Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 74875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
That sounded like her. She was always petty when it came to fighting.
One time when we were just starting out, I’d decided to go hang out with my friends instead of her one Friday night after a baseball game.
Thinking that I hadn’t gotten to visit with Baylor in quite some time, I’d decided to do the friend thing, but Ariya had called halfway through the night saying that something was wrong with her car, and she was stranded in the middle of nowhere.
When I got there, it was to find out that there wasn’t anything wrong with her car as much as the woman driving it.
When I’d pulled in, it was to find that Ariya had ‘sprained’ her ankle, and she couldn’t press the gas to get home.
After taking her home, leaving my car on the side of the road, Ariya’s ankle had suddenly, miraculously healed. Then I’d had to walk back three miles to my car, and she’d cried when I left, making me feel like utter shit.
“Sounds like something she’d do,” I admitted. “But that doesn’t really explain why you’d hate her. Or she’d hate you, for that matter.”
“I found her sleeping with my father.”
I blinked at the sudden outburst, and turned to study her seriousness.
At the complete lack of emotion on her face, I realized that she wasn’t joking.
“When?”
She started to squirm in her seat.
“Hennessy.”
She looked down at her hands and started fiddling with her fingers. “When you were deployed that first time.”
The time that she’d broken up with me while I was a month into deployment. I guess at least she hadn’t cheated on me, precisely.
“Gross.”
At that, she burst out laughing.
“That about sums it up. Walked in to find the two of them on our couch. That was the day I decided that college out of town was going to be good for me.” She shrugged.
“And it was,” I told her. “You were a scared little mouse when I used to watch you when you were younger. When I first found out that I was going to have to see you for my anger management, I gotta admit…I was a little worried. But it turns out that you’ve really grown into your skin. It makes me happy that you’ve not fallen into that same ol’ same ol’ once you got back.”
“My father was…my father.” She shrugged.
I could also tell that she was uncomfortable with the subject, but then she surprised me.
She grinned, and was about to say something more when a truck pulled into the parking lot.
It as a familiar truck.
Bright red, flashy, with polished chrome wheels that screamed ‘clean.’
Speaking of the devil.
Reverend Hanes stepped out of the truck, his eyes locked on his daughter…and me.
He missed nothing.
Our closeness, nor our smiling faces—at least until he’d pulled in.
His eyes were on my arm that was running along the back of the bench, my fingers playing with a small strand of her hair that was near my hand.
“You’ve not been stupid, have you Henny?” the pastor asked carefully.
I wanted to smack him as I let the strand of hair I was playing with go.
I hated this man. I’d always hated him.
I hated the way he looked at my mother like she was a lowly piece of trash, and then used her when he needed something to fill the void his wife had left.
I hated when he looked at me like I was no good for his daughter, as if he knew my inner thoughts and didn’t agree with them.
Mostly, though, I hated the way he’d treated his daughter.
I didn’t think she was abused physically—at least nothing more than any other child, but emotionally was a completely different story.
And the hate in his eyes right now? Yeah, that was directed wholly at me.
“I’ve done nothing wrong, Father.” Hennessy stood up and bent down to reach for her empty cup.
My eyes automatically went to her ass, and when they returned to the man in front of me, I nearly winced.
Yeah, he’d caught me checking out his daughter’s ass.
My bad.
“Little late for you to be eating lunch, isn’t it?” he asked. “I thought you had appointments all day? That is what you told me about an hour ago when I checked in to see if we were still on schedule.”
Hennessy sighed and threw her cup into a high arc, making it barely into the trash.
“I did have appointments,” she confirmed. “One canceled last minute, though, leaving me with a half hour of free time. I do have to be getting back, unfortunately.”
With that, she left, and didn’t look back.
Her father waited until she was all the way onto the highway before he turned to me.
“You don’t go there.” He pointed his finger.
I wanted to laugh.
The man should know that he couldn’t tell me I couldn’t do something.
He had, after all, told me that I’d never amount to anything. That I would be a loser for the rest of my life living off of my momma’s pussy.