The Fiction of Forever (A Stand By Me Novel Book 2) (24 page)

F
ive years
later

Gunner

“
D
arlin
’, we don’t eat brother’s crayons.” I take Kami’s chubby fist and pry her fingers open. She bats long eyelashes at me and two deep dimples appear in her cheeks. “I wub you, Daddy. I wub bwother. I wub cwayons.”

Lord, she’s like her mother. Obstinate and charming. A little on the devious side. Someday, a man will be in as much trouble as I’ve been these last five years.

“Yeah. Well, crayons are yucky. No more. Got it?”

She nods with wide eyes and pulls a crayon from the pants of the stuffed koala bear in her arms. Presenting it to me, she flashes a smile of two glowing white teeth. “Cwayon.”

“Thanks, darlin’.” I eye her diaper. I’ll be doing a crayon check for sure.

“Dad? You said you would help me.” My boy Cameron pokes a sharp object into my back. I can’t fault him. He’s been more than patient in his wait for my attention. “How long does a tea party last?”

I glance over my shoulder to see a building block spaceship in his hand. “I’ll be there in a few minutes after I put Kami down for her nap.”

“She’s supposed to take a nap at two,” he says with a stern expression. “Mommy said.”

“Yeah. A few more minutes.” I turn back around as Kami holds a tea pitcher and dumps pretend tea into my boot I left behind her when I took them off to play. “Time for a nap.”

“No nap,” Kami says with a pout. “Dwink, Daddy.” She throws the tea pitcher on the plastic table and grabs my abandoned boot with both hands. “No nap,” she repeats, her delicate blonde eyebrows knitting together in the middle.

Although she looks like me, her attitude is definitely her mother’s.

Cameron places his hand on my back. “Do you need my help?”

I look over my shoulder again and nod my head. “Let’s read sister a story, OK?”

He scampers away to his bedroom, his bare feet flying across the carpet, deftly avoiding the landmine of toys.

“Don’t run!” I yell after him.

When he returns with an oversize book, I carry both kids across the hall to the master bedroom. We pile onto the bed, Kami in the middle. She snuggles in and puts her head underneath the little blanket she carries around the house.

“I weady to weed,” she demands from underneath her shroud.

Cameron shakes his head at me and grins. “She’s crazy.”

“No, Camwin.” Kami flings the blanket off. “You cwazy.”

“Hush. We’re all crazy.” I open to the first page of the book. Kami covers her head again, and I read to them in soft tones. After three pages, I uncover Kami’s head and tuck the blanket around her. I glance over at Cameron, ready to tell him we can play now.

It’s too late. He’s asleep too, his small hand placed on his sister’s shoulder. I glance up at the sound of footsteps in the hallway.

Kiley leans against the doorway, her hands behind her back. She smiles and mouths, “I love you.”

I nod. It’s a given. No doubt in my mind that my piece of heaven sits within these walls. “Did you get the test?” I whisper the question.

She brings one hand around and holds the stick in front of her. A blue dot clearly marks the end of the pregnancy test.

Kiley beams, a damned light shining from the joy on her face. She tucks a dark strand of hair behind her ear. “We’ve got to figure out what’s causing this.” She smirks.

I exhale, a fear letting loose in my chest. I’m grateful she’s not upset. We didn’t plan this baby. Heck, we didn’t plan the first one. Not that she ever complains about the two little monkeys sleeping soundly beside me, but it’s a lot in a few short years.

Years I wouldn’t trade for a billion dollars.

Between the growing landscaping business and our store, our lives get busier every day.

I insist Kiley fulfill her dreams. A person needs to work with something that makes them grow and bloom. I get a high from seeing the beauty I shape from outdoor spaces.

Kiley needs something different.

Audiences love her new television show,
Magical Beginnings
. She films one couple from the time a guy gets down on one knee, through all the drama of wedding preparations, and all the way to the altar.

And
she
loves every minute of it.

Still, she gives most of her attention to our family. We’re not stupid. We know what we have.

Sometimes, I’m so lucky it scares me. I’ll begin to fuss over things like life insurance policies and health insurance. I insist we make every moment count. Kiley kisses away my paranoia and promises me that no matter what life throws at us, we have each other.

Now, she pads over to the edge of the bed and sets the pregnancy test on the nightstand. Slipping in beside Cameron, she kisses the top of his head and rests her arm over both kids.

I lay my hand on top of hers and caress it, tracing my finger over the ring on her left hand. She closes her eyes, a grin tipping the corners of her mouth with some secret thought I hope she’ll share later.

Maybe she’s wondering if she’ll need a bigger vehicle, like a minivan. At the rate we’re going, we’ll need a bus. But she’s way past due for a new vehicle. Still, I hate to get rid of her SUV, since I’m pretty sure it’s where we conceived Cameron.

