Solid: 2 1/2 (Twin Duo Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

right?”
    “Yeah, what’s going on, Gabriella?”
    The frown and the fake smile did little to ease my trepidation. Something was up. Gabriella was hiding something and I knew it. “What do you mean?”
    “What were you talking about? You looked upset.”
    “Yeah, I was. Nick is taking a job in Connecticut. Mi’s going to leave me.”
    “Oh,” I said with only that. I’m not going to lie and say I wasn’t happy about that. That chick was weird as shit. I was more than okay with that.
    “Oh? That’s it?”
    “Well, I mean by the way you looked I thought something was wrong. We have two houses up for sale in our neighborhood, and two more about to be built. I’m sure you’ll find another friend.”
    “Not like Mi.”
    “Thank God. I’ll see you at home. I should be there by five.”
    I gave her a quick kiss and gathered my little employees who would be more in the way than anything, and left. We may have celebrated a little with ice cream before supper. Mi moving out of state was definitely celebration worthy, just not with my wife. Of course, Phi was about to blow my cover. I should have got them ice cream after they changed clothes. Ophelia had a nice streak of pink down her chest and belly. All I did when I tried to clean it back at home was make it worse. I hid it in the washer, on the side, she wouldn’t see, and hoped it came out.
    Nonetheless, that didn’t work. Gabriella went nuts over a lost sock. Thinking a missing shirt would slip past her was stupid on my part.
    “Where did you take it off, Phi? It couldn’t have gone that far,” she complained while Phi half paid attention. She was busy with our own back yard project, too busy for mundane lost shirts.
    “I dunno.”
    “You don’t know? What do you mean you don’t know? It’s a shirt. Where did you take it off?”
    “Uncle Pax put it in the washer because it got ice cream on it.”
    “Oh,” she said in that tone.
    My eyes snapped to Vander as I handed him a heavy piece of stone. One that didn’t allow talking while carrying. Big mouth.
    “Paxton?”
    “What, it was just a little snack. They’ll eat their supper or I’ll tie them up by their toes and feed them peanuts.”
    The attempt to make her laugh failed, but my troops laughed. Then again it was their toes we were talking about.
    “We had to celebrate,” Phi announced with an even bigger mouth than her cousins.
    “Celebrate what?”
    I didn’t tell them why we were celebrating for that exact reason, because they both had big mouths.
    “The good news,” Vander spouted while stacking the stones where I directed him to.
    “What good news Paxton?”
    Great. I hated that tone. She knew. Gabriella knew exactly why I had taken them for ice cream. “Can’t a guy just want a scoop of ice cream once in a while? Maybe we were celebrating the first day of school.”
    “No, you said mommy gave you good news.”
    “Ophelia, you’re not helping child,” I assured her busy little body, and then turned back to Gabriella walking away. No, stomping away. She was pissed.
    Supper was eaten on the patio with three motor-mouth little ones, all talking about school, trying to up the other one. Even Vander. He got to erase the chalkboard and Rowan and Phi didn’t. Gabriella talked as well, just not to me. All I got were dirty looks, and an angry scoop of mashed potatoes, plopped onto my plate with a scowl.
    I even helped clean up, trying to get back on her good side while Rowan and Vander got baths, and Phi watched Sponge Bob. That didn’t work either.
    “Gabriella, stop being mad at me. You’re mad over nothing.”
    The glare would have killed me if at all possible. Gabriella jerked the broom from the closet and walked out of the kitchen. Not one word, just the mean, hateful stare my way, narrowed, evil eyes, and pursed lips.
    “What are you doing? Stop cleaning and talk to me.”
    “I can’t. I have to go sweep up all the sand that you and your kids left for me. Don’t you have