and nephew for lunch.” He broke me out of my contemplation of his truck.
I smiled at him, which came out more like a grimace and turned and walked away without another word.
All the while, I wondered what it would take to get that cocky smile off his face.
I could probably punch it off…
***
Tyler
She was going to punch me.
I saw the contemplation and her desire to do it.
Not that she would ever be able to or anything.
Alana, my sister, and Autumn, my sister’s daughter, met me at the door. Autumn was now two and a half years old, but she looked like Alana’s mini-me and nothing like her father at all.
“Where’s the rest of the crew?” I asked.
Alana pointed at the parking lot where my other sister, Henley, was rolling in with her children.
She looked comical, to say the least.
She had three infants, all at different ages—kind of. It was a complicated story.
Henley and her husband Rhys Rivera, the 3rd baseman for the professional baseball team, the Longview Lumberjacks, had gotten married. Shortly after the ceremony, they’d decided that they wanted children and they didn’t do it the normal way—which was naturally—at least not at first. They decided to get a surrogate and get in-vitro fertilization done.
Fast forward seven months and the twins were born early. Then, amidst all of the worrying about the twin’s health, Henley found out that she was expecting—as in she was already six months pregnant herself. Which meant that she had two four-month-olds and an infant who was less than three weeks old.
She looked tired, but she looked happy.
I left Alana and Autumn and headed to Henley, meeting her in the parking lot at her car.
“Thank you,” she groaned. “She may not look heavy, but she is.”
The youngest one that was barely three weeks old and looked just like her daddy and nothing like Henley. All dark eyes, dark hair, and tanned complexion, there would be no doubt in anyone’s mind that this baby belonged to Rhys Rivera—baseball’s sexiest player of the year.
The other two seemed to be a mix between Rhys and Henley, but Rhys’ traits still seemed to dominate where it was most obvious—in the twins’ eyes and their hair.
Though all three had dark curly hair in common, making their parentage undeniable.
“She’s like a cloud of squishy,” I teased, looking down at the baby girl. “Why didn’t you just bring the stroller in?”
She shrugged and looked as if she was sorry she hadn’t done that now. “I would have, but there’s no room in any restaurant for a stroller that big. Plus, I knew y’all would be here, so I saw no reason not to just bring them this way.
‘This way’ being one in a carrier, another in a car seat, and the other in her arm.
I rolled my eyes. “And where is your husband? I thought he was supposed to join us for dinner.”
Henley smiled. “He was, but then he got a call from the Make a Wish Foundation. A little boy’s final wish was to meet Rhys. This was supposed to be set up for next week, but then they found out that the little boy didn’t have a good prognosis. They didn’t expect him to be coherent enough next week to even realize who Rhys was, so he flew out to Indiana this morning around nine.”
I felt my gut clench.
“That’s nice of him,” I murmured. “And really sad.”
Henley smiled sweetly. “I think if you gave Rhys a chance, you might realize that he’s actually a really good guy.”
There were still some things that I wasn’t quite sure about when it came to my sister and her husband.
I wasn’t a dumb person.
Nobody, not even one with money, got married and started having kids—even the normal way—without taking at least a little bit of time for themselves. Henley and Rhys hadn’t. Not even a little bit of time to breathe.
Then there were all the rumors that I’d heard when it’d come to my sister’s husband and what I’d heard wasn’t good.
But, I was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. I was going to be the good big brother and watch out for her, but I was also going to let her live her own life.
If she ever needed me, I’d be there.
And she knew that.
“We’ll see,” I teased. “You ready to eat?”
Henley narrowed her eyes on me for a few short seconds and then shrugged. “Ravenous. This breastfeeding thing for three babies is a never-ending revolving door. I consume like three thousand calories a day and I’m still losing weight.”
“You’re losing weight because you weren’t fat to begin with and your hubby makes you go on walks every day because he can’t stand to sit still for more than an hour at a time,” Alana said. “Did you know that he was up at four this morning making the rounds around the ranch? Swear to God, I think he never sleeps.”