Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 59738 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59738 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
“Do you like it?” Archer asks.
“Aye, it’s very good,” Conor says. “Thank you, little fella.”
“Mom did most of the work,” Archer supplies. “She’s a good cook.”
Conor meets my eyes, and for a split second, I want to believe it’s regret I see there before they turn to stone all over again. “Aye, she is.”
He concentrates on shoveling his dinner into his mouth, so he can get out of here. I know it before he says so, and I’m proven right when he pushes back his chair.
“Thanks for dinner. I have to get back to work.”
“Whyyyyy?” Archer pouts.
“Can we talk?” I blurt.
Conor checks his phone, still avoiding eye contact. “A quick one.”
I tell Archer to go play in his room for a couple minutes, and he reluctantly stomps down the hall. I wait until his door is shut before speaking. “Is there something going on?”
“Like what?” Conor taps out a message on his phone.
“You haven’t been home. You’ve barely spoken to me. I just—”
“Welcome to being a mafia wife.” His tone is so flat, I can’t stand it.
I hate that I’m getting emotional, or letting it get to me at all. I’m shaking, my hands itching to rip that phone out of his hands and throw it into the garbage. “I get that you’re still pissed at me, but we can’t make this work if—”
His eyes snap up to mine, and they are brimming with a darkness I haven’t seen in him before. “That’s exactly what we’re fecking doing here, Ivy. We’re making the best of a shitty situation. The only way to make this work is by ignoring the fact that we’re chained to one another for life.”
I feel my body crumpling in on itself. My stomach is full of lava, eyes burning with unshed tears. What a fool I’ve been to think that Conor could love me. Maybe for a second, it was possible. But now it’s painfully obvious he’s miserable, and he’d rather be anywhere else than here.
“Chrissakes.” He turns his back on me when he sees the vulnerability in my face. “I don’t know what else ye want from me.”
“Nothing.” My voice wavers. “I don’t want anything else from you.”
“Did you get everything out of your drawers?” I ask Archer.
He nods and clings to the teddy bear Conor bought him at the zoo. “Where are we going?”
I arrange a pile of our bags outside the front door. “On an adventure.”
Archer doesn’t look convinced, and I don’t blame him. I hate everything about this situation, but if there’s one thing I know for certain, it’s that I can’t wait for things to get any worse. The only way to preserve both of our hearts is to get out now, while we still can.
It doesn’t matter if I only have a thousand dollars and the clothes that Conor bought us. We will figure it out. We will get on a bus and go far, far away, and we will stay in a shelter if we have to. As long as we’re safe and we’re together, that’s all that matters.
But even I’m still not convinced when I glance at Archer and see the questions in his eyes. He’s attached to Conor, and he’s not the only one. The idea of leaving this house behind feels like we’re leaving the only real home we’ve ever had. We’ll never see Conor walking through this door again. I’ll never feel his body curled against me in the middle of the night. And Archer will probably never stop blaming me for taking him away from the only man he’s ever loved.
I feel like a horrible mother for allowing it to happen in the first place. I believed Conor. I thought he wanted us. But his actions and his words have proved my worst fears to be true. Now, we’re all out of options and Archer and I have to move on.
“Leave the door cracked,” I choke out. “Wait here while I talk to the driver.”
I walk down to the sidewalk where the cab is waiting, ten minutes earlier than expected. The driver is engrossed in his phone when I open the back door and speak through the plate glass divider.
“You’re here for Misty?” I ask, giving him the fake name I provided when I ordered the cab.
“Yeah, that’s me,” he mumbles.
I ask him if he can open the trunk while I meet Archer at the top of the stairs, grabbing our bags along with his hand. By the time we get back down to the sidewalk, the driver is out of the car.
“Let me give you a hand with that,” he says.
I hesitate when he reaches for the bags. Maybe it’s just my paranoia, but something feels off. He’s wearing a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, and his arm is in a sling. He couldn’t possibly work for the Locos, or at least that’s what I want to believe. But suddenly everything about this situation feels wrong, and it isn’t until I get a whiff of his cologne that I realize why.