 by Nicole Jacquelyn.jpg)
Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 100628 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100628 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
By tacit agreement, they’ve kept things strictly platonic.
Until one drunken night.
Rumi refuses to settle down before he’s forty. Nova works two jobs, single minded in her determination to save enough money to go to school.
Neither believes a relationship is in the cards.
But, now that the line has been crossed… fooling around doesn’t seem like such a terrible idea.
What could go wrong?
Trigger scenes of domestic violence not involving the hero.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Prologue
Nova
“You two go on and play in the grass,” Nana ordered as she turned off the car. “I just need to get Pop’s clothes out of the hamper in his room, and then we’ll head out.”
She climbed out of the car, making a shooing motion with her hand while I reluctantly unbuckled my little brother and dragged him out into the sunshine. It was nap time, and he was tired and cranky, but Nana didn’t seem to care. She’d said he’d sleep in the car, but if she would’ve asked me, I would’ve told her that he’d stopped sleeping in the car when he was two and a half. Now that he was five, it took two songs and running your fingers through his hair for a good fifteen minutes before he’d even close his eyes.
I didn’t understand why Pop even had a room in this place anyway. He lived with Nana. He’d always lived with Nana. People didn’t live in two different houses. That was just stupid. I glanced at the big gray building as I followed Bird over to the grass. There was music coming from the huge open doors, but I couldn’t see anyone inside.
It wasn’t even a house. Pop shouldn’t be leaving his dirty laundry here.
“Wanna jump?” Bird asked, eyeing the picnic tables. By the look in his eye, I knew I wouldn’t be able to dissuade him. I debated for a second whether or not I wanted to try before shaking my head.
“Only off the benches, okay?” I said, plopping down onto the ground. “The table’s too high.”
“It’s not too high,” he argued as he climbed onto a bench and jumped off, yelling like a maniac.
“If you fall and break your arm, it’s gonna hurt,” I warned.
Bird ignored me and climbed back onto the bench. With a sigh, I looked around me, plucking a couple of tiny daisies from the grass so I could pull off the petals. I’d made a few daisy chains before, but I didn’t really feel like trying to make anything. Pulling off the petals felt far more satisfying in my current mood.
“When you think Mama’s gonna pick us up?” Bird asked, jumping off the bench with a dramatic twist. “Maybe tomorrow?”
“Yeah, maybe,” I lied.
She wasn’t going to pick us up. Not ever, maybe. Nana told me that morning that our mom had decided that we should start school in Eugene when summer was over. Nana had tried to make it sound like the schools around their place were better or something, but we both knew the truth.
Mom just didn’t want us anymore, and Nana and Pop did. It was as simple as that.
“You think Nana will take us to ice cream?” Bird shouted, punching the air as he jumped again.
“Doubt it,” I grumbled, my hands fisting in the grass.
“Where my kids at?” a loud voice boomed from behind me.
My lips twitched as I twisted to find Pop striding toward us from over by the big open doors.
“Here!” Bird shouted, climbing up onto the picnic table so he could wave his arms. “We’re over here!”
“Yeah?” Pop replied, getting closer. “Didn’t see ya at first. Where’s your sister?”
I giggled as he dramatically came to a stop a few inches from where I was sitting and looked down at me in mock surprise. “Hell, thought you were some woman your nana hired to babysit!”
I wrinkled my nose at him as he laughed. I loved Nana, but I adored Pop. He was quite possibly my favorite person in the entire world. He was always teasing and joking and bringing us home little goodies after work, but even better than that, he was steady. He came home when he said he would, followed through on his promises, and treated me and Bird like we were the most important people in the world, which I thought was pretty cool because he wasn’t my mom’s dad, and we weren’t even his real grandkids.
“You two havin’ fun with Nana today?” he asked, moving around me so he could catch Bird as he jumped off the picnic table. “Summer’s almost over.”
“We gotta go to the Laundromat,” Bird replied loudly. “It’s boring.”
Pop chuckled, and I scowled. If Bird didn’t get his crap together and stop acting like a brat, Nana and Pop weren’t going to want us either.
“It is pretty boring,” Pop agreed. “How about I get off a little early today and we can go down to the river before dinner.”
“The spot with the rope swing?” I asked nonchalantly.
“You finally gonna jump off it?”
“She won’t,” Bird said with a laugh. “She’s too scared.”
“What do you know? You’re just a baby,” I snapped back.
“I’m not a baby,” Bird yelled.
“Come on, now,” Pop said with an exasperated sigh as he set Bird on his feet. “You’re not a baby,” he said to Bird before turning to me. “You wanna go to the place with the rope swing?”