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)
“So it’s certain Chief Wilson will be removed?” Weston asked Marum, the senior of the two.
He scoffed loudly. “Oh yeah.”
On Weston’s way out, he gave me his card. “That’s my cell number.” His gaze locked with mine. “Please call with any questions.”
“I will, thank you so much.”
“Or call without any questions.”
I smiled. He was a very handsome man, and I needed to stop worrying about age. My boss had married a much younger man who, I knew, would never leave him. I had to start taking more things on faith.
“Just call,” he said, taking hold of my bicep. “Yes?”
“Yes,” I agreed.
His smile was really something.
Once I closed the door behind them, the lawyers the last ones out, when I turned to the kids, they were all staring at me, arms crossed.
“Yes?”
“What was that?” Griff asked me.
“That was a gorgeous lawyer asking me out.”
“Are you gay?” Darwin wanted to know.
“I’m bi. Not that it’s any of your business, but I also don’t care if you know or not. I like men and women.”
They remained silent.
“Does that bother you?”
“No,” Griff said. “Benny is gay and I don’t care.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Teddy thinks he might be gay but hasn’t told his mom,” Darwin added.
I had no idea how to respond to that, so I said simply, “Well, when he’s ready, I’m sure he will share that with her.”
“Isn’t gay or bi about who you sleep with?” Tatum inquired.
“Yes and no. It's also about who you love romantically and how you identify.”
She seemed to consider it for a moment, then said, “Okay. Now what about the cheese?”
“The cheese?”
“Yeah. I read that if you scrape off the mold, you can eat old cheese.”
“No.” I was adamant. “Unless we move to the South of France, there will be no cheese scraping.” Something occurred to me then. “Why are you—what is that?”
She cackled, holding with salad tongs a piece of…what had to have been a wedge of cheddar, I was guessing. The glint in her eyes was terrifying.
“No,” I said, using my serious master sergeant voice.
Her laughter was a bit unhinged but adorable. When she ran at me, I had no choice but to move. No way was I going to stay still and let her touch me with something that was clearly covered in very robustly growing mold.
“Nash, did you see the Star Trek Voyager episode where spores from moldy cheese infected the gel packs on the ship and endangered everyone?” Darwin asked, as though we were having a normal conversation instead of him watching as I stopped and changed directions, trying to evade Tatum.
“No,” I answered him, not ready to explain yet that sci-fi anything gave me hives. “Tatum, stop running and go throw that away right now.”
Only person ever who was not at all intimidated by my scary voice. Instead, she continued to chase me around the kitchen table with the cheese, laughing maniacally. I commanded her to stop again, to no avail. I knew better. I shouldn’t have run from the start. You always had to stand your ground.
“Griff,” I called over to him. “Tell your sister—”
“Ohmygod, what is that?” He sounded horrified. “Why is it green? And oozy?”
Darwin started laughing as Tatum giggled loudly and bolted forward.
“Tatum, throw it away before I ground you!”
She didn’t believe me, and Griff enjoyed seeing me give her an order and then run. Hard to sound authoritarian or serious in the middle of scampering away.
It took hours to right the kitchen, even without the cheese fiasco. We all took turns except Griff, who needed to take it easy. He stayed with us, though, rather than being alone upstairs, lying on the couch while we went through everything. There were so many jars and cans and plastic containers that when we were done, I had Darwin get a laundry basket so we didn’t have to make as many trips out to the recycling bin. Thankfully, they came on Monday, as we had no more room.
Next, we put the things no one wanted onto the empty shelves above the phone ledge. There had to be a donation center in town, and what they didn’t need could go to the neighborhood yard sale. By the time I was making spaghetti, having told everyone that they would need to start helping me the following day, I was liking how the living room was shaping up. There were awards on the shelves now, both sports and academic, artwork, some lovely crystal towers that had probably belonged to their mother, lanterns, a weird green elephant, a raku pitcher, what looked like a prehistoric-horse sculpture, and some Day of the Dead ceramic animals. I liked the rabbit best of all.
Griff came through the kitchen with an enormous wreath in his arms, with Darwin following him with another of a similar size. They were both done in festive fall colors, each beautiful, but I preferred the wine reds of the one they hung on the inside of the front door compared to the more orangey one that went outside.