Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82322 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82322 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
“We need to talk,” he mutters, pressing his back to the edge of the counter.
I don’t miss the fact that he’s all the way on the other side of the room.
“Let me guess, we don’t have thirty days to move out,” I say, trying to lighten the serious mood he walked in here with.
He doesn’t answer. I don’t even hear a frustrated chuckle, and my gut sinks when I turn around to face him.
“Tell me we still have thirty days, Ezra.”
I whispered the words it could be worse. I spoke those words out loud when I was looking in the bathroom mirror this morning after my shower. It was a way to try to lift my spirits, clear my mind of all the things that were out of my immediate control.
I never should’ve spoken them. I put that bad juju out into the world, and here it is coming to bite me on the ass.
“Ezra?”
“I think getting the noise complaint was a sign. It’s like, forcing me out of the apartment forced me to make a decision I’ve been struggling with for a long time.”
“Noise complaint?” I scrunch my face in confusion. “You said it was a lease issue, that there were too many people here.”
“That was the main reason, but the noise complaint was secondary. You know I never wanted kids, and I love you guys, but I’m out of my element here. It’s just too much for me.”
“Noise complaint?” I snap, still stuck on that part because listening to my brother and what he’s confessing will only break my heart further. I choose to stick to the anger instead.
There’s only one other condo on this floor, and since I never hear anyone walking in the condos above us, I know that it didn’t come from them.
How could he do this?
The man across the hall is none other than Finnegan, the man that will only be known as the Irish Asshole in my mind from now on.
How in the world can he flirt with me daily at the gym and then do this? Does he have any idea what he’s done? He smiles in my face then calls the landlord on us? I’ve never met someone so damn two-faced in all my life, and I was a teenage girl that went to high school, so that’s saying something.
“Yes, noise complaint from Finnegan Jenkins,” Ezra says, confirming what I’d already figured out. “Are you even listening to a word I’m saying?”
“What?”
“Exactly! You never listen. That’s why I took the job in Vegas.”
“You took a job in Vegas?”
Ezra sighs again, and as much as he’d hate me saying it, he sounded exactly like our dad right before he— “You’re deserting me?”
“I’m not deserting you. I made a life decision that benefits myself. It’s not selfish to think about myself every once in a while, Kendall.”
“Now you’re calling me selfish?” The hits just keep coming.
“Do you ever listen?” he hisses.
That same familiar feeling I used to get that urged me to do something insanely crazy comes roaring back despite having shoved that part of me down long ago after the twins were born. I’m antsy with the urge for chaos, to do something off the wall just to feel alive again.
“I’m giving up the apartment early. The landlord said I could get my deposit back if I’m out before the first.”
“The first is only a week away,” I say, after picturing the calendar in my head.
“Yes.”
“Yes? Yes!” I snap. “You’re telling me I’m going to be out on my ass with three kids in a week.”
“I need the money for my move. I hate to put you in this situation, but you knew living here was temporary. God, Kendall. Please don’t look at me like that. It breaks my heart.”
“I can’t worry about your heart, right now, Ezra. I have to worry about being homeless with my kids.”
“Now you’re just being dramatic. I can’t talk to you when you’re acting like Mom. You have money saved up, put it to use.”
He doesn’t even give me time to form a rebuttal to his insistence that I’m acting like our mom before he walks out of the room.
“Knox!” I holler a few minutes later once I get my bearings again.
My youngest walks into the kitchen.
“Bring me your entire box of craft supplies.”
“But, Momma! You already took my crayons!”
“I just need to use some of them. You can have it back when I’m done.”
Satisfied with my promise, because I do my best never to break them, he scurries away to get what I asked for.
I move around the kitchen, gathering everything else I’ll need. I’m scared to death of what my future holds, and if that man across the hall can so easily make me feel this way, then the only way to turn the tables is to make him feel the same.