“I remember.” His fingers trailed along my spine. “And I’ll save money this way. So we can buy the little house from him.” His shoulders slouched. “In fifty six years.”
The “little house,” which was plenty big for us, had ridiculous upgrades like asian walnut hardwood floors and porcelain tile in the bathrooms that made it way out of our price range.
I scratched his back. “We can move. Get a cheaper house. It’s okay.”
He cupped my face in his hands. “But you love it here.” He sighed. “We need to get a book deal.”
“Yeah.” I laid my head against his shoulder. “We need more followers.”
Our dream was to both quit our day jobs and write together. At that moment, just shy of six hundred thousand readers, it felt like a pipe dream. The other books on Incognito that had gotten agents and book deals were those that had a following upwards of ten million.
“He’s happy,” Ashton murmured.
“Ford?” I asked.
“Yeah.” A chuckle sounded like it bubbled in his throat.
“Happier than I’ve ever seen him.”
“Yeah,” he said again. And I could tell he was happy that he’d made Ford happy.
The music coming through the speaker stopped suddenly and Ford’s voice blared overhead. “Blacksheep Bookworm! Blacksheep Bookworm! K-666!”
The music started up again.
Ash stared at the ceiling and snorted.
I stared at the ceiling, nose crinkled. “What does that mean?”
“Blacksheep Bookworm is my code name.” He pulled his phone out. “He sent me a list of codes I’m supposed to memorize.”
“K-666? What the Satan?”
He shook his head. “Who knows.”
We scanned the list of codes together.
The music stopped again. “Blacksheep Bookworm!” Ford’s voice was anxious. “K-666! Do you copy?”
Ashton rolled his eyes, walked over to the intercom on the wall, and pushed the biggest button. “Fo-shiz. I don’t know what that means. What’s K-666?”
“It means get your ace down to the kitchen!” I giggled at his slang swear word. Ever since Peyton had plugged his mouth with her sweaty tank top, he’d been practicing keeping his language clean. An effort I appreciated since my littles were watching. “Mom’s here! We have a situation and your presence is needed. STAT!”
Ashton groan-chuckled. “I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll come. I wanna see what the ‘situation’ is.”
“Trust me. You’re safer up here. My mom can be…”
I bit my lips, trying not to laugh. Jenny was an A type, helicopter mom/grandma, whose middle name was, ‘I Know Best.’ Who knew what was happening down there.
He stalked out of the room and I admired his muscled calves and broad shoulders as he went.
I knelt down and untaped the box I’d carried upstairs. When I looked inside, I smiled. Each article of clothing was carefully folded with precision. Did the man use a plastic folding board? He had to. These were too perfect.
I made short work of putting Ashton’s clothes into the built-in drawers. When I got to the bottom of the pile, I spotted a small white jewelry box. I glanced at the door tomake sure I was still alone before pulling it out. The box looked new…ish. Too small for a necklace or bracelet. The perfect size for a…ring? No. It was probably earrings.
My birthday wasn’t for months though. I huffed at myself. It was completely arrogant to even entertain the thought that whatever this was, it was for me.
