Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
“Hey, ass hat!” I turned and punched him in the tit. “Don’t tell her that! I’m trying to get her to like me again.”
“There’s no reason to act like you’re this goody two shoes,” Mom agreed. “But none of my boys are. You would think being the children of two cops they’d be good kids. Since they know that we know everyone and everything. The DFW metroplex may have seven and a half million people in it, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know every single cop in the area. We caught them doing things before they even knew they could be caught.”
The woman who was now leaning into me looked up at me and smiled. “Is that right?”
“More than right,” Dad said. “I think I caught at least all of them smoking weed a time or two. Right in the middle of our house, even. I think they thought they could get away with it since we weren’t home, but we were always running home to change, or eat, or catch a bit of sleep. And every time I’d catch them doing something stupid.”
“That was just life with teenage boys,” Quinn said as he took his usual seat at the table.
I took mine, and pulled Hollis with me into the seat that Atlas usually took.
Atlas took the seat to her right, then everyone else filed in after that, including the kids.
One of which looked at the salad and curled her lip. “That stuff is too green.”
“That stuff will help you grow,” Ande countered. “Your body can’t live off of Mamasauce’s caramel candies.”
I looked at Addison, knowing damn well she was going to have a comeback, and she didn’t disappoint.
“Sure it can,” Addison said, sounding so much like my sister that it hurt a bit. “You ate a whole bag of those iced oatmeal cookies yesterday that you told me were for my lunch.”
Ande’s daughter was named after our deceased sister, Addison, Ande’s twin.
And she looked and sounded just like her at times, too.
Like right now, giving Ande shit, when she didn’t get her way.
“Salad’s gross all by itself, sure,” Hollis interjected. “But I see you like ranch.”
Did she ever.
She had a bowl full at every meal. Like right now. She was dipping her shredded cheese in a cup full of it, I was sure, courtesy of my mother.
“Everyone loves ranch,” Addison interjected.
“Not everyone,” Hollis mused. “But if you put ranch on it, and cheese, and eggs, and sometimes bacon crumbles, salads are fantastic.”
I had to agree. I didn’t eat salads bare, either. I wouldn’t be touching the salad my mom placed on the table.
Addison looked thoughtful for a long moment, then looked at my mother. “Do you have bacon to go on this salad?”
“Bacon bits!” Dad crowed as he came from the pantry.
I hadn’t even seen him leave.
Some detective I was.
He placed them down on the table, and Addison reached for them.
Then she dumped them straight into her ranch cup, grabbed three leaves of spinach and lettuce, and the cheese she’d been dipping into the ranch, and stirred it up with her finger.
Hollis ducked her head and started giggling.
“It’s a start,” Keene, my brother-in-law, mused. “Thanks.”
Hollis grinned. “No problem.”
Snorting, I reached for the bread, but was stopped when my mother said, “Everyone will have salad. Right?”
There were groans all around the table, mainly from the male members of my family.
Keene already had a large plate of it, happily crunching away on the raw leaves like it was normal.
For him, it probably was, to be truthful.
Keene ran a circus. Literally. He was the ringleader, too, and had to do all kinds of fun things like lift his sisters up over his head as if they weighed a half a pound.
Not saying that I couldn’t lift Ande up over my head or anything, but I certainly couldn’t do it with a rock solid, unshakeable stance like Keene.
Anyway, that all boiled down to him eating good, trying to be healthy, and not eating a shit ton of lasagna like I was about to do.
I was in great shape, to be honest. I worked out regularly, ran when I didn’t have time to get to the gym, and generally tried to eat as healthy as a guy on the go like me could.
But there were lines.
Like eating raw salads.
“Today’s my cheat day,” I lied. “No salad for me.”
“Liar,” Hollis coughed into her hand, eyes sparkling.
I reached under the table and pinched her ass, causing her to squeak and lean to the side.
Right into my brother, who chuckled and put his arm around her.
“All you had to do was say you want me, you know.” Atlas chuckled.
She laughed, and I threw Atlas’s arm off of her and said, “Find your own girl.”
Atlas winked at her and allowed her to pull away, back to her seat.