Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 139147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Only Patsy would be excited at maintaining, essentially, garbage.
“That’s great!” I yelled.
“You need to be sure to read my email about the rules of what goes in,” she warned.
“I’ll do that,” I promised.
“’Kay. Sorry to disturb. Enjoy your evening!”
Then she was gone.
“She’s the chick who looks after all the planters around the complex,” I explained to Dad and Deb.
They looked around the space before Deb said, “She’s good at it.”
“They’re great,” Dad added. “But compost will make them awesome.”
I wasn’t sure how much more awesome they could get, and I envisioned a courtyard that was a riot of flowers, like Scott and Louise’s yard was a riot of green, and I didn’t think this would suck.
“Sorry to interrupt!” we heard from the other side.
I looked to see Jacob with a hand on the edge of his door, his head and shoulders sticking out, looking at us.
“Hey, Jacob!” I called.
“What time is Luna’s gig again?” he asked.
“Starts at seven thirty,” I answered.
“Right. Later,” he replied, but Alexis ducked under his arm and shouted, “Hey, Raye. Hey, Cap. Hey, Raye’s Dad and Missus.”
“That’s Jacob and Alexis,” I murmured to the table.
Deb was game, she was so relieved no one had run them out on a rail—in fact, the opposite—she cried, “Hey there!”
Jacob was pulling her away when Alexis shouted, “Enjoy your dinner!”
The door closed on them.
“Just to say, this might happen all night,” I warned them.
“That’s okay,” Deb bopped in her chair, settling in. “It makes it festive.”
I loved she looked at it that way.
“So, I have to make my sangria for Luna’s birthday party,” I began. I also had to figure out a present for her, which was the reason for the trip to Anthropologie yesterday, from which I personally came out a winner, but my present-buying mission was a bust. “But other than that, we have all day tomorrow. Though, I have to carve some time out to figure out what to buy Luna. So what do you want to do? We can do brunch at Snooze, and then maybe go to the Botanical Gardens for a couple of hours. Or, if it’s nice, we can take a walk down the canal and maybe hit up a restaurant in Scottsdale. Or—”
“I’m gonna sit by the pool,” Dad declared. “And you can sit with me, though I think you should take Deb shopping. She can help you buy your friend a present. She’s great at that type of thing.”
Deb’s eyes on me were bright.
“I’m a terrible gift-giver,” I warned her.
She waved her hand in front of her face. “Oh, poo. I’m sure that’s not true.”
“She’s my bestest bestie in all the world, and I gave her a gift card to Nordstrom Rack last year,” I admitted.
Deb’s expression of horror had me cracking up.
There it was.
Proof!
That gift stunk.
“Exactly,” I said.
Deb immediately started quizzing me. “What’s she like to do?”
We got into that, with only Ryan coming home and calling hey then leaving again disturbing us.
We were kicked back, the second bottle of wine open and poured, and after Dad and Deb shared their gratitude and compliments for Cap’s cooking, when Dad prompted Deb, “Ask her.”
Deb turned her head to Dad. “I think you should ask her.”
“It was your idea,” Dad pointed out.
“It should come from you.”
“Raye’s a pretty laidback woman,” Cap broke in, sweeping a hand out to indicate the table. “And if you haven’t gotten it, she’s all the way down with mending this rift. So it really doesn’t matter who asks her whatever it is you’re talking about.”
Dad lounged deeper into his chair and sipped his wine.
I fought a smile, forgetting how stubborn he could be, and loving the experience of remembering it.
“Oh, all right,” Deb said. She fiddled with the stem of her wineglass and couldn’t quite meet my eyes when she said, “I suggested it, and your dad thinks it’s a good idea, that maybe…and we’ll pay for you to fly back, of course. Airline travel is so expensive these days, unless you want some cheapie flight where you’re practically sitting on the lap of the person beside you—”
“Deb,” Dad said low to get her back on target.
She twitched her head a little and reined it in. “I was thinking we could have a little, you know, not a big thing, just a nice dinner and a big cake and an excuse to buy pretty dresses.”
She stopped talking, which was bad, because I didn’t know exactly what she was talking about.
“You want me to come home for…a nice dinner?” I asked, trying to get the full lowdown.
“It hasn’t been long, I mean, since the first, but, what I mean is a renewal of our vows,” Deb said really fast.
I stared at her.
“Just a little party. Close family. And a photographer,” she kept talking fast. “So you can be in the pictures.”