Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 77579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
“Yes, ma’am,” they chimed immediately, voices low.
“You okay, sweetie?” she asked, all honey-sweet as she turned to the girl.
“Yeah,” the girl said, giving Halle a small smile.
“Melody, I sincerely apologize for how my sons have behaved tonight, making you feel uncomfortable in our home. I will think of a way to make them make this up to you. But until then, can I bring you home?”
“I can—” our younger son said.
The fire was back, making her turn so fast that both our boys stiffened.
“Excuse me, is anyone speaking to you right now?” she snapped.
“No, ma’am,” they chorused.
“I didn’t think so,” she said, then turned back to Melody. “Do you want me to walk you back to your apartment?” she asked, since Melody lived in our building.
“No, thank you. I’m okay,” she said, giving Halle a smile as she moved out from behind the couch. “Thank you,” she added, then started to cross the apartment.
“Mel…” our younger son started to say, but shut right the fuck up when the girl whipped her head in his direction, and pinned him with a look that made my blood run cold.
He big fucked up, it seemed.
“Don’t talk to her,” our older son snapped.
“Yeah,” Melody said when she reached the door. “Don’t talk to me.”
With that, she was gone.
But the boys were back to staring at each other like they were about to get into it again.
“Someone better start talking,” Halle said. Then, loud enough to make me fucking jolt, “Now!”
“My plans fell through,” our older son said. “So I came home early. Caught Mel in the elevator. So I figured she was coming up to see him,” he said, then glared at his brother. “But I opened the door to find his fucking ass—“
“Watch it,” Halle snapped.
“To find him on the couch with Lani,” he said.
Fuck.
It was worse than I’d imagined.
Lani was our older son’s on-again-off-again girl.
And Mel was our younger son’s ex girl that he’d been trying to woo back for a week or two.
“We weren’t doing anything,” our younger son insisted.
“I know what I saw. Mel knows what she saw. Be a fucking man and own up to it.”
“Good men don’t settle fights with their hands in front of innocent women. I’m ashamed of both of you tonight,” Halle declared. “Go to your rooms. I don’t want to see either of you right now.”
With that, the boys climbed off the floor, and made their way down the hall.
We’d needed to convert a storage room into a living space, take down a wall of the guest room, then split the bigger space in two to give them each their own space since neither Halle nor I wanted to move. This place had too much meaning to us.
Halle waited for each door to shut before turning to me with a big grin.
“How’d I do?” she asked, bouncing on her heels.
My brows pinched at that. “What?” I asked.
“At being the angry Italian matriarch,” she clarified. “I’ve always watched the women in this family with wonder when they got all loud and bossy. I always wanted to be like that when a situation called for it.”
“In that case,” I said, lips curving up, “you did fucking great. Almost pissed myself and I wasn’t even in trouble.”
“So, how do we punish them now?” she asked, coming close, and wrapping her arms around my lower back.
“Dunno. Does the shop need to be catalogued?” I asked, smirking.
“And put them around priceless antiques?” she asked, shaking her head.
“That’s a good point,” I agreed.
“Hey, isn’t Lorenzo working on the meat shop?” she asked. It recently had a burst pipe that caused major damage and meant it had to be shut down and gutted. “Maybe some hard manual labor with all their uncles breathing down their neck will whip them into shape.”
“They’ll hate it. It’s perfect,” I said, pulling her close.
“Tell me again they’ll grow out of it,” she demanded.
“They will. Hell, even Silvano and I worked it out.”
“And that only took, what, twenty-something years?”
“Exactly. So… we’re getting close with them,” I said. “Another four or so years.”
“I don’t think I’ll make it,” she sighed, pressing her forehead to my chest.
“Remember that time when the kids were in grade school and they both got a stomach virus the same week the dogs got into that food that upset their stomachs too?” I asked, still having some PTSD about that whole situation.
“Oh, God. That was the worst.”
“We made it through that,” I reminded her. “We can make it through this.”
“Turn it down!” one of the boys yelled as the other one put on music.
And, of course, the music got louder.
“Ugh,” she grumbled.
“I’ll get the wine,” I said, pressing a kiss to her head to turn and pour her a glass.
She was a second glass in when one of the bedroom doors opened, and out walked our eldest son, coming around the couch to sit down on the coffee table in front of us.