Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 88456 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 442(@200wpm)___ 354(@250wpm)___ 295(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88456 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 442(@200wpm)___ 354(@250wpm)___ 295(@300wpm)
“Joshua!” Mom cried out. “Leave the table.”
He grabbed his plate and drink and said, “I am going to call every one of my friends and tell them my sister is hooking up with Bryson Robinson!”
Before anyone could say another word to him, Josh was gone.
My mother let out a long sigh. “I’ll deal with him later, and what the hell does serving cunt mean?”
“Dad had it right.”
Smiling like he had won the lottery, my father said, “See, I’m hip.”
“Hip isn’t a cool word, Dad.”
“Rose Marie Shaw, what in the hell is going on?” my mother asked.
Setting my napkin on my plate, I folded my arms over my chest. “Do you want the long or short version?”
“I think we should go with short,” Dad stated. “I’m thinking I might not like the long.”
“Probably not,” I said with an evil smile.
My father narrowed his eyes at me.
“Rose Marie,” my mother warned.
“Okay, short it is. I went to an after-party after the Mariners won a game. Nick, Loren’s boyfriend, lives with Bryson in an amazing penthouse in downtown Seattle. I got bored, wandered up to the private area on the third floor, met Bryson, we played cards out on the rooftop terrace, talked for hours, had amazing sex, and then I snuck away and ran back to Hamilton as fast as I could. Fast-forward a couple of months, and Bryson shows up in Montana, bought some land in Victor, wants me to design his house, so he told my boss he wanted me and no one else in what I can only assume is some weird way to get me to date him, which I won’t because he’s drop-dead handsome, plays professional baseball, lives in another city, and I’m not interested in a relationship right now.”
“That was one very long sentence,” my mother whispered as my father stared at me, his face void of all color.
“I quit my job before they could fire me, and now to prove to my former boss that I really do have talent, I’m going to design Bryson’s house. If he’ll let me because I told him I didn’t want a relationship with him and that he was crazy for buying the land and asking me to design his house. Oh, and when he got upset by my declaration, he told Mr. Stiner he would be looking into other firms, then left. I did what any other woman would do, and followed him to the elevator where the doors promptly shut on me, so I called him an asshole. I’m not even sure he’ll talk to me, and I just realized I don’t even have his number.”
Both of my parents stared at me. I shrugged and patiently waited for one of them to speak.
“We should have gone with the long version,” my father whispered.
Clearing her throat, my mother said, “Well, I guess we know why he asked for you and why you quit. I think it clears up why you called him an asshole. I’m still not sure why your brother called you a cunt, but let’s tackle one thing at a time.” Looking at my father with a tired expression, she asked, “Ty, would you please go get the whiskey?”
Dad stood. “With pleasure.”
As he started out of the room, my mother called out, “Make it the good stuff!”
Chapter Ten
ROSE
I leaned against the kitchen counter as I waited for one of my parents to speak. While they downed a few glasses of whiskey in the family room, I cleared the table and cleaned up. My brother texted me once to ask me if I could get an autographed baseball for him because none of his friends believed that his sister was Bryson Robinson’s girlfriend. I had quickly texted him back and informed him I wasn’t, in fact, his girlfriend, to which my brother replied back with a meme that simply said nooooooo.
“Are you dating him?” Mom asked with a smile that seemed too hopeful to me.
“No.”
“Do you plan on dating him?” My dad piped in.
Turning to my father, I answered him with a simple, “No.”
Mom did the pinching of her nose once again as she slowly said, “So, you slept with him, you don’t plan on dating him, but you do plan on designing his house.”
“If he still wants me to design it.”
“May I ask one question?”
“Of course, you can, Dad.”
He nodded, went to talk, but then reached for his whiskey and downed it. Setting the glass aside, he said, “I realize you’re nearly twenty-three, but no father wants to know that his little girl is having…” He motioned in a circle with his hand. “That.”
“Sex?” I asked.
He groaned. “Yes, whatever you want to call it.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s called sex, Dad, and from what I’ve read, you had a lot of it with the buckle bunnies.”