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)
Her bright pink underwear.
With a small white bow.
What she was showing me, however, were the indentations in her skin where the tight denim had dug into her.
My eyes kept trailing up to her belly button.
A barbell pierced through the skin, a small white ball on each end.
Her belly surprisingly wasn’t flat, either. It was slightly rounded, giving her small frame a tiny little Buddha look to it.
Not that I would ever admit that to her.
She was adorably cute and I wanted her to stay. Not freak out that I’d called her names.
“What am I looking at?” I asked carefully, not wanting to say the wrong thing.
“You’re looking at why I don’t like wearing pants.” She pointed to the indented skin again. “See?”
I nodded my head. “Maybe you should try the next size up in pants.”
She started to laugh at my suggestion.
“Yeah,” she noted. “Or maybe I’ll just continue not to wear pants when I don’t want to!”
I laughed under my breath as I picked up a couch cushion and shoved it into the bag. She followed it up with a pillow.
Before we could reach the last one, though, Tank walked over to it, curled up, and closed his eyes.
“Guess you can keep that one for him,” she grinned.
Rolling my eyes, I walked to the last thing that was on the ground, which happened to be the test results for my physical from the fire department.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“The paper telling me I’m clean and free of any illnesses, and allowed to start my job at the fire department.”
“No,” she started to laugh. “I’m talking about that?”
I flipped the paper over, and cringed. “That would be a hundred-dollar bill…missing most of Ben Franklin’s face.”
She started to giggle, and I peeled the hundred dollar bill off the back.
It came off in pieces.
“Why would you just have a hundred-dollar bill laying around?” she asked.
“Cleaning lady.”
“Cleaning lady?”
“Tawny.”
“Tawny’s your cleaning lady?”
I sighed.
“She offered, and I said yes,” I confirmed.
“Why not find someone that’s actually a cleaning lady, and not someone that just wants to be able to have free reign of your home?” she challenged.
I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing would come out.
She did have a point.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” I finally settled on. “When I caught her going through my drawers, I told her that she couldn’t come back. When I told her to take the money, she flipped me off and stormed out, upset that I would tell her she wasn't allowed to clean anymore for me.”
“Maybe she was putting away your clothes,” Imogen suggested.
I shook my head. “Negative. I told her to stay the hell out of my room.”
“So let me get this straight,” Imogen cocked her hips, making the pants that were still hanging open gape. “She didn’t clean your room. You paid her a hundred dollars to only clean the bathroom, kitchen, and living room?”
I nodded. “That bad?”
She gave me a look that clearly said, ‘fuck yeah.’
I held my hands up in surrender.
“I could find you a cleaning lady that only charges you fifty to do it. Tawny is a fucking fifth grade teacher. Why would she clean your apartment when she has school-like things to do?”
“It’s the summer,” I pointed out, trying to keep the smile out of my voice at hearing how defensive and territorial she was sounding.
Over me!
The freak who had half his face melted off.
Which would change the minute she saw the rest of me.
“Aren’t you going to be late for the wake?”
I grinned at her.
“Trying to change the subject?” I asked.
“Trying not to vomit that you won’t see Tawny for who she really is,” she amended.
“A woman looking for extra cash?” I tried.
“A woman looking to get her pussy tickled,” she offered.
I burst out laughing.
“Dear God,” I murmured. “You amuse the fuck out of me. But Tawny is a moot point now. She won’t be back.”
With that I turned to my bedroom, stripping my shirt off as I went.
Her hiss of breath as she inhaled had me turning.
“What?”
I knew what I was doing.
I wanted to see her reaction to me. See what she thought of all the scars, and my chest was one of the worst places on my body.
But she surprised me yet again not by seeing the scars, but by seeing the tattoo.
One that was special to me. One that was meant to remind me that I’d been screwed once upon a time, and it would never happen again.
My grim reaper tattoo. The one thing that straightened me out and forced me to think without a whole bunch of emotion controlling me.
One to remind me what that bitch had done to me, even when I didn’t want to see it.
“What’s the rest of it look like?” she asked curiously.
I turned completely to my side, allowing her to see the bad part of my belly.