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)
“It’s Christmas,” Viddy said, as if that explained everything.
It didn’t. But, as I’ve been doing for years, I’d interpreted what she meant without problem.
“What she means is, regardless of if you could afford it or not, it’s Christmas and stuff like that doesn’t happen on holidays.”
“It’s whatever,” Titus said as Slone countered with, “Money talks in this world, Mom.”
I rolled my eyes.
Titus and Slone had been calling Viddy ‘Mom’ since they were in high school. Their super famous superstar status hadn’t changed that.
“We’ll pay you back,” Viddy declared.
I winced, because no, we wouldn’t be. At least, hopefully we wouldn’t.
“Yeah, no you won’t.” Titus walked away, leaving us standing in the middle of their hotel room. Their very messy hotel room.
“No kids and wives this time?”
Titus and Slone both had daughters. They usually traveled with them, but it was very apparent the two men were sharing a room.
“We wanted them to be able to open Christmas presents at home,” Slone answered. “But now they’re on a private plane here because of Banner, Perry, and their new addition.
I grinned. “That’s good. Well, if they’re on their way, too…let’s see who we need to call about a house.”
• • •
Turns out, the house was a damn mansion on nine hundred acres.
I couldn’t have helped pay them back even if I’d wanted to.
I was well off. But not that well off.
But the boys who I once called my bonus sons? They definitely could afford it.
And they purchased it with the understanding that the family could hang out over the Christmas break.
The two people who lived there—an older couple in their seventies—even vacated it for their children’s houses that were just down the road.
Not that we’d asked them to. They’d offered, then took it upon themselves to force us to accept their offer.
Christmas night, my daughter-in-law, Ash, was massacring a fried turkey. Though, that’s what you got when you fried turkeys, and didn’t first look to see if there was A: a thermometer in the house, and B: a knife to cut it with.
That was why she was currently pulling fried turkey apart with her hands covered in silicone potholders, while my son, Ford, looked on with their two-year-old in his arms, dead asleep.
Apparently, the couple who’d lived in the mansion previously had been packing up, little by little, and planning on moving out of their home at the end of the year. Everything that was kitchen related was in boxes in a container outside.
We were making do with our hands, plastic utensils that were sold at the only open Dollar Store in town, and prayers.
“I don’t think I can eat that without knowing if it’s done or not,” Ford said.
I hid my smile, but barely.
“You can and will, Ford Asshole.”
Ash was also, you could say, upset.
Why?
Because she’d found out the night before that she was pregnant again. Something which Ford had wanted, and gotten, while she didn’t. Not that she didn’t love her child, and wouldn’t adore this one, but she’d wanted some time off from having babies. Something which Ford hadn’t taken into account when he’d knocked her up, apparently.
“I’ll eat it.” Ford grimaced.
Ash raised a brow, as if she’d expected nothing less.
“It’s black on the outside,” Pace, Oakley’s husband, said. “I’m fairly sure it’s done.”
“It’s black because y’all smothered it with so much creole seasoning,” Banner said, holding his infant daughter in his arms. “It was so much that now my nose is permanently itchy.
I’d have to agree. I’d been on the verge of a sneeze since they’d seasoned it.
“When will you give me that baby?” Oakley asked.
“When I want to, and not a second before,” Banner countered.
I couldn’t hide the smile that quirked my lips that time.
Banner was just like his brother and sister. A baby hog.
“You were always the worst,” Oakley grumbled.
“You could hold your baby,” Ford said.
“My baby is covered in mashed potatoes.” Oakley sounded disgusted by the idea. “And doesn’t have that sweet baby smell anymore.”
She was right. Her daughter was nine months old and eating more food—and wearing it apparently—than her mother.
“All right,” Ash said as she clapped her hands. “I think I’m done with this.”
She held up her hands to Ford, who took the potholders off and tossed them in the kitchen sink, all the while not jostling their son at all.
A herd of elephants sounded outside, and we all looked up to see Viddy and the herd of children following. Red faces and ears, they’d been outside building snowmen.
We didn’t have snow in Louisiana. At least, not the kind that didn’t come with an apocalypse attached. In fact, where Ford and Ash lived in Texas, they didn’t get snow either.
Banner and Perry were the only ones with who had a regular amount of snow of any kind.
And even today had been their first really good snowfall.