Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 137433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 687(@200wpm)___ 550(@250wpm)___ 458(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 687(@200wpm)___ 550(@250wpm)___ 458(@300wpm)
I go to every charity store downtown, texting her whenever I’m not driving, before the evening rolls in.
Better to go home, take a shower, make myself presentable, and continue my groveling later.
When I push the door to my house, the sound of laughter comes from the kitchen.
I barely step inside when I see Dad standing in front of me, looking like a ghost of himself. Wide-eyed and distracted.
“Hey, bud. Heading out now. Call if you need anything.” He shoulders past me and disappears inside his car, like a burglar in the middle of a heist.
What the shit?
Dad never leaves without stopping for a few minutes of conversation (read: interrogation about football and how my day has been). I’m barely able to recover from the shock when I step inside and find something even more disturbing—Dixie sitting at the dining room table with her back to me, her face covered with her hands.
She is not laughing, like I initially thought when I walked in.
She is bawling her eyes out.
The scene unfolds in front of me, and I realize what I just stepped into.
The table is laden with homecooked food. Seeing as it isn’t a burned omelet or in a restaurant container, I’m pretty sure it was Dixie who made it.
There are candles burning in the middle of the table. Soft, old-ass elevator music is playing in the background. Perfect for boring, missionary-style sex.
Dixie is wearing a tight red dress, and her hair looks like some kind of a fancy dessert.
Shit, this was a seduction dinner date.
Or was supposed to be one before Dad lit outta here like Julia Roberts in…well, any ’90s movie I can think of.
Holy shit. Dixie decided to go for broke, and in return, Dad broke her heart.
And I just stepped into this whole mess.
Honestly, I should be filing for a restraining order against my luck today.
I’m about to step in and offer some kind of comfort, but then I hear her talking.
“I tried, Brooke.”
Last time I checked, my name wasn’t Brooke, so I take it she is on the phone.
I tilt my head sideways and notice that one of her hands is pinned to her ear, her phone tucked inside it. “I gave it all I have. Everything. The dinner. The sexy dress. The pitch.”
I’m now torn between tiptoeing my ass out of here, making myself known, or continuing to watch this train derailing not only off of its tracks but flinging itself right off a cliff.
“I told him I loved him. He said he only sees me as a friend. I can’t do this anymore. I have to move on. If I want to have a baby—and God, there is nothing I want more than having a baby—I have to give up. I’m cutting it close as it is. If I want to get pregnant, it needs to be this year.”
Dixie wants Dad to be her baby daddy. That means Dad would have a kid younger than his grandson. That I would have another sibling.
Though, judging by the look of horror on his face when I arrived, sending baby shower invitations is premature. Ya know, as an understatement.
My phone pings with a message and blows my cover.
Dixie twists her head, her mouth opening in surprise. “Um, I’ll call you later, Brooke.”
She hangs up and hurries up to her feet. I check the text message, in case it’s Bailey. Even though I know today is too trash to deliver any sort of good news.
Thalia: Fixed everything with your little girlfriend yet?
My gaze snaps back to Dixie, and I raise my hand. “It’s okay. I…” Didn’t hear anything? Bullshit. She knows I was here for the entire conversation.
So instead, I say, “I know what it’s like. I’m the president of the Unrequited Love Club, remember?”
Dixie sniffles frantically, busying her hands with gathering the delicious bowls of food.
“Sorry! I’ll clean up here and get out of your way.”
“No. You can stay and eat.” What the fuck am I saying? Why would she want to sit here and gnaw on disappointment and heartbreak in the house of the man who just denied her?
She inhales. “I know you don’t like me…”
Hold on a minute—what? “Hey, that’s not true.” I scowl. “I like you a whole bunch.”
“I don’t blame you. I know I can be annoying, the way I butt into your business—”
“Yeah, you do. So does Dad. And Bailey. Knight. Jaime. Vaughn. Grim. And pretty much everyone who gives a shit about me. I still love them. Look, who cares what I say? I’m a sulky teenager. We know jack shit. It’s your job to civilize us.”
She snuffles and chuckles and cries at the same time. There’s a lot going on, on her face.
“Well…if you’re hungry…”
“I’m always hungry. Let me call Knight. I bet he’s hungry too.”
A look of pure horror crosses over her face. It is one thing for me to know that she is pursuing Dad, but she isn’t sure how Knight is going to react to it.