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)
I swallowed thickly.
It hurt to think about him. It hurt even more to talk about him.
Here I was, all of these years later, and it still felt like I’d just lost him yesterday.
There was no moving on for me. Tunnel was my everything. He was the man who was my first and my last, and I was okay with that.
I just needed everyone else to be okay with that, too.
***
“This is the clubhouse,” Ellen said.
I looked around, noting that it wasn’t much different from Tunnel’s old chapter’s clubhouse. The place, although it looked more like a house than a huge room, was really an enormous man cave. There were huge flat screen televisions hanging on each wall, and on one wall, there were even two.
It was decorated in a muted brown that would be able to hide dirt and grime really well.
And the chairs. Yeah, those were really similar. It was like they’d all went in, sat on some couches, and bought the ones that were the most comfortable. None of them matched, and some of them were even different styles of furniture completely.
“It’s…nice,” I grinned.
And it was. It really was nice. Well, as long as you didn’t care if shit matched, which I did.
She started to chuckle, and once again I was surprised to find her there.
I’d arrived with Silas just a few minutes ago, and she’d been one of the first people I saw as I walked up the steps.
She was with her husband…who was definitely not the same man that she’d gone out with to the ballgame a week ago.
I hadn’t yet seen the other man that I saw her with at the ballgame, but for some reason, I knew he was there. It was as if I could sense him.
“Not to sound rude or anything, but when you went to that ballgame, you were with another man,” I whispered quietly. “I don’t understand.”
Her husband, who was close but not directly at her side, because he was giving us the illusion of privacy, snorted.
Ellen turned to look at him. “Jessie,” she indicated to the man who hadn’t let her out of his sight. “That’s my husband. The other man I was with was Ghost. He’s another one of the brothers here, and he didn’t want to go to the game by himself. I was the only one free, even though I’m sure he would’ve preferred to go with anyone other than me. Apparently, I’m a talkative person, and I annoy people while they watch baseball games.”
She said that last part staring a hole into the side of her husband’s head, and I had to pinch my lips together to keep from laughing.
This couple, I could see. Ellen and that other man? No. No way in hell. He’d been too intense. Too masculine. Too scary.
I couldn’t see why anybody would want to be with him. Well, except me. He reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
And then, as if he sensed my thoughts, he appeared on the back porch; the only thing that lit his way was a small green light outside. It’d been a light I’d asked about when I’d gotten here.
Apparently, green lights were for veterans. According to Ellen, they kept a green light burning here all day, every day, in support of veterans everywhere.
I’d never been a veteran, and neither had Tunnel, but we’d both known many veterans, and a few were important people in our lives. Hence the reason I thoroughly approved of this gesture, as I made a mental note to get a green light bulb for my house as soon as I found the nearest Wal-Mart.
“Ghost is here,” I murmured to no one in particular.
But both Jessie, the man Jessie was talking to, and Ellen all turned.
A hush came over the room after that, and the moment that Ghost came inside, all eyes were on him.
“What?” he rasped.
And yes, I do mean rasped. He had a smoker’s voice. One that said he smoked and smoked a lot.
Which kind of disheartened me a little bit. I didn’t like smokers. My father had been one, and even the faintest whiff of smoke reminded me of the man who loved to beat the shit out of my mother, often while he had a cigarette dangling from his mouth.
A big man that had been introduced to me as ‘Big Papa’ earlier, walked toward him and said a few words.
I saw the moment Ghost realized that I was in the room.
His eyes swept over the room, stopping on me, before he quickly looked away.
He turned back to Big Papa as he pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and slipped them on, causing me to slump a bit in disappointment.
I wanted to see his eyes. Badly.
But with him all the way across the room, that obviously wasn’t going to happen, especially considering that I had really poor eyesight.