Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 27552 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 138(@200wpm)___ 110(@250wpm)___ 92(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 27552 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 138(@200wpm)___ 110(@250wpm)___ 92(@300wpm)
“Then, my job is done here. You’re welcome.”
I think of all the work King has put into making my drawing for the new rooms of the house a reality. The man really would stop at nothing to make me happy.
You won’t be happy. Not in the tub. Not anywhere. You can’t be happy. Not anymore, the voice inside my head taunts. The one that fills me with needless yet endless amounts of worry and doubt.
I will the voice away. Whatever this is looming over me is just like the storm lingering off the coast. It’s temporary, and it will pass. It has to pass. Besides, I have love, and therefore I have everything.
And that love comes in all shapes and sizes. Romantic love like the kind I feel for King comes with passion, attraction. Parental love comes with a need to protect, a deeper love than any in the world. Then, there’s the kind of love that comes in the form of friendship. Chosen family. Currently, it’s in the form of the blond, tattered and scarred, tattooed man snuggled under a soft blanket on my couch, who is currently mindlessly rubbing my swollen feet.
“Mommy, what’s mastered-batoning?” Max asks, looking over her shoulder.
“You mean masturbating,” Bo replies before the shock of my daughter’s question has a chance to set in. “Also referred to as self-pleasuring. It’s the stimulation of the genit—”
Preppy claps his hands together. “Okay! That’s enough of that. Are you ready guys? This is the best part!” He points to Bo and whispers, “No more listening to adult talk.”
Bo shrugs. “Then, don’t adult talk in a room full of kids. Or, and this is merely a suggestion, but you both may want to consider working on the volume of your whispering.”
Preppy opens his mouth to reply, then shuts it. He purses his lips, then settles back on the couch. “Touché.”
Sammy, Max, and Preppy’s twin girls, Taylor and Miley are all lying on the floor on their stomachs while Bo opts for the recliner. Nicole Grace is on the floor, too, but she’s already asleep with her purple blanket shoved in her mouth in a way that used to make me think she was trying to choke herself.
"Here it comes!” Preppy points to the TV, and the kids all clap with excitement as Moana begins to sing her first song. Preppy sings along, and the kids follow.
I smile at my friend who is a literal juxtaposition of a character. Loving yet foul mouthed. Sexual and crass but loyal to the wife he's hopelessly in love with. A party animal but one of the best fathers I've ever witnessed. When the song is over, they all clap and continue to watch the movie.
“What?” Preppy asks when the song ends and he catches me staring at him.
"You're a good guy, Preppy,” I say, because I mean it. Grace was right all those years ago. It’s possible to be a bad boy yet a great man. I’m lucky enough to know and love several such men and call them my family.
"You're only saying that because I'm currently rubbing your pregnant Flintstone feet."
"Hey," I chide, lifting said Flintstone feet from his lap.
Preppy rolls his eyes and pulls them back, continuing my much-needed foot massage. “Dre loves the shit out of me, but I have no doubt that she loved me even more when she was pregnant. I'd spend hours robbing her cute swollen feet."
I shake my head. "I'm saying you're a good guy because you are."
He shrugs. "I'm good-ish, or like good adjacent. Maybe. Possibly. Probably not.”
I smile. "That sounds about right.''
"Daddy?" Taylor asks turning around and staring at us with her huge doe eyes and cherub cheeks. "Moana is brown, right?"
Preppy's eyes grow wide. "Oh, yeah, I guess,” he answers with a where is this going look in his eyes that as a parent I am all too familiar with.
"And I'm white, right? " she asks, tilting her head. A little black tendril falls over her eye, and she blows it away only to have it fall right back.
"Uh, huhhhh...," he replies, shifting his eyes to me, then back to one of his twins.
Taylor smiles up at her daddy. "But, we're all the same inside, right?''
Preppy blows out a sigh of relief and smiles down at his darker-haired twin daughter. There’s pride in his voice. “Yeah, kiddo, we're all the same inside.''
Satisfied, Taylor turns back to face the TV while Preppy stores at her for a few silent moments before speaking again. “You never hold your breath until the moment when you think your toddler is about to come out to you as a racist.''
I chuckle. “Well, you're doing something right. She's barely three years old and has recognized that although people might look different, we're all the same. She's smart. Observant. Kind.''
"She gets all that from her mother," Preppy says, clearing his throat, clearly uncomfortable with the compliment. Which is very unlike him. Normally, he leaps at the chance to accept a compliment like he’s receiving an Oscar.