Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 114011 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114011 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
“Heavens, no. I don’t need them. Your father, on the other hand . . .”
“Good. Because I don’t want you thinking—”
“That Palmer likes you.” She smiles from ear to ear. “Got it.”
I look at her warily. “It doesn’t seem like you got it.”
“Oh, I do. And I know there’s no way that Palmer doesn’t think you’re handsome.”
“Clearly not.” I snort. “I didn’t say that. She’s not blind.”
Mom laughs. “Should I ask her to dinner?”
A heavy dose of dread begins to sink in my stomach. “Mom, no.”
“What about if I say I’m your baseball helper and I pretend to twist an ankle? I could—”
“Mom.” I laugh, more out of disbelief than amusement. I am not a gangly teenager here. I do not need my mom’s help with women. “What are you doing right now?”
“I’m trying to help.”
“Help me what?” I hold my hands out to the sides. “You realize that you’re planning a fake injury to help a woman that has turned me down—multiple times, at that—to . . . I don’t even know what you were trying to get her to do. It doesn’t matter because this whole thing is ludicrous.”
She pops a hand on her hip. “‘Ludicrous’ is a little much.”
“Funny, because I was going to go with ‘insane’ and backed off of it a little out of respect.”
She sighs and reaches into the cabinet for a mug. “Want some coffee? It’s decaf, so it won’t keep you up.”
“No. I’m good.”
“Suit yourself.” She pours herself a steaming cup of joe. “I didn’t want to say anything. You know how I don’t like to get involved in your personal life. I don’t want to be that mom.”
“Clearly.”
She fires me a warning look just in case I’m being sarcastic. Which I am.
“But I do think you and Palmer could be a very good couple,” she says.
She sips her coffee while wishing me with Palmer.
My lips part to argue with her—to tell her that I disagree or that I’ve seen enough of Palmer to know that it wouldn’t work out. But both would be a lie.
The truth is that the more I see of her, the more enchanted I become. She’s great. Palmer is the kind of woman I would settle down with if I were so inclined to make such commitments. Actually, she’s the prototype I was looking for just a year and a half ago, when playing the field—both literally and figuratively—got to be too much.
She’s beautiful and funny. Charming and playful. Responsible and nurturing, and watching her with Ethan? It makes me respect her so much.
And if I’m being honest, it makes me consider what it would be like to have her as the mother to my children.
That leads to a million other thoughts. What does she look like when she wakes up in the morning? Does she listen to music on her way to work? What’s her guilty pleasure?
How does she like to get fucked?
“What do you think?” Mom asks, pulling me out of my reverie.
I snap out of my daydream about bending Palmer over the hood of her car and come back to my mom’s kitchen.
“About what?” I ask.
“Do you think the two of you could be a good couple? I know you said you asked her to dinner, but dinner and a relationship are two vastly different things.”
One hundred percent.
“Getting into a relationship would be silly, don’t you think?” I ask. “Considering the obvious.”
She narrows her eyes. “Well, maybe if you were in a relationship, the obvious wouldn’t be necessary.”
I stretch my arms over my head, more to avoid replying to her than anything. I quickly evaluate my right shoulder as I pull it higher in the air. Not too bad.
When my arms are back to my sides, my mother is still looking at me.
Shit.
I don’t want to get into this tonight, and even if I did, now isn’t the time. That’s not why I’m visiting—that, and I’m not mentally prepared for that conversation. I need to be solid about what’s going on before I off-load that onto my parents. God knows I’m nowhere near close to being comfortable with it myself.
“You know I’m going to have to get a job at some point, and there’s nothing for me to do around here,” I say.
She scoffs. “Don’t bullshit me, Cole.”
Well, okay.
It’s not that I haven’t heard my mother use profanity, because I have. But I’ve never heard her just throw one out there in conversation with me until now.
I expect her to recant her vulgarity and backtrack. But the only thing she does is lift her brows in challenge.
“You do not have to get a job,” she says. “Your last contract alone was three years, fifty million dollars.”
Excellent point.
“And you save money like it’s nobody’s business.” She presses her lips together in a suppressed smile. “You’re driving your father’s truck instead of getting a rental.”