Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
I figured, under the circumstances, fleeing was only going to make shit worse.
So I moved away from the house, but didn’t approach the car as she parked and cut the engine.
“What the fuck are you doing?” she hissed as she climbed out, looking around like someone might be watching us.
Which was… weird.
I mean, she was living there.
Paying rent.
That the owner clearly didn’t need.
Why couldn’t she have company?
“I saw the peacocks,” I told her, shrugging. “Then shit got a little creepy.”
“What got creepy?” she asked.
“Me, I guess,” I admitted, shaking my head at myself. “Just came to get a look around the joint. Didn’t mean to corner you.”
“So, you saw the peacocks, and you thought it was a good idea to jump a fence and trespass on a property worth seven million dollars?” she asked, brow arching up.
“Babe, if I were the rational thinking sort, do you think I would have become an outlaw biker?” I asked.
“Fair point,” she agreed. “Why would you come here instead of the bar?”
“Didn’t want to be creepy,” I admitted. “The plan kind of backfired on me.”
“You don’t say,” she said, but she gave me a tired smile that said she wasn’t entirely against seeing me there.
“You gonna invite me in for a glass of water or…”
To that, I got a small laugh.
“Fine. A glass of water. Then you haul your ass back over the fence before the cameras catch you sneaking around. I’ve had enough of an issue with Frederick because of you,” she added, walking up to the house to unlock the door.
“Why the fuck does your landlord’s business partner have such a big part of your life?” I asked, following her inside.
The inside was a bit unexpected with its open floorplan, lots of white, and almost no furniture.
There was a beaten up red chair in the living room area. But no TV. No coffee table. Nowhere for a guest to sit.
On the side wall was a mini kitchen. It had everything you could need to cook, just in smaller versions of the usual shit.
To the side of the kitchen was a bathroom with a sliding door so it didn’t take up much space since there was a staircase right by it that led to the bedroom loft.
Up there, I could see what looked like a queen-sized mattress on the floor with a bunch of blankets and pillows.
“What?” she asked, watching me, making me realize I was smirking.
“There’s no railing up there,” I said, nodding toward the loft. You could roll off of the bed and slam right down on the lower level if you weren’t careful. “You like to live on the edge, huh?”
“It was like that. I sleep like a rock, so I didn’t see any reason to complain or try to fashion one myself. So, yeah, this is my place. And there is the kitchen. Help yourself to a glass of water while I go get my tequila-soaked shirt off. I hate bachelorette parties,” she added, sighing hard as she walked to the bathroom, leaving me to snoop.
So, yeah, I went ahead and did that shit.
And I didn’t like what I found.
An empty fridge.
Mostly empty cabinets, save for an almost empty jar of peanut butter, some tortilla wraps, and a couple packets of ramen. In the fucking fish flavor. Which was, objectively, the worst one there was. Though the chili one had to rank low too.
“What happened at the bachelorette party?” I asked, turning away from the kitchen.
“The bride found out that her maid of honor fucked her fiancé once a year back when the couple was having a fight,” Theo said, her voice barely muffled because she hadn’t closed the bathroom door, likely used to living alone and not thinking about shit like that. “And, as you can imagine, drinks were flying, hair was getting pulled, faces were getting smacked. It was a shitshow,” she said, coming out of the bathroom in just a bra to head toward a duffle bag in the living room, bending forward to rifle through it.
She was still living out of a bag.
She had no food in her place.
Those were the things I should have been focusing on.
But I was hyper-fixating on her in her bra. Her fancy balconette thing that lifted up her tits and made them almost spill out of the top.
It wasn’t just that, either.
It was the fact that her entire back was covered in an intricate tattoo.
In color.
Which was unexpected for her.
Curious, I couldn’t help but move forward toward her even as she straightened and turned.
“What are…” she started, but I was reaching for her shoulders and turning her so her back was to me again.
It was a detailed nature-inspired piece with trees and a stream, even some deer.
Intricate and well done.
Expensive.
Time-consuming.
I had a lot of shitty tattoos done on whim when wasted or on a dare.