Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 106159 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106159 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
“Push the buzzer,” Millie instructs with a snorting laugh that has Maria tripping down her apartment stairs.
“We don’t need a buzzer. Try this. This will work.” She hands Millie her employee ID to swipe in front of the ring camera.
“That's not an access panel,” I announce, my voice barely a whisper since I don’t want to wake up neither their neighbors nor Taylor. She zonked out within a minute of our taxi leaving Tappers and has been drooling on my shoulder the past ten minutes. “You need a key. Where is your key?”
“Keys! I have keys!”
A neighbor across from Millie and Maria’s apartment building shouts for Millie to shut up just as she finds her keys.
“The pink one,” I instruct. “Remember? You color coordinated them for nights like this.”
Millie’s face adopts a look of awe before she holds up a pink key on her keyring of many. “I found it!”
“Shhh,” Maria and I plea at the same time.
Maria is a fun but sensible drinker.
Millie is loud, obnoxious, and has us laughing so hard every girls' night we almost wet our pants.
“We’re in!” Millie shouts as she pushes the door open.
“I’ll wait for the light in the living room to switch on before instructing the driver to leave. Don’t forget to lock your apartment door after you enter. Deadbolts—”
“Aren’t for show,” they parrot. “Yes, Dad. Thank you, Dad.”
“I miss him,” Taylor mumbles when their chant reaches her ears.
They recited the same thing Saka said to them anytime he gave them a lecture about in-home safety. His many warnings are why I refuse to let the cab driver continue our journey until I know they are safe inside their apartment.
“I do too,” I admit to Taylor just as the light in the living room of Maria and Millie’s apartment switches on.
There’s only one man I miss more, the one my mind instantly veers to when my eyes collide with the dash cam recorder documenting the passenger’s behavior and the driver’s driving.
“Why didn’t you come?” I ask, tipsy enough not to care that I’m speaking to an electronic device, but not drunk enough to not harness my disappointment about Matvei’s absence tonight.
Saka turned up for Taylor. She might have refused to talk to him, but he was still there, warning everyone away from her with an unapologetic glare.
I was left to wade through my debilitating confusion alone.
“If my prior marriage upsets you, your source clearly left a heap of information off the table.”
Horrified, I snap my eyes to my lap when the taxi driver responds to my tipsy ramblings. “Married. Single. In love with your cat. No worries. I’ll drive you. Everyone welcome.” His big heart lights up his eyes with happiness before he returns them to the road to navigate an offramp that is tricky even this late at night.
“Are you sure you don’t need a bucket?”
Taylor squashes her finger to my lips, silencing me. “No bucket.” Her words are so slurred, she is hard to understand. “But can you tuck me in? I’m cold.”
While grinning at her drooped lower lip, I move back toward her bed. “One burrito wrap coming up.”
“Mm, I could go for a burrito right now.” I push on her shoulders when she springboards to a half-seated position. “Do you want one?”
“Maybe tomorrow. It’s three in the morning,” I reply with a laugh.
She spent half the night telling everyone she was converting to the vegan lifestyle. Now she wants a burrito she’ll refuse to eat unless it is ladened with beef and sauerkraut.
“Is that good?”
She nods, sighs, then falls back asleep like it didn’t take us almost thirty minutes to climb one flight of stairs. Conscious she hasn’t been this drunk for several months, I leave her door partly open before heading for my room.
“Come on, Sookie,” I call, shocked he isn’t already purring at my feet. There are two words in the human vocabulary he never ignores. “Bed” and “din-dins.” Since I fed him before we left, he’ll be huddled up somewhere, waiting for nighttime cuddles. “Sookie…” I call out again when I reach my room without weaving through his needy grinds. “It’s time for bed.”
My hand shoots up to clutch my chest when a deep, raspy voice booms from my room. “He’s in here.”
When I push open my bedroom door, I call Sookie a traitor in my head. He’s cuddled on Matvei’s lap, basking in the ambience of his attention.
After a final scratch under his chin, Matvei lifts and locks his eyes with me. More than alcohol thrums through my veins when he does a prolonged rake of my body. He stares at me like no one at Tappers would tonight, like he’s thirsty and I’m the only drop of water in sight.
“Did you order everyone to stay away from me?”
His lips furl at one side. “Not exactly.”