Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 73311 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73311 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Mei had wanted to have it at the church, though, and since we weren’t able to argue with the grieving widow, we’d been forced to agree to have it there even though the place would likely burn to the ground the moment we all stepped inside.
Which was why we counted ourselves lucky that the people had started to show up, giving us a clear indication that the church just wasn’t going to work. Mei finally relented, and we’d moved everything to the stadium with bare seconds to spare.
Right now, the count for people attending Stone’s memorial service was at over three thousand, and those were just the ones who’d shown up in the past two days.
Likely, there would still be more coming for the actual funeral.
Tank growled again, and I sighed.
“I’m going to leave him here,” I told her. “Do you think you can keep an eye out? Don’t go in my apartment unless it’s an emergency. Just…talk to him through the door if you think you need to. I just don’t trust him right now.”
She looked at me like I was crazy, but nonetheless nodded her head in affirmation. “I can do that.”
I sighed.
There were so many things I wanted to say to the woman.
I’d had a lot of time to think over the last two days. A lot of time to figure out that life was short.
Stone had just been living his life. One second he was walking down the street talking on the phone, and the next he’d been shot dead. He’d taken a bullet straight to the heart; he never stood a chance.
His wife, whom he’d been talking to, had heard him take his last breath. She’d known the instant he was gone.
It really brought the point home to me after seeing Mei look so devastated, that I wanted a woman that would care if I died. I wanted someone to mourn me like that when I was gone.
It was a sick reality I lived in, but I wanted it.
And I wanted it with Imogen.
What I had with her—the feeling I got when I was around her—it felt big. It felt like something I wanted to pursue.
And after the last two days I had, the shit that had gone down, I’d still thought of her. Still thought about the way that she smelled. The way her hair stuck out every which way.
“Aaron?” Imogen broke in again.
My eyes focused on her face.
“Yeah?”
“If you need anything…you’ll let me know, right?”
Would I?
Probably not. I was a suffer in silence kind of guy.
I also wasn’t the type to lie.
“If I have a problem, it’s highly likely you’ll never know.”
Her lips tipped up in a grin.
“Well,” she shrugged. “I’ll have to keep my eye on you to make sure you’re okay then. I’ll be that annoying fly that buzzes around your head when you least expect it.”
I snorted.
“You do that.”
Chapter 8
My New Year’s Resolution is to lose…oh, look! Chipotle!
-Imogen’s secret thoughts
Imogen
“I’m going to buzz around you like a fly?” I muttered to myself as I paced the length of our living room.
“What are you carrying on about?” my mother asked as she came out of her room dressed in black slacks, a black shirt, and low black heels.
Her hair was down around her face, curling just like mine curled if I wasn’t careful.
“I’m talking about the fact that I came on to a man who was grieving instead of being supportive,” I muttered darkly.
“I actually overheard your conversation,” Mom murmured as she tried to affix a bracelet to her wrist. “And it wasn’t bad. In fact, I thought it was kind of sweet.”
I shivered.
“That’s creepy that you were listening,” I told her.
She smiled.
“You’re twenty-nine years old, and you haven’t been with a man who I thought you’d marry yet. I was married and had two kids at your age,” she murmured.
I snickered.
“You wouldn’t have been married if Clarabelle wasn’t an accident baby,” I informed her.
She shrugged. “Regardless of whether your sister was planned or not, I was married. I loved your father, too.”
“You don’t love my father anymore,” I pointed out.
Mom gave me a look.
“We grew apart. We’re still friends.”
Meaning they still had sex when they were in between relationships, which was more often than not.
There was no love between them. Not anymore. There was more, what I would call, friendship…with other benefits added in.
It was something I’d long ago decided not to ever think about.
“I kind of feel like shit that I’m not going,” I told her.
“You didn’t know him,” my mom said. “And there will be a ton of people there. There’s no reason in the world that you should go. That man has half the state coming to his funeral. He won’t notice that some girl he didn’t know isn’t going.”
My mom had known Stone by association. She knew him through Steel Cross, or better known as Big Papa in these parts.