In private, I’ve often called him our backseat baby. In private, I tease that she knew I was husband material in the second grade. In private, I tell her how she saved me from a lonely life.

In public, I tell all my friends that I’m lucky to have found my forever.

T
HE END

I
hope
you liked reading The Fiction of Forever as much as I did writing it. If you did, why not leave a quick review for The Fiction of Forever?

R
eviews help
other readers find books that they may enjoy, which helps me keep writing them.

T
hank you
!

S
ecrets are exposed
, trust is betrayed and two people face the beauty of lies.

Leo Jensen has a secret—he is Mr. Expose, a blogger that reveals the truth about liars and frauds. It's a way to make a living, and he's had a motherlode of experience with liars. Cheaters. Women who live for drama and carry more hidden baggage than a Boeing 747. Even his twin sister can't seem to admit the truth about her relationships, so finding an honest woman is about as likely as finding a unicorn in the middle of Nashville.

Harper Wade wishes life had a do-over button. She'd press that sucker and reset the last four years. Now, she has the chance to start fresh and make things right, but first she has to retrieve the damning evidence of her past from an annoying blogger. She's doing all the things she knows she shouldn't--breaking and entering, lying by omission, falling for the hot guy next door. Too bad he holds the key to her clean slate.

Turn the page to read the beginning of
The Beauty of Lies
.

L
eo
Jensen

I
scroll
down the list of unopened emails and wonder why bat-shit crazy seems to follow me.

“SUBJECT: You must like getting your toes sucked.”
The subject line alone forces me to grimace. I can guess what’s coming next. I’ll open the email and find some misguided blog follower who wants to rant at me for my latest post. Or maybe the sender is making an offer.

At least my toes would be getting some action.

Yesterday, I wrote a blog post about a teacher who was fired for inappropriate behavior. Why did she lose her job? She’d chronicled about toe
affection
on her personal, yet public, blog. A fetish post for certain, but pretty tame by internet standards.

I wrote that her romantic preferences were her business, and certainly didn’t merit getting canned. It’s not like she fondled a student’s little piggies. Teachers certainly don’t deserve scarlet letters for admitting they have a love life.

Love and romance.

These are topics I have no business talking about, since I’m officially on strike when it comes to women. My
A Torrid Toe Affair
post garnered over two hundred comments, some more snarky than others. Blog traffic spikes with sex-related topics.

Last week, I exposed a restaurant owner taking advantage of underage employees. The week before, I featured a postcard submission from a woman who’d been fired by her employer for not letting him give her dictation. Naked. Him, not her.

I seem to be a regular employee advocate this month. The month before, my posts were all about politics.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a masked marauder for justice. No cape in my closet. My talent for revealing truth seems to be accidental. It’s not what I really want out of life. I want to write books that entertain and thrill and keep you awake at night, turning pages.

I spend all my daytime hours working on my paying gig using my pseudonym, Mr. Expose. In the middle of the night, I hammer out my latest manuscript called
The Incident,
a political thriller on its third rewrite.

I click the boxes of at least twenty emails. Delete, delete, delete. I have more pressing things to do than read this shit.

The postcards on my desk pull at my attention. I pick up the top one. It’s a plain, white postcard with a picture of a crow on the front. I flip the card over to study the back. The sender’s handwriting tells me that he or she was in a hurry. The connective strokes between each letter are broken and thready. Barely there. The breaks between the letters indicate the person is impatient.

Handwriting analysis experts say our writing is like a fingerprint. The lines and curlicues can reveal the personality of the sender—whether they are open and honest or if they’re hiding something.

I took a class on graphology, because writers are like that. We like to know what makes people tick.

Some people don’t like my requirement for a postcard submission. They say my rule is archaic. That an online columnist shouldn’t act like a Luddite. The requirement does stop most impulsive people who would send an electronic submission in the same way they post a Facebook status—without taking time to think about repercussions.

The world is full of crazies.

Case in point. My cursor hovers over a new email in a thread of messages from one particular woman over the course of the past month. Even though I should delete these as quickly as I do the other spammy emails in my box, I don’t. I can’t help myself. Sometimes, it’s good to read one or two to remind myself of the reason I stay anonymous.

M
y cell phone
pings with an incoming message. I glance at the cell’s display and tap the message from my ex-girlfriend.

Tori:
Don’t be King of the Assholes. Answer my calls. If you don’t, I will come in person.

King? I’m honored. Between the crazy woman texting me, and the one emailing about her postcard, there’s a consensus.

I’ve gone my entire life being known as the nice guy. Not anymore. I’ve wandered to the dark side. Maybe this is where I’ll find solitude, a place to get my manuscript finished for the agent who requested it.

Tori isn’t going to harass me into calling, and Angel Girl isn’t going to force me to dig out her postcard. I don’t hesitate this time when my cursor hovers over the email message.

Delete.