Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 126840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
My man turned to me.
“That,” I jabbed my finger at the door. “That is how you take care of me. And you’re really fucking good at it.”
And then I started crying.
Shit!
When did I become a crier?
Suddenly, I was in Core’s arms and also in his lap in the armchair.
He rubbed my back and fussed with my hair and didn’t once shush me or make me talk to try to release the pain.
When I was wiping my face, I realized the weight on my thigh wasn’t Core’s other hand.
It was Nanook’s jaw.
Man, I was so damned lucky.
I reached out and covered Core’s hand that was resting on our pup’s head.
“The best dog dad ever?” Core teased.
“It bodes well for our future,” I sniffled.
Taking my hand with it, he gave Nanook a rub then he dislodged us so he could wrap both arms around me.
“Your shit all over the floor in the closet bugs me,” he said softly into my hair. “The mess you leave in the bathroom is not my favorite thing. I don’t mind clothes in the hamper, but I don’t like to look at them spilling all over the floor. I’ve learned a Hellen minute is three actual minutes so if you say ten, you mean thirty, and that can get aggravating. And I don’t like to go to bed alone. I wouldn’t mind it if it was once in a while, but it happens a lot.”
I took in a shaky breath and lifted my head to look at him.
When I did, he went on, “But I honest as fuck don’t mind you working late. If it’s tough for you to get up early, don’t. Do what you do. That’s the woman I fell in love with.”
And here was the man I fell in love with.
“I’ll pick up the closet,” I told him. “And I honestly didn’t realize I did that with time.”
“You tell me what you think I want to hear, not the way it is.”
I had no idea I did that, but I didn’t doubt I did.
“I’ll have a mind to that too.”
“Okay, baby,” he murmured, moving in to touch his lips to mine.
When he pulled away, I promised, “I’ll also have a mind to my stuff in the bathroom and not working too often when it’s time to go to bed.”
“Appreciated.”
“But you cook and grocery shop, so I do laundry,” I continued. “It’s not quite an equitable distribution of chores, but it makes me feel better because I’m doing something.”
His lips hitched up. “I like to cook, I hate laundry, so that works for me.”
I put a hand at his throat and stroked there. “You don’t need to clean up after Nanook every day.”
“Sweetheart, growing up, I didn’t have nice anything. We had a shit couch in a shit trailer in a shitty trailer park. I got nice things now. I take care of them. Yeah, I went into overdrive because you got pretty clothes and I didn’t want Nanook all over them. But you and your girls gave me an awesome crib. It means something to me. What doesn’t mean anything to me is taking ten minutes to run the sweeper every day.”
And there it was again.
I was going to start crying.
“Hey,” he whispered, cupping my face. “None of that. Not for me. Look at what I got.” He gave me a squeeze with his arm around me and then dipped his chin to where Nanook was sitting. “I’m not there anymore. I’m here. Every day, I’m grateful. Because I learned not to live in the past. I wake up with you in my life and stay the course and it’s all good.”
“Okay,” I mumbled. “I’m glad. And you can vacuum all you want.”
He chuckled.
That sound died as he swept his thumb along my cheek and said, “I’m sorry about Tigger.”
“Me too.”
“And I’m sorry your dad is such a dick.”
I felt my lips quirk. “Me too.”
“You wanna talk about your pup?”
God, he was so amazing.
I shook my head but said, “It happened just like that. He came home after a long business trip, and he wanted us to dance attendance. I was playing with Tigger, and he got enraged that I was more into my dog than my dad coming home. So he grabbed him and took off and then…”
I didn’t finish because I couldn’t finish.
“Yeah, a fuckin’ dick,” Core snarled.
“Well now, I wake up with you and Nanook in my life every day, so it’s all good.”
He stopped looking pissed.
“Right,” he said, “Now he’s gone, and we don’t have hot chocolate and I don’t know what cookies you wanna bake so I gotta go to the store. And I’d love it if you went with me.”
That was when I felt my lips curve fully because my day turned on his words.
“That sounds perfect.”
It would be later, when Core got a text and said he had to take off for half an hour, which he did, I called her.