Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 74916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
My life was so weird.
“They’re so good together and he has a lot of patience with my Brady.” She was still smiling but clearly knew her kid was nuts.
“He does.” Bates was still smiling as he glanced over at Jude. “And he’s going to make sure Brady is doing his own chores and not talking Gareth into doing them.”
Brady’s dramatic huff had his mother trying not to laugh, but she was facing away from the drama queen little, so he didn’t know. She was so amazing there weren’t even any giggles in her voice. “Oh yes, I’m sure he’ll handle that with an appropriate consequence.”
I wasn’t sure if the way she didn’t say punishment was deliberate or not but I was glad no one else asked about it.
“I’m sure he will.” Bates was so smooth as he shifted his attention to us and gave us both knee pats. “And speaking of chores, how about we head over to the grocery store now instead of later?”
He aimed his sweet smile at Brady’s mom. “I hate to run but you know how the store gets if you wait too late in the day. It’ll be a madhouse and all the vegetables will be picked over. Cashel was talking about making soup for us and it sounds delicious. He takes very good care of us.”
And now she was smiling at me.
A very knowing smile.
What did she think she knew?
Hoping I wasn’t blushing as much as I thought I was, I swallowed and tried to sound reasonable. “Bates takes good care of us too. He’s answering questions and we’re going slow. Promise.”
That was Gareth’s cue to groan. “Very slow. They’re trying to torture me.”
For some reason that made her grin come back in full force and she giggled. “I’m sure you appreciate all that attention, dear.”
As Gareth nodded sheepishly, unable to deny his love of Bates’s brand of torture, Brady sighed and Jude just buried his head against Brady’s.
They deserved the oversharing, so I didn’t feel bad either…neither did Bates judging by his big smile. “I’m so glad I got to meet you. You’re the best mom in the whole building and we’re all very jealous of what a good relationship you have with Brady.”
God, we were so loud.
“You’re so sweet. I can see why the boys are so enamored with you.” We all got knee pats again as she gave us looks like we were chocolate cake cute. “It’s so wonderful to see the beginning of such a wonderful relationship…and neither of you call him Daddy, so that won’t get confusing at the next family dinner.”
And that finally had her glaring at us.
“I’m going to be seeing you at the family dinners again, aren’t I?” She wouldn’t take the whole “Christmas was hard” explanation, so I just nodded.
“Yes, ma’am.” Yep, I was not going to argue with her when she was about to aim that sweet frustration out on Jude and Brady. “I think I’m going to make Bates your famous chicken noodle soup. He’ll love that.”
We all ignored Brady’s huff, including his mother. But that was probably because she’d launched into a lecture about stock and what veggies were in season. We finally escaped, though, with her having blessed our relationship, and we didn’t have to listen to whatever lecture Brady and Jude would get.
“That was so much fun.” Bates was grinning ear to ear as he ushered us to his car, either actually wanting groceries or realizing a thorough escape was best. “Thank you for letting me know you were being held hostage.”
He was really…smart, yep, he was smart.
Gareth just sighed as we got to Bates’s car. “We were polite, but Jude was just…he was very Jude, so tattling on him was the only option.”
We had the weirdest life sometimes.
“He didn’t seem to like that we were going to bring clothes over.” Gareth charged into what should’ve probably been a more carefully constructed conversation. “Cash is tired of doing the pajama walk of shame, so we need to leave some clothes there.”
Instead of thinking it was insane, Bates nodded like it was completely rational. “And toothbrushes and some extra phone chargers? Can you think of anything else?”
“You don’t have much storage space, so we need to be careful.” Gareth looked entirely too thoughtful. “When we move in together, we’re going to have to take that into consideration.”
“Very true.” Nodding as he leaned against his car, Bates got the same thoughtful look as Gareth and now they were both making me nervous. “I’m glad we didn’t have to explain that to Brady’s mom, though. She might’ve thought that was moving too fast since Jude and Brady were…well, they were trying to get her wound up.”
Oh yeah.
“Thank you for coming to help fix everything, but I hope we didn’t fuck up your schedule?” I still wasn’t sure if dragging him into the crazy had been the best idea but it’d been the most logical thing I could think of and…well, he was our Dom.