Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 74898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
“But I’m really…” I interrupted her lie.
“You’re sweating, your face is really red, and I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen you take a drink of water the entire time your mother has been cleaning,” I pointed out.
She looked down at her lap.
“My mother said I was to wait right here and not move,” she said stiffly, then shook her head as if she couldn’t believe she was even telling me this. “If I move, she’ll get pissed.”
“Seems to me your mother’s too busy to know if you moved or not,” I said. “I haven’t once seen her look out a window to check on you.”
“You’re certain?” she bit her lip, sounding slightly more hopeful now. “Because even getting out of the car will help.” She looked at the trees on the edge of the lawn. “Being in this car feels like an oven every day, but if she finds out, the repercussions will be worse than this hot car.”
A hot flash of anger rolled through me at the idea of this girl having any ‘repercussions’ for protecting herself from the hot Louisiana sun.
She looked up at me with those soulful brown eyes, and I realized right then and there that this girl was going to save me.
And when she stepped out of that car? Her little frame came up to just above chest height on me, and I realized that despite being tiny, she had the ability to change my world.
***
“Thank you,” my wife whispered.
Thank God for the shades that were covering my eyes.
I knew that my face was different enough, but my eyes weren’t. And I’d only seen three people with the exact same color as my eyes before. My daughter, my sister and Lynn.
I nodded instead of speaking, not trusting my voice with her.
And not because I thought she would recognize it.
She wouldn’t. The smoke inhalation had permanently damaged my larynx and vocal chords. I didn’t sound the same, not even close.
But I knew my voice would crack the moment that I spoke to her.
She turned around, albeit a bit reluctantly, and I sat back in my chair.
Josh glared at me and bared his teeth. He knew exactly who I was, even if his companion didn’t.
I wanted to punch those perfect teeth of his right down his throat, wait for him to shit them out and then force him to swallow them again.
I didn’t do that.
But boy, did I want to.
Then, my worst nightmare at any major league game popped up, and the kisscam was on the large screens above the uppermost stands.
And it was directly on Mina and Josh.
I stiffened.
Mina stiffened. Josh answered his phone.
“Thank fucking Christ,” I muttered to myself.
The camera stayed zeroed in on Mina and Josh, with Josh none the wiser, and Mina looked down at her lap while fans booed all around us.
The screen, after staying on the two for over a minute, moved backwards to Ellen and I, and I shook my head.
“Sorry, darlin’,” I told her. “I’m not saving face here only to get it fucked up when I drop you off.”
Ellen started giggling. “He wouldn’t dare.”
My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out of my pocket.
Jessie (1344 hours): Don’t you fucking dare.
I showed it to Ellen, and she had the nerve to bat her eyelashes at me.
I sighed and typed back a quick message, then shoved it back into my pocket.
“You knew that he would do that,” I pointed out. “He told us he’d be watching it.”
“Which, by the way, he was really jealous about,” she said. “They’re playing his favorite team today.”
I didn’t much care for baseball, and I never had. My game was hockey because of the physicality of the sport. Sometimes I could watch football, but only if it was college ball.
It was embarrassing to watch a bunch of millionaires run around the field and cry when they got roughed up too bad. It was an embarrassment to all the men who came before them that we now had so many rules that’d been put in place that took away from the spirit of the game. They couldn’t do this, and they couldn’t do that. Blah, blah, blah.
My thoughts were abruptly cut off when Mina stood.
“I have to use the restroom,” she whispered to Josh, who, I might add, was still on his phone.
Dumb mother fucker.
I didn’t want him talking to her, not at all, but it was still rude as hell to bring someone on a date, or whatever it was, and stay on your phone for the majority of the time.
“Let me tell you something, mother fucker,” I growled, leaning forward. “You may have forced me into doing this, allowing you to have her, but that doesn’t mean that once I figure out how to get her out of this, I won’t beat your ass for every single time you’ve hurt or embarrassed her. Watch it.”