Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 51122 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 256(@200wpm)___ 204(@250wpm)___ 170(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51122 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 256(@200wpm)___ 204(@250wpm)___ 170(@300wpm)
Instead of just shaking it, though, Ford all but hauled him off the couch.
Banner had no choice but to go or he’d drag Perry off the couch with him.
Perry laughed and leaned out of the way, a small grimace of pain leaving her face as she did.
“You hurt his girl,” Ash punched Ford in the shoulder as she passed, moving toward where Banner was just sitting. “Hey, you okay?”
Perry leaned into Ash and wrapped an arm around her.
“I’m good. I just…stitches. You know?” she asked.
Unfortunately, everyone did know.
Viddy had had her fair share of those bad boys as well.
“How did we miss it?” Viddy whined. “I wanted to be here when it happened! That’s why I made him fly!”
Perry shook her head. “To be one hundred percent truthful? I have no clue. One second, I was standing in that stadium watching him sing like a weirdo, and the next I was in the hospital, and they were telling me I was fully dilated. I didn’t even have to push. The baby just kind of…came.”
“Well.” My Viddy sighed as she came up to me after passing out kisses to her kids, then stopped at my side. “I guess I’ll take it. Oh, God. She’s beautiful. And her eyes!”
The baby had two different colored eyes like me and Vid.
One blue. One green.
“Gorgeous.”
So fuckin’ gorgeous. She was the only grandkid who had a piece of our eyes. It was…breathtaking.
“So you have a Christmas birthday,” Viddy sighed. “We’ll have to make sure that she doesn’t get half the presents she deserves. Oh, man. I can’t wait!”
Banner stood up and came to my other side, looking down at his kid.
I curled my arm around his neck and pulled him down until his forehead was near mine.
“You did really good, kid,” I choked out.
God, these grandbabies made me an emotional bitch.
Banner’s eyes met mine. “I learned from the best.”
“All right, assholes,” Oakley, my girl, said as she came in. “Y’all have had enough baby time. It’s Aunt Oakley’s turn!”
Pace, my son-in-law, followed behind. His eyes were shining with mirth.
That’s when I looked down and saw his leg.
“Your leg is decorated like a candy cane,” I couldn’t stop myself from saying.
One of his prosthetic legs was white with red duct tape wrapped around it all the way up. It was…cute. And my daughter all the way.
“Your daughter is fucked up in the head,” Pace grumbled. “Swear to God. I woke up the day after Thanksgiving to see that it’d puked Christmas. Even my goddamn legs didn’t get spared.”
Everyone laughed.
And the little girl in my arms opened her mouth and yawned.
“Awww,” I heard said by fuckin’ everyone.
“Shit.” I felt my heart fill to bursting. “So fuckin’ happy for y’all. She’s so beautiful and perfect.”
“Thanks, Dad.” Banner sighed. “We kind of like her.”
Dad. That wasn’t the first time that Banner had called me ‘Dad.’ But it still felt like the first every single time.
CHAPTER 5
Dear Santa, please refer to my Pinterest Boards.
-Text from Viddy to Trance
TRANCE
“What the fuck are you doing?” Viddy whispered.
“I’m going to knock on their door,” I answered. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
“It looks like you’re about to…Oh, hello, boys. It’s nice to see you again.”
Two very large men opened the door to their hotel room.
“We need you to grease some wheels,” I said to them without preamble. “Remember how I used to feed y’all’s asses in high school? Time to return the favor. Use your superpowers for good. We can’t find a room. And we need at least three of them thanks to the others coming down with us.”
Or up.
However you wanted to call it.
Titus grinned and gave me a back-slapping hug before he turned to my wife.
Slone did the same, and then they gestured us inside.
“I’d just like you to know, boys, that this wasn’t my idea. I just wanted to come say hi.” She brought her hands up to squish Titus’s face, then did the same thing to Slone. Each man took it like the good kids they were.
“We can get something,” Titus said, ignoring Viddy’s words. “The owner is in the penthouse suite. I could probably get him out. But that wouldn’t be much fun.”
“We could buy that place next to them that we were already talking about getting for when we came to visit,” Slone offered up.
I looked at them both in confusion. “What?”
“There’s a place that butts right up to Banner and Perry’s. We were talking about buying it for a while because we like to be close to our boy. We could buy it,” Titus explained.
The fact that they could just ‘buy’ something on the fly, like a snap of his fingers, was baffling to me. As a cop since I was young, I’d never made much more than minimum wage. Sure, I’d saved, done odd jobs, and ultimately had a great nest egg for Viddy and me when we chose to retire. What I did have, though, were three children who sucked me dry, and even more grandchildren I loved to spoil. Then there were the two bozos in front of me who’d spent more time with Banner—and ultimately ate off my dime—who I enjoyed spoiling, too. Not to mention our bonus grandkids who meant just as much to me as my own blood ones.