Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 73398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Cora, though, could likely get away with murder with me as long as she flashed that smile of hers.
“I really am done,” Cora promised.
That was why we left an hour later, I had to come back tomorrow morning and find out a way to transfer eight trucks to the salvage yard, and two to Cora’s place.
Luckily, I knew someone with a damn big trailer.
Chapter 24
Every day I try to do something good for those around me. Today, for instance, I put on deodorant.
-Text from Coke to Cora
Coke
The next day, after getting the help of Parker, Rafe and a few of the men from Hail Auto Recovery, all the vehicles were where they were supposed to be.
And, surprisingly enough, Cora was able to drive her new truck home. From what I could tell, there wasn’t a single thing wrong with it.
From what the pick-up coordinator at the auction house said, the water from the flooding had never gotten over the axles. However, since the truck and about forty others on the lot had been involved in the flood, they’d all been totaled by the insurance company regardless of whether they were actually affected or not.
Which led us to now, at a restaurant, getting dinner with Janie and Rafe, Kayla and Parker, Johnny and June, and Reagan. Reagan, I’d come to know slowly over the last couple of weeks.
She was soft-spoken, shy, and honestly a very hard person to talk to—mostly because she didn’t talk back. No matter what you did to get her to say something, she just didn’t have much to say—and if she did have something to say, it was very little.
Cora had explained to me that Reagan, despite her beauty and openness with her friends, was very shy around new people. But once you got “in there” with her as a friend, she opened up.
She was still cautious around me, but I knew I wasn’t the only reason she was shy.
That likely had a lot to do with the other men at the table—Rafe and Parker.
I’d seen Cora and Reagan gabbing outside the door of the restaurant when I’d pulled up in my company truck, trailering Cora’s old car. On my way home, I’d drop it off at my yard where she assured me that it’d look ‘pretty in a corner.’
I didn’t plan on putting it outside. I had a massive fifty by a hundred-foot shop where I put all the cars that might be actually worth something, and that was where I’d put Cora’s car…just in case the truck she was driving decided to poop out on her, and the water actually did affect something internally in the truck.
Cora’s hand sneaked out and ran along my thigh, and I leaned back and wrapped my arm around her chair.
We’d just ordered an appetizer, and I was hoping this time we had dinner would be a lot different from the last time we were in the same place.
This time, I was very conscious of what made Cora, Cora. I was also hyper-aware of everything I said or did, not wanting to make this place one that she associated with bad memories, but instead with good ones.
Especially when they had some of the best steaks that I’d ever tasted.
I wanted to come back, therefore, I was on my best behavior.
“Coke?”
I turned my attention back to the woman at my side. “Yeah, baby?”
The restaurant had a live band, and my eyes kept drifting to the stage where a woman in a flowy dress kept stomping around in her boots, making my head start to pound. They’d started the set about five minutes before, and I was already over it.
Why couldn’t people just play good music? Why did they have to fuck with it and add their own unique ‘flair’ to a classic? If you want to play something new and edgy, don’t fuck up “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Fuck up your own song.
I’d had a long fuckin’ day, and that wasn’t including the even longer fucking days before that—when Cora had refused to talk to me.
“I’m sorry.”
I turned to survey Cora’s face and frowned. “For what?”
“I’m sorry for not trusting you, and I’m sorry for making you feel uncomfortable. I’m not going to break. You can talk about whatever you want to,” she explained.
I sighed and let out a breath I hadn’t been aware I’d been holding, not realizing that she’d caught on to my hesitation that evening. I’d thought that I’d been hiding it well.
“I don’t want to hurt your feelings. We’ve had a good day, and this place may already bring back bad memories…I want you to have something sweet. Not something blighted with not-so-great every time you come here,” I murmured.
She smiled. “I’m fine. I promise.”
Or she was until Beatrice walked in with her mother.
“Shit,” she sighed. “This place…what’s with it?”