Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 122074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
CHAPTER SEVEN
MOLLY
My body was aching and stiff when I let myself into my apartment later that night. My head was pounding. I dropped the bag of clothes I had with me on the table, heading straight for some wine.
God.
My dad. My bowling alley.
My staff.
Even Jess.
My life was a total conundrum, but one thing at a time, and right now, I needed my painkillers and oh crap. I had to nix the wine. Water would have to do, and after, I headed for the bathroom.
My clothes were stripped off, and I stepped under the shower.
God. Warmth. Ashton’s place had been warm. I wasn’t physically cold, but emotionally cold? Oh yes. So much yes. And just thinking about him, I felt a wave of panic sweep my body. But no. I couldn’t indulge in that. I needed to think clearly, needed to get through the next few weeks.
I remembered my time at Ashton’s place.
As soon as Jess and Trace had left, I’d whirled on him. “What did you do to Jess?” Because she was hurting, and Ashton had done something to make her hurt even more. I could feel it, sense it.
He had frowned at me, studying me before he tilted his head to the side. “What did you say to her? I’m assuming you played along in order to save Easter Lanes?”
Right. Easter Lanes. One battle at a time here. I lifted my head up, squared my shoulders. “I want to know what you meant that my father didn’t have the right to sell Easter Lanes to me.”
I thought I’d been prepared. It was Shorty Easter, after all.
I had endured him all my life and I was still standing, but I’d been wrong.
Nothing could’ve prepared me for what Ashton Walden told me. “Your father sold Easter Lanes to my family. My grandfather. It’s something he used to bargain for his life at one point. I don’t know what he said or how he convinced you, but he didn’t sell the bowling alley to you. It’s in one of my family’s company’s names, and it hasn’t changed since you were sixteen.”
I felt struck in the face. “Sixteen?”
“You’d already been in foster care for a number of years by then.”
God. A deep ache took root inside of me, but it was the same one that was always there whenever my dad got involved with my life. I called it the Shorty Ache. It was there in place of where my soul should’ve been. He took that from me. “I gave him money for the bowling alley.”
“He gave you paperwork?”
The words hurt to speak, but I said them. “We met in a back room at an office. There was a person there. I signed. He signed. It all looked legit. I never questioned it.”
“How much did you pay?”
I didn’t want to tell him. He had no idea it’d been everything for me. I had nothing.
“I paid him thirty grand.” I swallowed over a knot in my throat. I didn’t tell Ashton, but I’d almost felt bad for my dad that day, like I had been the one actually conning him.
I should’ve known. No one out-conned Shorty Easter.
“What do you need from me?”
“I need to use you to do something.”
“With the police?”
He hadn’t answered. He only stared at me.
He wouldn’t tell me anything more, but I didn’t have a good feeling about any of this.
Buzzzzzzzzzzz!
Crap. Hearing the doorbell now, I got out of the shower and headed to the door.
I already knew who that was, and after letting them up, I had a robe on when Pialto and Sophie both swept through the doorway.
They stopped and turned as one to me, and both threw their arms around me.
“Oh my god!” Pialto exclaimed before sounding off on a Spanish rant. I wasn’t even trying to catch up with him. I just let him go as I recognized a few words: “madre,” “dios,” and “por favor.”
Sophie was shaking as she brushed her frizzy hair away from her face. “Are you okay, sweetie?”
Pialto stepped back, but Sophie moved in, framed my face with her hands, and searched my eyes as if she could read me from there.
Seeing them again, feeling them, that’s when the tears started.
I felt them rolling down and tried to rally myself. I did, but with everything going on—my dad, the robber, Ashton—all of it was flooding me now, and I teetered.
My knees shook.
“Madre, she’s going down.” Pialto grabbed my arms as Sophie lurched for a chair.
I was lowered down, but I kept moving, sliding off the chair until I curled up in a ball. God. I’d been trying to be strong, but I was done for the night. I had nothing more in me.
“Oh, baby.” Pialto moved, pulling my head to rest over his folded knees.
“Who’s—” I started to lift my head because—Easter Lanes. Once Ashton told me that he had someone watching over it, I hadn’t worried about it, and now I was horrified because that should’ve been the first thing I thought of after I left his place. “Easter Lanes.”