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)
“Fine,” Janie sighed. “But don’t think that we’re not going to discuss this another time. You have until Friday afternoon to get back with us, and if you don’t, you’ll be sorry.”
“You’ll probably be drunk, too,” Kayla groaned. “Janie, we need to make sure we don’t accidentally get her another tattoo again.”
I snorted.
They hadn’t accidentally gotten me a tattoo the first time, either.
In fact, they’d poured alcohol down my throat and got me snockered, and then took me to a tattoo shop only because they wanted me to get a tattoo first and tell them if it hurt.
It had.
A lot.
It’d been a stupid little heart on the bone of my ankle. My one and only.
My drunk self hadn’t realized what I’d been getting into. Janie and Kayla had laughed their asses off after I was finished, and I’d been unaware of the problem at hand until the next morning.
“You won’t be doing that,” I hissed. “Now get out!”
Kayla grinned at my impatience.
Janie narrowed her eyes.
Then June’s phone rang, and a clearly irritated man could be heard on the other end of the line.
“I need clothes!” he growled. “I would’ve already had them myself by now if you hadn’t stuck me with that phone conversation.”
I was downright surprised that I could hear every single word out of the man’s mouth—through a phone.
But I had, and what I did hear made my insides shiver.
That smoky, scratchy, rough voice caused my nipples to harden.
I kept my poker face firmly in place, though, and then squeezed past the two still obviously annoyed women and headed straight for the door.
Once I had it open, I gestured at the women that had followed me out of my office, and neither one said a word.
Janie flipped me off, and I had to work at not bursting into laughter.
“I’ll be watching you, FC,” Janie complained.
Fire crotch. Ugh.
“Must you call me that?” I asked with barely restrained patience. “It’s annoying and people always ask what that’s short for. I don’t want to have to tell them here. Please, just for once in your life, act like you’re not the crudest person on the planet.”
Janie laughed, taking no offense by my blunt words, and exited.
She’d never understood how much I hated it…and she never would. If she knew exactly how much it got on my nerves, she’d probably use it more.
Moments later, she was passing by me and heading back through the woods.
“Don’t forget. Friday. Be there or be square,” Janie said.
Moments later, I fully lost sight of her thanks to the woods, and I couldn’t say that I was upset by the notion.
I wished they didn’t know where I lived. Now they’d be here all the freakin’ time if I let them.
Which I wouldn’t—at least not willingly.
***
Coke
“What’s this?” I asked June as she handed me an envelope.
“Someone asked me to give it to you,” she explained.
She didn’t expound on who that someone was, nor did she wait around for me to ask. Instead, she walked out of my office, and back into the main room of the building because her friends were there.
“Hey!” I called before she could completely disappear from sight. “Could you close the door? My ex-wife said she was on her way over, and I’d rather not talk to her if I can help it.”
June snorted. “So, you’d rather me deal with it?”
I didn’t bother beating around the bush. “Yes.”
She scoffed. “You remember the last time I had to deal with her, right?”
I did. Vividly.
That’d been the night that my daughter had told her mother that she was going away for college, and Beatrice, in only the way Beatrice could do it, had taken out her anger on a random person instead of her daughter—June.
She’d bad mouthed her so badly that June had left the restaurant altogether—leaving her elderly grandfather to finish his meal alone.
I’d arrived to hear Beatrice turn her ugly words on my daughter and had had enough.
Yet, it was as if Beatrice had no desire for anyone to be happy but her—and that included her daughter.
At this point, I was fairly sure that my daughter had changed her number—or would if her mother continued to do what she was doing. Which was pushing her daughter away, farther and farther, until one day they’d be so far apart, it’d take a map and a miracle to find their way back to each other.
“With Janie and Kayla here, I might just let them deal with her.” June grinned.
I burst out laughing. “I think Beatrice would definitely refuse to come back if she had to deal with those two. Why are they here?”
I stood up and placed the envelope on the counter before reaching for the bag of clothes that June had gotten from my house for me.
“They’re here because they want to see a car crushed…”