Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 71015 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71015 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
***
Tru
I left in a haze.
What the hell just happened?
With my phone tucked into the crook of my neck, I called in sick, knowing I wouldn’t be able to go back to work. There was just no way I’d be able to function. Not after what Grayson…Torren… had just told me.
I’m sorry, Tru. It’s just not working. It’s too much work. You’re too much work, and I don’t love you. When you admitted it last night, I knew I couldn’t string you along anymore.
Too much work.
I don’t love you.
I hadn’t been able to say a word. Literally, I stood there speechless.
He’d told me that in front of the entire bar.
Then that stupid bitch ex of his had given the smuggest look I’d ever seen before, and I’d wanted to punch her straight white teeth out.
In front of his friends. My friends. Or ex-friends, now, I guess.
There was no way in hell I’d be able to be around them. It’d hurt too much.
I had no one.
And Iliana wasn’t talking to me.
I should probably make an effort there, but right now I just couldn’t work up the desire to do anything.
There was no way I’d bring it up to my parents. I didn’t want them thinking badly about him. Especially when they both worked hand in hand with the fire department.
He didn’t deserve their anger. He was just being honest.
I walked to the car slowly, trying to think about anything but Grayson…Torren.
That man in there wasn’t my Grayson. That was Torren. They weren’t the same. Not even close.
The icing on the cake had been when he’d slung his arm around that girl. Molly.
Molly had beamed at him, looping her arm around his back and hugging him tight, laying her head against his chest.
I’d wanted to run out of there screaming and crying, but somehow I made myself walk.
Don’t run. Don’t run.
Don’t cry. Don’t cry.
Those two mantras got me to my car, and then into my car by sheer force of will.
I could tell that everyone’s eyes were on me.
The patrons. The few members of The Dixie Wardens that had been in there. Torren’s brother. Hell, even Baylee had been there to witness my humiliation.
I knew as soon as I passed over the threshold of my new place, I’d be a goner. The tears would start, and wouldn’t stop until I was in an exhausted heap on the floor.
But I had one stop to make before that.
I had to go to the store.
A good cry wouldn’t do without ice cream and chips to gorge on. I couldn’t do it without that.
I’d be lucky if I didn’t gain thirty pounds in the next month.
I pulled up into the parking lot. The very last place I wanted to be.
But if I wanted to sleep on my bed without unpacking any boxes for sheets, then I’d have to get through it. That, and I didn’t have anything in my freezer.
The only thing in the entire place that’d been ‘unpacked’ was my TV and bed.
So I’d gotten the run to Walmart done as quick and painless as I could. I purchased sheets and the first season of Orange Is The New Black, and bought 3 gallons of ice cream before going home.
***
It took me a while to realize it.
It was somewhere in the middle of my sixth bowl of ice cream and the tenth straight episode when my rational brain had decided to come online.
His eyes.
That’s what had been bothering me since I’d left.
His eyes didn’t say ‘I want to break up with you,’ they said, ‘please forgive me.’
They’d been shiny.
At first I’d thought it was because the sun had been shining in his eyes.
But the longer I stayed there thinking about it, the more and more I became convinced that I was right.
Which begged to answer…why?
Chapter 17
Truckies. First in, last out.
-Torren to Sebastian
Torren
“Get your ass out of that house, now,” Sebastian bellowed.
I ignored him, walking through the burning house, feeling the wall as I went.
“You’re not fucking invincible, asshole! Get out!” Kettle added his two cents.
The house was crumbling around my ears, but I could hear the weak cries of the infant in the room beyond, and I wasn’t leaving him.
We’d arrived on scene to smoke billowing out of the second story’s open window.
That’d been the way that the frantic mother had gotten out, slipping down the trellis.
She’d tried to get back in to no avail. Her locks had held true, and her infant son’s life hung in the balance.
We’d arrived, and as a Truckie, I’d been the first one in, with Dillon at my back.
Now, though, I was all alone.
Dillon had followed orders, thinking that I’d been right behind him.
He was wrong.
I wasn’t.
I’d frozen at the first sound of the infant’s weak cry before starting slowly forward, further and further away from the front door, and the only portal of exit.
“I’m getting the kid,” I stated firmly.
“If you don’t get out right now, you’re fired,” Sebastian growled menacingly.
I ignored him as adrenaline poured through my veins.
Fire was a living, breathing beast.
It was tricky, and had a brain of its own.
Just when I thought I had a lock on how fire worked, something new would rear its head. Every day was a learning experience.
Feeling the hard solidness of a wall in front of me, I followed it to the side until I felt the familiar feeling of a door handle.
After ascertaining no heat from the other side of the door, I opened it quickly and shut it behind me, relieved to see that the smoke hadn’t penetrated the room fully yet.
I saw the legs of the crib and crawled as quickly as my large body and tools would allow me, stopping once I was in front of it.
The infant’s cry was weaker now, but I was relieved to see that the tiny baby was kicking, fully aware.
Pissed, but aware.
Then, removing my jacket, I set it beside the child.
Stowing my tools on my belt, I reached forward and picked the baby up. Then moved him over to the open coat and wrapped him up as best as I could without smothering him. I picked him up into my arms, cradled him to my chest, and walked to the window.