Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75642 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75642 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“Can we add an order of the steamed veggies and a side of the carrots?” I ask. I’m not trying to control what the woman eats herself, but the kids haven’t been provided a vegetable in the two days they’ve been with me. I won’t force them to eat it, but they at least need the option.
The waitress jots that down and promises that she’ll get the food out to us as quickly as possible.
“I wasn’t trying to be a dick,” I mutter when she walks away. “I just want you to know that she doesn’t have to share your meal.”
She swallows several times before she speaks, and I feel even worse.
“I overreacted. I’m just tired.”
“Don’t do that,” I say, leaning closer when the boys refocus on the kids’ menus in front of them. “I want you to let me know if I’m overstepping. This won’t work if you keep all that stuff bottled up inside. I’m not trying to control you.”
“Don’t cuss in front of the kids.”
I tilt my head in confusion.
“You said you weren’t trying to be a—” She leaves the last word off, making it clear which one she meant.
“What’s a dick?” Luca asks, smart enough to have been paying attention earlier.
“See?” she says, waving her hand at the boy. “Explain that one to him.”
I feel my own cheeks turn pink as I look over at the boys. Even Jace has stilled his crayon on the menu and is giving me his full attention.
“It’s a bad word that I shouldn’t have ever used. I better not hear you boys using it either.” The explanation seems to appease both of them enough that they can go back to coloring.
Mila pulls the dried strawberries from her purse and sprinkles a little on the table in front of Sutton. She gobbles them up, reaching for the container when her mom is slow to give her more.
“Restaurants aren’t the best thing for toddlers,” she says. “She’s hungry now and would throw a fit if I didn’t give her snacks. She doesn’t understand waiting until the food comes. All she knows is that she’s hungry. She’s going to be close to full before they bring our plates out. I didn’t want an entire meal to be wasted.”
She didn’t have to explain herself to me, but I’m glad she did.
“When was the last time you had time to yourself?”
She blinks in my direction as if she can’t believe I had the nerve to ask about her well-being. It becomes very clear, very quickly, that she isn’t impressed with the way I’m crossing her boundaries.
I hold my hands up near my ears in mock surrender.
“I don’t get much time alone. Being a single parent isn’t easy.”
My jaw flexes in annoyance, but I do my best to control those emotions. I told myself I wasn’t going to keep rubbing her face into something neither one of us can change, but it feels like a jab, like it’s my fault she’s been doing everything alone.
“I spent a little time at Carlen and Janet’s after the funeral,” she says instead of biting my head off. “You ran into me there, twice.”
I look over my shoulder at the boys, conscious that they could possibly be listening despite their attention seeming to be on their coloring.
“That wasn’t exactly leisure activities,” I say, cognizant not to mention what she was actually doing there.
She shrugs. “I work six days a week.”
My frown deepens.
“Where have you been?” Jace asks.
We both look at the boy.
“Hmm?” she asks, but her nephew’s attention isn’t on her. It’s on me.
“You’re Sutton’s dad, right?”
I look at Mila before looking back at the kid and responding. “I am.”
“Where have you been?”
Instead of letting me flounder on what I feel I should say, she explains first. “I never told Vincent that he was Sutton’s dad.”
“What?” Jace says. “You hid her from him? You shouldn’t have done that.”
“You’re right, Jace,” she tells him. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
I look back at her but she seems reluctant to meet my eyes.
Had things been different…
I don’t know how many times I’ve thought that very same thing since she showed up at the hotel with a little girl that has my eyes.
Had things been different, I probably never would’ve joined Cerberus. I might still be in the military because of the job security it provides had I been responsible for Mila and Sutton. I know technically Sutton would be my responsibility, but making sure her mother was safe and happy, caring for my child, I never would’ve been able to walk away from either of them.
When the food arrives, the boys don’t argue when I split the two vegetable sides between their plates. They continue to play tic-tac-toe in the margins of the menus and alternate between veggies and their other food.
Mila smiles at Sutton as she places bites of her food on the empty plate the dinner rolls came on. Just as she predicted, Sutton plays with her food more than eats it.