Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 107630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
“Now that Dad and Shep are interrogating your ‘friend,’ give us the scoop,” Joy demands as she lays out plates. Apparently, she’s playing the part of Mom’s lackey for round two of today’s interrogation.
I grab silverware and smile. “He’s great. I’m not jumping into anything, and he’s only here for a few weeks, but . . . yeah, he’s great.” So, a wordsmith, I’m not. I’ll leave that to Ben, I guess. “Oh! He writes songs!” I add excitedly.
“So Ben the tourist writes songs, rescues runaway brides, and has no qualms standing up to me or Shep,” Joy summarizes, nodding as she considers the information. “Yep, told you I liked him, Mom. Better than Roy, for sure, though that’s not hard to do.” She makes a face, showing just what she thinks about that. It seems Joy’s been holding back a lot and is no longer going to do it.
“I had no idea you didn’t like Roy,” I tell her. “It feels like you’ve been hiding something really important from me.”
She stops her trip around the table to stare at me. I swear I can feel our twin-lepathy tingling in my head. “Sis, you wouldn’t have heard me. And keeping my opinion to myself isn’t the same thing as keeping secrets. Believe me, if I’d found out Roy was cheating, gambling, or doing shady shit, I would’ve been nose-to-nose with you, showing you proof in a hot second. Unfortunately, he wasn’t. Or at least, not that I could find—and believe me, I tried.” She rolls her eyes, and I wonder what journalist-level investigation she went through.
I can understand her reasoning. I probably wouldn’t have listened to her if she’d said anything bad about Roy or my plans. I was too stuck, wallowing in that deep rut and spinning my tires only to dig in even deeper. “Okay, forgiven. And in the vein of not keeping secrets, Ben’s also a really good kisser,” I whisper.
“Oh my God! I knew it!” Joy shouts, and I shush her by slapping my hand over her mouth. Luckily, it’s the one not holding the forks, so she keeps both of her eyes. “‘Friends,’ my ass!” she says behind my palm.
“Girls,” Mom scolds, but she looks pretty interested in that last tidbit too. Still, she’s a mother first, and she’s got to take the opportunity to give advice. It’s what mothers do. “Be careful, honey. I know you kids think a ricochet can help after a bad breakup, but you have to fix yourself before your heart’s ready for anything else.”
Joy and I look at each other in confusion. I mouth, Ricochet?
“Rebound, Mom,” Joy corrects as she eventually catches on to Mom’s bad choice of words. “Not a ricochet. And her heart doesn’t need to be ready, just her kitty cat. If it was me, I’d be bounding, rebounding, and rebounding some more. Have you seen that man?” Joy points back toward the living room, pumping her hips and smacking the air like she’s in a Megan Thee Stallion video. “Me-owww!”
A zap of jealousy shoots through me. It must show on my face or she must hear the death threats in my mind through our telepathy, because she smirks. “Gotcha.”
I blush because there’s no hiding my reaction from Joy or Mom. “I don’t know. Things just officially ended with Roy, so I’m taking it slow.”
“Slow?” Mom repeats, her eyes so wide I can see the whites all around her blue irises. “Honey, a few days ago you were marrying another man. Now you’re going on dates all over town with Ben, staying at his place, kissing him, and bringing him home to meet your parents. If that’s what you call ‘slow,’ I don’t want to know what fast looks like.”
She might have a point, but I don’t want to slow down.
Chapter 14
BEN
“What’d you think?” Hope asks from the passenger seat.
Leaving her parents’ house after lunch was a thirty-minute endeavor of hugs, promises to call if we need anything, and more hugs. It was cute, which is a word I don’t think I’ve used a single time in my life, but I don’t know how else to describe them.
But I try.
I glance her way, finding her staring at me with big, hope-filled blue eyes. “Your family is weird.”
“Uh!” She makes a sound of disbelief, taking offense at the insult. “They’re not weird! They’re awesome!”
I chuckle. “Those two things are not mutually exclusive. Your family is like an after-school-special script—two loving parents, bantering siblings, cookie-cutter house, all this respectful conversation.” I make a face as though the comprehensive list of admittedly awesome qualities is downright awful. “And the casserole? I mean, before today, I’ve never even had a casserole unless you count putting stale Takis on ramen noodles, and I’m pretty sure your mom wouldn’t count that.”
Hope gawks at me in shock. “How can you have not had a casserole before? I could name like twenty different ones Mom makes regularly.” The rest of what I said sinks in and she laughs, realizing I’m not actually insulting her family.