𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘𝐎𝐍𝐄'𝐒 𝐅𝐀𝐕𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐁𝐀𝐊𝐄𝐑 (cbtd)

prologue

No one's P.O.V

Thirteen is our number. It's the number of games my husband Tom coaches at Lincoln College every season. lt's the number of times we zero out our bank account each year to make ends meet. And it's the number of kids we try to keep track of.

As Tom Baker her father removes his shoes after his run he goes to his room where his wife Kate Baker is circling something in a book with her red pen as she sees her husband walk into the room. She says "Hey. Good run?"

As Tom is walking in the room he responds "Oh, yeah." As he groans and sits down and throws his jacket in the hamper.

Kate chuckles at him as she sees his face "You need a paramedic?" She asks "No just a pair of knees. You finished?" Tom states sarcastically

"Still proofing, but I'm sending it to Diane today." Kate says "Look at this. New, clean cover, no peanut butter stains... yet." Kate says as she shows her husband her new cover of her book.

"Hey, baby." Tom says. "Baby?" Kate asks and with a shocked face.

Tom says "You know, on the run, you know what i was thinking?" "What?" Kate asks.

Tom stands up and sits beside Kate "Well, we've been married, what, five years?" He asks "Twenty-three" Kate corrects him. Tom groans "Twenty-three. Sorry. And I think we could use a little change around here, like-like this lumpy old mattress. Maybe you know we should get rid of it." Tom says as he walks to the bed and you can hear giggles around the room as he sits down.

"Don't be ridiculous hunny you know you can just pound the lumps out of a mattress." Kate tells her husband.

"What-What do you mean? You can just pound the lumps out of the mattress?" Tom asks as you can hear the giggles get a little louder. "Yeah, just randomly start swatting away." Kate says "And it goes flat?" Tom asks, "Yes, yes." Kate replies. "You just start- You start randomly swatting." As Tom's hands and arms start hitting the bed and the giggles are getting louder and louder as the kids get out from under the blanket and start going to Tom and everyone is laughing. "Come here." Tom screams at the kids, Kate chuckles at this and says "Careful." Gunner their dog starts licking Tom in the face as he says "Argh I got a dog on me!"

Twelve's an insane number of kids but having a small family was never an option for us. See, Tom loved growing up with seven brothers and sisters. And after my sister died, l spent most of my time wishing I had seven brothers and sisters. 

Tom and I met at Illinois Polytechnic University. He was a senior dreaming of becoming the head football coach there. 

l was a freshman dreaming of becoming a sports reporter. He wanted eight kids, l wanted eight kids. Bam. An hour after l met him, l knew he was the one. We just had family at the wedding. Oh, and Shake Maguire, Tom's best man. What a hot dog.

A year later, we had our first Nora. l loved taking her to work with me. 4 years later I had Madelyn who was actually the calmest among all my other children and she didn't really cry that much and was really calm which was weird. 

After Charlie and Lorraine were born, we realized our dream of living in the city and having eight kids and two careers wasn't gonna work. As much as we wanted our big careers, we wanted our big family more. So Tom settled for a Division iii coaching job at Lincoln l quit writing for the Tribune, and we moved to the country. 

Tom and l got busy when we moved to Midland. We had Henry, Sarah, Jake and Mark in consecutive years. Then we went for magic number eight, and instead we got the first set of fraternal twins Jessica and Kim. Nine kids. 

With each child, Tom and l got further from our big career dreams. But we didn't think about that. We had our hands full with nine. We were happy, and we were done. Then we went to a party celebrating Shake Maguire's appointment as athletic director at our alma mater. And, well, too many beers and nine months later, we had Mike. 

After that, Tom got a vasectomy. But he didn't hear the doctor say that it would be a few weeks before the procedure became effective. In '98 Nigel and Kyle got us to that crazy number 13. But by then, Tom and l were experts at managing chaos.

✎ Noe speaks 

this is the prologue i hope you like it and enjoy it! 

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