Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69069 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69069 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
“Famous last words,” Mercy teased.
Dinner was great.
I didn’t scream out ‘fuck’ once, and I only tittered off one catchy jingle from nineties commercials, and none of them blinked an eye.
It was like I’d been with them forever.
It was everything I could ever hope for when it came to meeting my man’s parents.
And even better, I loved his sister, too.
It felt like I’d known them forever.
Bonus points was that they all said ‘fuck’ more than I did.
Score!
Chapter 20
Pre-annoyed—knowing beforehand that someone is about to piss you off.
-Sammy to Hastings
Sammy
Two weeks later
“There’s a first responder CrossFit competition.” I turned my phone to show her the display.
Her eyes lit up in surprise. “You should do it!”
I grinned and turned my gaze back toward my phone.
“You have to have a team of men,” I explained.
“Sammy.” Hastings pushed my side. “You have to go. Ask everyone. I’m sure that a lot of them would do it just because it’s for a good cause.”
They would.
“But I don’t want to leave you here on a Saturday by yourself,” I teased.
She rolled her eyes. “You damn well know that I’d be going with you. My readers would love to be able to see this. All these hot, sweaty, in shape guys competing? They’d eat it up.”
Her readers were a bunch of hussy women, that was for sure. But I was beginning to like all of them.
“It’s tomorrow,” I said. “I don’t have enough time.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re just trying to get out of it. Come on,” she bumped me with her shoulder. “It’ll be fun. And it’s not like you have to drive far. It’s here, in Kilgore. Not to mention you go to the gym there already.”
I knew it would be fun.
But I also knew that she didn’t do well with a shit ton of people around her.
But her excitement over it was what ultimately made me agree.
“I’ll ask around,” I said. “But I’m not promising anything.”
She winked at me and pulled up her phone. “I’ll ask the ladies.”
And she did.
My phone started lighting up moments later in the largest group text I’d ever been a part of.
Dax: If I do this, you have to be on baby duty for an hour later that night.
Ford: I’m calling in a future favor for my own baby duty.
Hayes: Ask Hastings not to post my bad side when she shares it with her reader group.
Booth: I’m in. Asa says he’ll be our mascot.
Bourne: I’m down. It’s always an ego boost when hot ladies tell me I’m pretty.
Booth: I’m hotter.
Saint: In.
Malachi: My snatch isn’t pretty.
Derek: I have a beautiful snatch. Count me in.
Adam: That’s the day before we leave for Beaver’s Bend. Swear to Christ if I have a pulled muscle when I go to ride jet skis, I’ll kill you.
Louis: Don’t be a little bitch, Adam. At least you’re not just coming home from your honeymoon.
Nathan: I’ll sponsor the team, be the coach. My shoulder’s being a bitch lately. Don’t think it’ll be ready by tomorrow.
I shook my head at all the replies.
Then nearly crossed my eyes in annoyance when my phone just kept going off. Again and again and again.
I tossed it to the side before replying and looked over at Hastings. “Are you in a group chat, too?”
She nodded and turned her screen toward me, displaying a chat screen that was having more and more messages pop up every second. “I am.”
“Well, just sayin’, but baby, I don’t like group chats. If you want to be in one, don’t ever expect me to reply,” I teased as I pressed my fingers to my temple. “My head already hurts.
“I think that’s a man thing. I don’t mind being in a group chat. As long as it’s one that I want to be in, anyway. My sister put me in one for some cookie party a couple of months ago with a bunch of her nurse friends. I didn’t know any of them. I was so lost, and you can’t back out of it. I had to mute the conversation,” she said, shaking her head.
I pulled her into my lap, loving the way her tiny belly poked me in mine before I laid a kiss onto her lips.
The thing had popped out unexpectedly this morning. Last night when we’d gone to bed, it’d been flat.
Then this morning she’d gotten up and stretched her arms up high over her head, and bam, there it was. It was the perfect size to fit in the palm of my hand.
“We’ve decided to camp there. We’re going to set up a tent. And the weather is supposed to be beautiful. Mid-sixties, sunny, and gorgeous.” She curled herself into me and I felt more than saw her close her eyes and drop her phone to her lap. “We’re going to meet up there at eight. You have to leave by seven in the morning, right?”