Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 45529 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 228(@200wpm)___ 182(@250wpm)___ 152(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45529 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 228(@200wpm)___ 182(@250wpm)___ 152(@300wpm)
We’d only been gone fifteen, twenty minutes, and in that time, it was like leaving one party to attend another one altogether.
“What’s Daddy up to?” Kit asked curiously.
“I don’t know. Let’s find out.” I got down on one knee and helped the boy tie his boots. Otherwise, he’d just ignore it and end up tripping. Which I didn’t need with a covered pool nearby. With Kit’s luck, he’d fall right in.
I stood up again with a grunt and opened the door, and my eyebrows went all the way up there. Hell, they’d cranked up the coziness out here, that was for sure. They’d brushed the snow off the two big sunbeds, extended the sunroof, and lit torches along the patio.
“You showered forever,” Corey accused.
Luke smiled back at us. “There you are. We have coffee and cocoa.”
“Aw, yesss!” Kit ran over.
“And soda!” Corey added.
There was a lot more than coffee and cocoa, I’d say. And soda. They must’ve emptied the house of blankets, and I was pretty sure I spied a bag of chips in Greer’s lap. So that’s what I dove for. This summer, right after we’d entered Kit’s life, it’d been him and Luke on that sunbed. Now it was Kit, Corey, Macklin, and Greer swapping body heat to stay warm. And they better make room for Luke and me.
“Comin’ through.” I gave Luke’s ass a squeeze on the way because it called to me. “What sparked this idea?”
Corey grinned sleepily and crawled up on Greer’s lap. “I love watching the snow fall. We’ve started having cocoa on the porch at home whenever it snows.”
“That’s a fine tradition.” I could imagine copying it, ’cause this was nice. I dropped a kiss on Macklin’s forehead and climbed over him, then hauled Kit onto my lap so Luke could squeeze in too.
We should buy heaters.
We were fairly protected from the harsh winds, partly because of the house itself, the wall, and the tall bushes and trees that framed the narrow backyard. But definitely still cold out here.
Luke ended up on the other side of me, and he told Macklin to cuddle up between his legs, which I thought the boy needed. Macklin needed to be tended to, cared for. And Luke was the perfect man to go into Daddy mode for Mack too.
“What a way to wrap up the party.” Contentment swept through me, and I let out a big breath. “I’m glad y’all decided to spend the night.”
Mack extended two Yeti cups to Kit and me, and I took a sip of the perfect coffee and leaned back against the cushions.
“Oh, there’s marshmallows in,” Kit whispered. “I love, love, love marshmallows.”
We knew. Boy could go through a whole bag in one sitting.
A comfortable silence fell over us, and for a while, we just enjoyed the moment and watched the snow fall across the yard. The pool was buried along with the lawn.
The street on the other side of the wall was silent.
Luke drew a few blankets higher up and kissed the top of Mack’s head.
“I could probably fall asleep right here,” Mack mumbled.
“Me too.” Kit slurped audibly from his cocoa and finished with a satisfied, “Ahhh.”
“Yeah, so who wants a snowball fight?” Corey asked.
“I do!” Kit raised a hand.
“Forget it,” I chuckled. They couldn’t lure me down under a bunch of blankets and then think I’d be remotely interested in throwing snowballs.
Neither were Luke and Greer—or Macklin, for that matter. But the Littles were undeterred, so they willingly left our fortress of warmth to dart out onto the blanket of snow.
“You make sure to stay away from the pool, boys,” Luke warned.
“Yes, Sir!”
“Let’s make snow angels first, Kit. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
I sighed contentedly and drank my coffee, and Greer scooted closer.
“Share the heat, Texan.”
“Heat is a stretch,” I drawled.
“Feels plenty hot to me,” Mack teased.
I grinned and took me another swig of coffee. A beat later, Macklin hitched a leg over Luke’s and mine, and I rubbed his thigh absently under the blankets. In the meantime, Kit and Corey were making snow angels on the lawn.
“It’s fuckin’ bonkers how much I love that boy,” Greer murmured. “I’m embarrassed sometimes to think I didn’t believe it would be possible at first.”
I knew what he was talking about. He’d fallen so hard for Archie and Sloan, and Corey had entered their lives in a new way when they’d already had so much going on. But the boy fit right in with them.
“We’re happy for you, buddy.” I leaned over and gave his cheek a smooch. “You only had to wait ten years, and then you got three of them in the span of a few weeks.”
He chuckled warmly and tilted his face toward me. I smirked a little, then brushed my lips to his. The boys wouldn’t even begin their snowball fight if Greer and I took this any further.