Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 99949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
“Yes, we’re done,” the smaller man said when they reached us.
“For now,” the tank said huskily as he and the smaller man shared a steamy look between them. The tank patted Newt on the shoulder. “You been spit shaking again?” he asked as he looked at Newt’s hands.
The kid nodded proudly. “Uncle Theo says I’m a good spitter.”
The tank smiled and gave the kid a high five. “You’re gonna be better than me soon.”
“Oh God… you two,” the smaller man exclaimed as he hung his head and gave it a good shake.
“It’s okay that you’re not a good spitter, Isaac,” Newt reassured him. “I can help you practice.”
“I’m good, buddy,” Isaac responded. He looked at me and said, “Hi, you must be Theo. I’m Isaac.” He reached out his hand. I held mine up to show him my sticky palm and he grinned. “It’s okay. Sadly, I’m used to it since my little brother here thinks it’s his job to spit promise something with anyone he meets.”
I chuckled before reaching out and taking Isaac’s hand.
“This is my fiancé, Maddox,” Isaac continued.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Maddox said as he too held out his hand. The guy probably could have crushed my hand in the blink of an eye if he’d wanted to, but his grip was gentle.
“So you’re Newt’s father?” I asked. “And you’re his brother?” I added as I shifted my eyes back to Isaac.
“Daddy Maddox is my good daddy. My bad daddy is someplace he can’t hurt me and Isaac anymore. We used to call Daddy Maddox Mad ’cause that’s what he was all the time but we’re a family now so he’s not mad anymore, so I had to think of somethin’ else to call him,” Newt explained.
None of it really made sense to me but it didn’t matter because a blind man could’ve seen that the threesome were a family.
“Did you guys get a chance to look around?” Isaac asked. “If not, we’d be happy to introduce you to everyone.”
“I named all the animals, even the scary ones ’cause everyone should have a name, right, Daddy Maddox?”
“That’s right,” Maddox assured Newt.
“Actually, we—” Lincoln began to say.
“We were just starting to look around,” I interrupted. I had no idea where the response had come from but all the anxiety and awkwardness I’d been feeling had dissipated and I felt a strange tug inside that had me wanting to go with the trio.
As the official tour began, Lincoln and I followed a few steps behind. I was on Lincoln’s left side, so it was his left hand that he held out to me as we kept looking back and forth at each other. My heart leapt at the gesture.
“Spit,” I said regretfully as I held up my right hand and frowned.
Lincoln spit into his left hand and held it out as he moved even closer to me. “I’m pretty fond of swapping spit with you, so…”
He let his words hang there. I smiled at his reference to our previous method of swapping spit and then took his squishy hand in mine. His grip on my hand was cold and clammy as we walked.
And I loved every second of it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
LINCOLN
Between staring at the ceiling and checking the time on the digital clock on my nightstand every thirty seconds, I knew I was going to end up with a very sore neck in the morning if I didn’t stop.
He’s not coming. It was too much for him today.
I closed my eyes because the truth had been needling my brain from the moment Theo and I had left the sanctuary. He’d been quiet as usual but there’d been something different in his silence that I hadn’t been able to put my finger on. The closest I’d come to making sense of his behavior was that he was just processing everything that had happened from the moment he’d taken my hand and we’d followed Newt and his fathers on an official tour of the place. We’d ended up running into Sawyer who’d been checking on a mother cat and her new litter of kittens.
I’d expected Theo to stick to me like glue but instead, he’d allowed Newt to introduce him to each domestic animal one by one, and when we’d reached the room where the cats were kept and had encountered Sawyer, I’d been surprised and pleased to see Theo and Sawyer talking for a minute before they embraced. I’d stayed outside the cat room with Maddox since there hadn’t been enough room for all of us, but I’d been able to see the exchange through the large windows. I’d figured the two men had talked briefly about the day Sawyer’s ex had shown up at the house.
It had been a good fifteen minutes before Theo, Newt, and Isaac had come out of the cat room and we’d moved on to the place where the dogs were kept. When Theo had once again reached for my hand as we’d walked, I’d been sure my heart would explode with joy right there and then. The tour had ended up taking close to two hours, thanks to all the information Newt had stored up about each permanent resident of the sanctuary. Gentry the bear had probably fascinated Theo the most. Newt had explained that some bad men had hurt Gentry before he and Isaac had come to Pelican Bay but that whenever Newt and his Uncle Nolan played their violins for Gentry, the bear felt safer. We’d then watched as Maddox had fed Gentry some fruit through the fence surrounding the bear’s habitat. A second fence had kept us from any kind of close contact with the bear, which I’d been just fine with because the grizzly was massive. I’d ended up watching Theo more than Gentry because Theo had smiled throughout the entire thing and hadn’t been able to take his eyes off the bear as it had come up to the fence to get the berries Maddox fed him.