Room 4 Rent A Steamy Romantic Comedy - Shey Stahl Page 0,94

and move past the kids at the island. “Pretty much. Hazel, get that cat outside. He doesn’t belong on the counter.”

This does nothing to deter her. “He likes me better than his owner.”

“Doesn’t matter. He’s not ours,” I point out, glaring at the cat. “You can’t just steal him.”

She pets the orange tabby cat lovingly, with peanut butter hands. “I can if he likes me.”

There’s no sense in arguing with her. She gets the last word every time. Disgusted, I stare at my daughter who is now staring at her hands with orange cat hair stuck to the peanut butter. I swear to God, if she licks her fingers, I’ll throw up.

I wait, giving her that fatherly look that screams “don’t you dare.” Her eyes lift to mine, testing out the waters. I narrow mine.

Shrugging, she wipes them on her pants.

“Uh,” Oliver, my oldest son, stares at me. “Where’s your shirt?”

Oliver, he’s our secret keeper. You never know what this kid is thinking. And honestly, we probably don’t want to know. He’s a ten-year-old boy. More than likely it involves Fortnite and the Battle Royale. Or how funny farting on his sister’s head is to him.

I don’t give Oliver an answer as to where my shirt is, because it’s still in the pantry where I took it off earlier, and if I tell him that, it will only lead to more questions. He might be a secret keeper, but the kid asks too many questions as it is, and if you wait about two minutes, he’ll forget he asked one and move on.

Kelly walks back into the kitchen with Finley, the spitting baby on her hip, and rolls her eyes when she notices the milk on my chest. “Why do you let her do that to you? And put a shirt on.”

Look at the baby. Doesn’t she look all sweet and innocent on her mama’s hip drinking a bottle? Fuck that. Ever since that kid slid out of the vagina I rarely see anymore, she’s had it out for me, and it’s been my fear that this might have had something to do with Kelly and I having sex while she was pregnant with her. Did she know it was me who was ramming her in the head? Is that why she spits at me?

“Let her?” I stare at my wife like she put my dick in a blender. I love Kelly. I just don’t like her sometimes. Usually when she’s accusing me of being a pussy, like now. “It’s not like I say, hey, Fin, fucking spit on me.”

“Daddy!” Hazel scolds, slapping her hand on my bare back with her peanut butter hands. “Bad word!”

My shoulders tense thinking about the peanut butter and cat hair on my back.

Kelly sighs, her mood written all over her face. I don’t know why she’s pissed off. It’s not like she has a constant hard-on she has to hide. Or peanut butter hair on her back. “Can you go change or whatever it is you’re going to do and take Oliver to school?”

Whatever it is I’m going to do? Ha. Fucking. Ha.

God, I’m kind of a dick today.

I want to say something sarcastic, but I don’t. I give up. I let it go. It’s what someone who fears confrontation does. More on that later, but I hate fighting. Goes back to my childhood you probably don’t want to know about.

Nodding, I step past my wife, who obviously hates my guts today.

Tripping over Sevi, our youngest boy on the floor, I make sure he’s okay. “Why are you on the floor eating?”

With his hand in a box of cereal, he stares up at me like I’m speaking some other kind of language to him. I probably am. Instead of answering me, he barks and shoves a handful in his mouth. Our three-year-old son thinks he’s a dog. I don’t mean, oh, cute, he’s going through a phase. I mean, fuck this shit, he thinks he’s a goddamn dog.

Sighing, I pet his mop of curly blond hair. I head upstairs, careful not to step on the nail gun I left out the other day. You’re probably thinking, who leaves out a nail gun with kids around? I do. Don’t worry, I took the battery out and hid it, just didn’t take the time to clean up the rest. Could be some passive-aggressive behavior on my part, which might be another reason Kelly is pissed at me. She tripped over it earlier.

It only gets worse from here. It’s in that stairway I’ve been replacing the risers on all weekend, where I catch a glimpse of a family portrait laying against the wall. Why’s it not hung on the wall? We’re remodeling this house we can barely afford and hanging pictures on the wall is probably the last “to do” on Kelly’s list, and I’m not allowed to hang pictures on the wall. She claims I hang them crooked. Whatever. I hang shit just fine. But it’s not the fact that it’s on the floor. It’s a little blonde girl in the photo that catches my eye.

Swallowing over the ever-present lump in my throat when I think of her, I keep walking into the bedroom, grab a shirt, and then I’m back downstairs. You might be curious what that was all about. Well, sorry, you’re going to keep wondering for the time being until I’m ready to talk about that part of my life. I’m late for work.

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Sex. Love. Marriage.

Whew. That was quick, but worth it, right? I loved every aspect of writing this one. Did you know I’ve had a baseball book planned for eight years and finally decided to put it into the works?

I did, and I can’t thank you enough for picking it up and getting to the end with me.

It took four weeks to write and a gallon of Jelly Bellies. If you don’t see me around for the next month, it’s because I’m running off the jelly of those delicious little flavor-bursting chewy beans gave me. That sounds weird, doesn’t it?

As you can see, me and Sydney, we’re a lot alike in some ways. I put pieces of myself in all my books, but I think I gave Sydney the most of my own character flaws or perks, as I like to call them.

Thank you so much to my BETA team and Hot Tree Editing for taking such good care of this one. I owe you girls so much!

And to you, dear readers. With so many books out there to read, thank you for choosing mine.

Love,

Shey

Shey Stahl is a USA Today and Amazon best-selling author. Rom-coms and sports romances with a unique writing style are her lady jam.

Her books have been translated into several languages, and if you haven’t laughed, cried, and cursed in the same book, you’re reading the wrong author. Shey lives in Washington State with her adrenaline-addicted husband, a moody preteen daughter, and their asshole cat.

In her spare time, she enjoys pretending to be Joanna Gains while remodeling her house, iced coffee (only the good nugget ice), hiking in the mountains of the PNW, and hanging out at the local dirt tracks.

Follow her crazy life adventures on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/sheystahl99/