Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 107352 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107352 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
He held my gaze.
“Are we gonna have a talk about your drinking? Oh, yes, sir,” I informed him. “Will there be any more pot? No, there will not. And finally, do you think you’re smarter than me and I will never find what you’ve squirreled away in your room? Probably you do. And that’s fine. But I swear to you, I will find everything.”
He sighed deeply, and I let him go.
“There’s no pot in my room,” he husked. “I got rid of it ’cause it makes me sick to smoke it. I can eat it no problem, but the smoking isn’t great.”
I was glad to hear it. Of course I would still look. I had to.
“Where does Shelly live?”
“She lives here, but she’s been staying in Seattle with her mother.”
“Okay,” I murmured as Tatum and Darwin returned with what appeared to be fruit punch and something blue. “What the hell?”
They both laughed at me.
“Everything good was sold out,” Darwin let me know.
“Ohmygod, we gotta get out of here before I die,” I moaned dramatically. “I’m so hungry, I’m getting nauseous.”
They were all smiling at me.
Griff took a deep breath. “I know you’re supposed to protect us from the men who might want to hurt us because of my mom, but will you protect me from other stuff too?”
“Like Chief Wilson?”
He nodded.
“Yes, I will,” I promised him. “And also, the chief of police in Newcastle is all over this and will be sending officers to check up on us. But me, by myself, I will protect you from everything and everybody. I do suspect, though, that with all the people who are gonna be crawling up Wilson’s ass, you’re gonna be the least of his problems.”
Both Tatum and Darwin laughed, because apparently, I was hysterical. Griff, who was older, kindly only smiled.
“What?”
“The ass thing was very descriptive,” Darwin complimented me.
“Thanks,” I said, grinning at him.
“What do you mean, crawling up his ass?” Griff was smiling tentatively.
“Oh, buddy, Chief Wilson is totally screwed.”
“He’s hit some of my friends before too.”
“Did you tell your father?”
He made a face.
“Since Mom left,” Tatum began, “he’s been so busy.”
Griff looked at her, and I noted his mouth was hanging open. Tatum pointed at me, and when his eyes were back on me, I smiled.
“Listen, we’re gonna normalize talkin’ about your mother, all right?”
“We are?”
“We are.”
“How are—what does—what does that mean?”
“That means I want to hear everything about her.”
“Nash knows all about WITSEC, so he can answer all your questions too,” Tatum informed him. “It’s awesome.”
“Really?” He sounded so hopeful.
“Of course,” I promised. Normally, I would have checked with the parents or parent first, but Luke Duchesne was not around, and his kids were falling apart. “And also, what the hell is with that front room? Do you guys ever go in there?”
Three sets of eyes locked on me.
“Has your father said anything about it?”
No one said a word.
“I need to know,” I insisted.
Griff cleared his throat. “When she left, Dad said we could change anything we wanted, but he would prefer if pictures of Mom stayed in our rooms.”
“Make sure I got this straight,” I advised them all. “So your father said, and I’m paraphrasing here, that if you want, you can move things around, but please keep photos of your mother out of his sight line.”
Tatum squinted at me. “Sight line?”
“It means he doesn’t wanna see her.”
“Oh, yes,” she agreed.
“Then I don’t get it. He said you guys could make the house how you wanted, but you’ve left it all the same?”
Tatum lifted sad eyes to me. “What if she comes back and doesn’t like what we did?”
I smiled at her. “I think your mother would approve of any changes you all made together, but…love, she’s not coming back.”
“I know,” she said, then wrapped her arms around my waist. I hugged her tight, squeezing a breath out of her, making her sigh.
“Okay, since you have your father’s permission, my vote is that you should mix it up a bit. I think some of the living-room stuff should go into your rooms, and some of your things should come out, and the crap nobody wants like, say, the useless bud vases, those can maybe get sold at a yard sale.”
It was hard to read their faces but they were all staring at me.
“There’s actually one coming up,” Tatum revealed. “A neighborhood one.”
“That’s great,” I told her. “But you all need to listen to me when I say you can all still love your mom. I know your father wants that, and it’s not being disloyal to him to love her. And you can put up pictures of her in your rooms, though I didn’t see any in Tatum’s room when I was in there earlier.”
“None of us have any pictures of her up,” Griff said.
“But your father said you could.”