Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 87756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
There were also the women who Paine had given to me: Gina, the mother who replaced the one I had lost years ago as well as Kenzi and Reese who stepped into the position of my sisters when Elana disappeared.
Of course, that said nothing of the girls club too. Suddenly, I found myself surrounded not only by Amelia and Alex, but Lo, Janie, Summer, and eventually, Maze. We were an odd, mismatched group of women from uncommonly different backgrounds who had all somehow come together thanks to the men we had invited into our lives. There was the badass side of our friendship, the training Paine had insisted on that brought me to Hailstorm where Lo and Janie and even the highly trained Maze kicked my, Amelia's, Summer's, and Alex's asses. But there was the normal side to us as well, the coffee clutches where we talked about our kids, our men, our lives in general.
And, as always, Roman was there.
It had been awkward for the first six or eight months as we struggled to find the right balance for our friendship. But once we found the swing of things, we continued on, close as ever. Paine had welcomed him into our lives, showed absolutely no signs of any distrust or discomfort about his presence and Roman had become an amazing support system with the kids.
Enzo had repaired the bridges he had burned with his family and had become a good uncle to our kids. He wasn't ever-present, his job in the city keeping him busy, but when he did show up, it was always with some dangerous-looking contraption for Jack to learn to ride or drive or shoot and something for Willa that, invariably, came with a really annoying sound-making aspect to it and I just knew that when they were old enough, he would start bringing over rabbits and hamsters and hermit crabs for them. Without consulting me. But that was Uncle Enzo. That was just what he would do and we all loved him enough to not pitch a fit about it. Well, the love and the fact that even if we did pitch a fit, we knew there would be no changing his behavior.
As for the last remaining part of my family, my father, well... he had showed himself to be a much better grandfather than he was a father. He would come over and patiently listen to Jack's unending ramblings and kiss Willow's head. He would bring Jack to work with him when Jack insisted occasionally that he was going to be a businessman like Grandpa, wearing some suit we had bought him for a holiday and waiting anxiously by the door for my father to show up and show him his "corner office" that was "just waiting for him to get old enough to work there".
"Babygirl," Paine's voice said, close to me, making me jump slightly because I had been so zoned out that I hadn't seen him move across the room to me.
"Yeah?" I asked, lifting my head to look at my husband.
"What are you smiling about?"
To that, I smiled wider, stepping forward to rest the side of my face to his chest, feeling his arm close around me.
"Never gets old," I told him.
"Never will," he agreed, squeezing me tight.
xx