Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 84446 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84446 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
He had mostly brothers.
But his baby sister, propped there on his mother’s hip, was going to be really fucking protected as she aged up, with a brother like this.
“And Elliott?” I asked.
“More than skinned knees,” he said, shrugging it off.
“More than… like I should be expecting the cops or his father at my door?”
“You could take ‘em,” he said, making a laugh burst out of me, despite myself.
“I’m sure I could,” I agreed, shaking my head.
“His dad’s not around, I don’t think.”
“No?” I asked, sucking in a breath. “Then I think you need to invite Elliott over to dinner tomorrow.”
“What? No.”
“Wasn’t a question,” I said, shaking my head at him. “Seems like Elliott needs someone to teach him how we treat girls around here. Invite him to dinner. But ice that face first,” I said as he got up off the couch, pissed off at me, but he’d get over it.
“That’s very sweet,” Lore said as we watched our boy go into the kitchen, grabbing a bag of peas out of the freezer, and taking it with him as he stomped up the stairs, then into his room, slamming the door for good measure. At least, in some ways, he still acted like a kid.
“Gotta fix the little problems before they turn into big, two-hundred-pound ones,” I said, walking over to press a kiss to her cheek, and taking our little girl off of her hip to place on my own.
I’d been good with the boys.
Sure of my ability to raise them.
When the ultrasound finally told us it was a girl, I gotta admit, I fucking panicked a bit. Until Lore reminded me that through loving her, I learned a lot about being gentler.
She looked just like her mama, too.
Her brothers and I were gonna constantly get scoldings from Lore about being too overprotective with her in a few years, I was sure.
“You’re a good man, Renzo Lombardi,” Lore said, wrapping an arm around me.
“Don’t let that shit get around,” I said, wincing down at our daughter, who was picking up words like a fucking sponge. I was already in trouble for her confident and frequent use of the word ‘fuck.’ And it seemed she got her brains from her mama, because no amount of insisting I said ‘duck, truck, luck, or muck’ deterred her. Though, I had to say it was kinda funny as hell when she used it appropriately. Like when she’d dropped her sippy cup, slapped her hand on the table, and growled, Fuck!
“It can be our little secret,” Lore said as we both turned to the ruckus in the hallway.
Not a minute later, the door flew open, and our other kids flooded inside, followed by exhausted-looking and paint-colored Cinna and Dav.
“They’re monsters,” Cinna declared, waving toward our boys as they rushed to the kitchen, ripping open the fridge, and perusing the offerings. “You bred and raised monsters,” she said, accepting a napkin from Dav, and wiping some neon green paint off of her shoulder. “They got only your evil genes, none of Lore’s.”
“They kicked your asses, didn’t they?” I asked, grinning at the grown-ass adults who’d clearly lost a paintball match against a bunch of kids.
“Look at that,” Cinna said, avoiding answering the question, waving toward the boys who’d busted open a box of tube yogurt. “We just fed them twenty minutes ago.”
“Where’s the big one?” Dav asked, looking around.
“Icing his face,” I said.
“I remember those days,” Dav said, nodding. “Alright. We’re going to go get a grown-up drink,” he said, nodding at Cinna. “Or ten,” he said, laughing at her expression.
“I feel like we should be worried that two of the scariest capos in the city are exhausted and mildly afraid of our young children,” Lore said, looking at the boys as they ran toward the stairs, tracking partially dried paint across the floor after having left the fridge wide open, and the half empty box of yogurt tubes out on the island.
“I think this one is gonna give ‘em all a run for their money one day,” I said, lifting our daughter up high enough to make her squeal, before dropping her quickly enough to make her belly bottom out, getting another squeal as I set her on the ground.