Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 62620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 313(@200wpm)___ 250(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 313(@200wpm)___ 250(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
CHRISTIAN: I’m going to kill this guy. Give me a name. I’ll make it look like an accident. I promise.
MATTY: Not a chance in hell. That’s not who you are, though I can totally understand the impulse right now. I’d want to beat the shit out of someone if they’d done the same to me. Especially with a girl I cared about as much as you do Starling.
CHRISTIAN: I’m pretty sure I’m in love with her, Matty.
MATTY: Of course, you are. She’s cool, gorgeous, badass, and perfect for you. Another good reason to stay out of jail. It’ll be much harder to finish winning her over if you’re spending life behind bars.
CHRISTIAN: I can’t think about that now. I have to make this better first. If I can’t do that, I don’t deserve her.
MATTY: Not sure I agree, but let’s meet up and talk in person. Your place in…fifteen? I’d offer mine, but the house is a wreck from all the renovations. Trying to get top dollar for it when I put it up for sale in a month or so and my projects are getting out of hand.
CHRISTIAN: Sure, I’ll see you there. And thanks, Matty. I appreciate the heads-up and your help. If this had to happen, I’m glad it happened with someone like you in my corner. I’m sorry I’ve been giving you such a hard time lately. Clearly, you have your shit together every bit as much—or more—than I do.
MATTY: No worries, man. I understand where you were coming from, too. I know my life choices can seem a little out there sometimes, and that you bitch because you love me and fret over my safety like a little blue-haired grandma who watches too many drug cartel documentaries. It’s cool. We’re cool. See you soon. I’ll grab coffee on the way.
CHRISTIAN: Thanks. I’m definitely going to need it.
Christian
While Matty’s grabbing coffee, I decide to swing by the shop and grab the nanny cam. I can see if it’s been moved, take possession of the damn thing, and slap a padlock on the garage door while I’m at it.
I’ll have to wait until morning to call someone to go change the locks, but I’ll feel better knowing no one can move anything larger than a person in or out of the shop until I get to the bottom of this.
If whoever did this is ballsy enough to leak my private life online and brag about it to the other guys in the shop, he might be bold enough to steal inventory on the way out. And I have way too many valuable vintage bikes in storage in the back to run the risk of continuing to give the person who betrayed me another second of my trust.
I expect the errand to take a few minutes, but when I pull down the road leading to the shop, I see lights on in the back.
Maybe the guys just forgot to turn them off when they closed up tonight, but until I know for sure, I don’t intend to take any chances.
Pulling over to the shoulder, I shut off my lights and grab a flashlight from the glove compartment. I shut the door as quietly as I can and wait a moment for my eyes to adjust to the near-complete darkness. The shop is at the end of a gravel road just outside of town. There’s nothing nearby except a furniture manufacturing warehouse farther down the road and an abandoned train depot building I’ve been tossing around the idea of buying for a few years.
The old structure is a gorgeous piece of 1930s architecture, but it would be a complete gut job, and I’m not sure what I would do with it once I was finished. Bad Dog is growing, but not fast enough for this area to be anything but the outskirts of town for at least another ten or twenty years. Deep down, I’ve always sensed I wouldn’t be here that long. I love my hometown and being surrounded by friends and family, but I want to expand my horizons. I don’t want to head off into the great unknown like Matty, but the move to Minneapolis and a big job change feels right.
Or it did…until recently.
Until Starling.
Now, I think I could be happy doing just about anything for work, as long as I got to come home to her every night. But the asshole who violated our privacy put the nail in that dream’s coffin. Starling probably won’t want to be seen in public with me after all this, let alone consider settling down and making a life together.
As I creep up to the shop window in the dark, I’m thinking about Starling and all the ways I’d do things differently if I could turn back time. I’m not as focused as I should be.