Total pages in book: 195
Estimated words: 185573 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 928(@200wpm)___ 742(@250wpm)___ 619(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 185573 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 928(@200wpm)___ 742(@250wpm)___ 619(@300wpm)
Everyone else in this shithole had it figured out the first day. Stay the hell away from Madden Keller. He’s an asshole. He doesn’t care about your problems, and he doesn’t want to be your friend. It’s a simple concept to grasp, but not for Bianca brown eyes.
I return her gaze, soaking up every detail of her features as I file them under things I shouldn’t give a fuck about. She has warm, golden-brown skin. Long black lashes. A face that seems to lack any flaws, no matter how much I look for them. She’s easy to look at, and every male on the ranch has been sniffing circles around her, trying to mark their territory. I’ve heard more commentary about her sweet tits and ass in the past few days than any other girl in my entire time here. It annoys me, yet I haven’t quite figured out why. She’s exactly the kind of girl I make a point to avoid. Perfect hair. Perfect skin. Expensive clothes. Diamond-studded earrings and a matching tennis bracelet. She looks like a trust fund brat whose biggest problem is that Daddy took away her credit card.
“Bianca?” The counselor’s voice startles her, and she drags her gaze away from me.
Something like disappointment washes over me, and I don’t know why. Maybe it’s boredom. Maybe it’s just fun to fuck with the fresh meat. It breaks up the monotony of my days here. I’m unnaturally still when the counselor asks if she’ll share today. I want her to say no because that means something a little rebellious exists beneath her good-girl exterior. She hasn’t cracked yet, but at some point, she will. They all do. And then the illusion will shatter.
Her problems will be something stupid. Something shallow they’ll give her an imaginary Band-Aid and a lollipop for. And I’ll go back to being the only holdout. The only one who’d rather stay here than go home.
When she shakes her head in refusal, opting not to speak, I’m only slightly relieved. The rebellion lives on. But oddly enough, I find that I’m irritated too. Because I still haven’t heard her voice.
Chapter 3
Lyric
“Come on, let’s do one more,” Eden pleads, eyeballing the pathetic pile of change we’ve accumulated in the guitar case on the ground.
I groan inwardly as I consider how much I really need to eat tonight. On cue, my stomach growls, reminding me I’ve only had a couple of convenience store donuts today. My fingers feel numb from plucking away at the guitar strings, and the chill of the evening air has seeped into my bones. I’m exhausted, hungry, and dirty, but Eden’s right. We need to play at least one more song.
The only people left wandering around Fremont Street at this time of night are drunk tourists, but maybe one of them will be generous.
“Hey, ladies.” A guy wearing a tattered football jersey stumbles into our path and glances down at our pile of change. “I’ll give you ten bucks for a blow job.”
“Fuck off,” Eden spits at him. “Go pester someone else.”
He looks at me, his eyes lingering on my blue wig and cheap reader glasses. “Alright, how about twenty for your friend?”
“Piss off.” Eden waves him away. “We’re not interested.”
His eyes flash, and it turns my stomach. There are always a few of these guys wherever we go. The entitled ones who think because I have a vagina and I’m homeless, they can use me as they please. It’s obvious this guy is thinking about all the twisted shit he’d like to do to me, and I can’t breathe again until he finally walks away.
“Maybe we should just call it quits for tonight,” I tell Eden.
“No way,” she argues. “I want to eat dinner. I’m starving.”
“Fine.” I shake out my fingers, trying to bring some life back into them.
“Hey, it was your bright idea to come to Vegas,” she reminds me.
“It’s not that bad,” I say, but honestly, I don’t know if we’ll be able to survive here. I knew the allure of fast cash would tempt Eden to try it out, but it’s not like I did a lot of research. I just knew it was familiar somehow, but like most things in my life, I have no idea why.
If it were up to Eden, she’d be happy to live as nomads, wandering wherever the wind blows us. But I’m tired of fighting for survival every day, and I had some foolish notion in my mind that maybe we could actually put down roots. I thought the cash would be easier to come by here, and we could save a little and figure out a way to get an apartment or something. But we’ve been here two weeks so far, and it hasn’t quite panned out like I’d hoped. There’s a lot more competition here than in the French Quarter, and while Eden and I are decent singers, so are a lot of the other people hanging out on these streets every night. They also have elaborate costumes and dances to beef up their acts, while we’re just two scrappy girls with a couple of secondhand guitars.