Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 71768 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71768 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
It was only eight in the morning. Just another twelve hours until bedtime. I could make it.
Just then, Viera appeared at my knee, her chubby little hand covered in chocolate. Wait. I hadn’t left chocolate in the living room. What could she have gotten into so fast?
“Aunt Colby, I go poop!”
Awesome.
SIX
Rip
“Whoa, who spit in your Cheerios this morning?” Banks, good friend, coworker, and full-time pain in the ass, stopped at my desk and lifted his mug to his lips.
I sighed. “Do you really think that’s work appropriate?”
He blinked down at the mug. In big, bold letters it read, “I love to wrap both my hands around it and swallow.” He grinned. “I mean, it’s true.”
I groaned. “You and your mugs.”
“It brings joy into an otherwise perilous day saving people from their taxes, what can I say?” He moved farther into my office. He was wearing some sort of black skinny-leg trouser, a loud red tie, and a white button-down shirt that had peppers on it.
“And the shirt? Is that just to give people seizures?”
“Oh, this? No, this I do to piss you off. You’d probably die before wearing a pepper.”
“You hear yourself when you talk, right?” I reached for my own perfectly normal black mug and took a sip of lukewarm coffee, then winced.
“I’ve been told my voice is soothing.” He winked and ran a hand through his ridiculously long mop of brown hair and sat down. “So, you gonna answer the question?”
“Don’t you have somewhere to be? Anywhere to be?” I wasn’t in the mood for his constant verbal sparring, not after the morning from hell.
“I’m fine.” Everything was fine. It would be fine. I just needed to learn how to adjust faster and how not to murder my new roommate.
See? Easy.
“You’re literally gripping your coffee cup like you might use it as a weapon, and if you clench your jaw any tighter you’re gonna pop a molar,” Banks pointed out. “Seriously, take a break from the joy of numbers and talk to your best friend.”
“We aren’t best friends.”
“Correction. Your best friend died. But I was next in line. So now I’m the new best friend, and before you get all pissed off again, that’s exactly the sort of thing that Brooks, our mutual friend, by the way, would have said—at my fucking funeral.”
I cracked a smile.
“Ah, there it is.” He leaned forward, his white teeth blinding me with a knowing smile. “Now seriously, how can you be in such a bad mood so early in the day? Problems in suburbia?”
I groaned. “She’s impossible!”
“Most women are.”
“Heard that.” Our coworker Olivia flipped him the bird as she walked past.
One day they’d finally hook up and relieve every single person in the office of the blatant sexual tension they refused to acknowledge.
That day was not today.
“Anyway…” Banks cleared his throat very loudly and rolled his eyes. “Let’s discuss.”
“Let’s not.”
“I think talking would help.”
“If I wanted a therapist, I’d hire one.”
“Best friends can be therapists.” He grinned. “Let’s start with the stick shoved so far up your ass that I’m worried you lack the ability to even order anything other than black coffee while you adjust your twice-ironed pants and judge the girl ordering the mocha.”
“I don’t—”
“You do.” He sighed. “And honestly, since moving into a five-bedroom house with a white picket fence two weeks ago, you’ve gotten worse.”
“Have not!”
“Have.” He jabbed a finger at me. “Look, man, I know you’re mourning. We all are, but this wasn’t just losing a best friend and a sister—this was losing them and not even getting time to grieve because of the kids…”
“Yeah.” I didn’t meet his eyes. “It doesn’t help that Colby is a fucking mess!”
“The complete opposite of you, I’m aware, and so was your sister, who loved you and trusted you with her kids. So ask yourself, why would she punish you by making you coguardian? There has to be a reason she chose Colby.”
“Punishment?”
“Try again.”
I sighed.
“Can you really not think of one redeeming quality Colby has?”
“I woke up with Ben screaming 911, rolling on the floor, a little girl funding her college via a swear jar, and the need to use a fire extinguisher, so forgive me if I’m having a bit of an issue finding one thing she does right.”
He was quiet, and then, “Do the kids like her?”
“Shit, they love her, it’s like they have another kid around to play with!”
He winced. “I was thinking something more along the lines of ‘She’s really kind,’ but OK, I guess that works too.”
I ran both hands through my hair and tried to push this morning’s disaster to the back of my mind.
Nope. Wasn’t working.
The kids screaming. The fire.
How had Colby survived this long without a keeper?
“I think you’re being a little too hard on her.” Banks shrugged. “Especially if she’s home taking care of Viera while you’re here at work. That little girl has more energy than the Tasmanian Devil. Add that to doing pickup for the kids, taking care of the house—”