Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 68831 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68831 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
His timing, as always, had been impeccable. It had been Christmas day. She’d walked into her mother’s house and seen the signs everywhere. Materialism, dripping from the gift boxes and shopping bags. Gluttony, in the full table, sugary desserts and fat-ladened dishes. Insecurity, always present, her mother’s latest boyfriend as weak and uninteresting as all the others had been.
There had been lots of hugs. Tears. Words that meant nothing from a woman who had taught her nothing, nothing her entire life.
“Are you okay?” A stranger touched her arm and she snapped back to the present.
“I’m fine.” She stepped away, bumping into a woman, the downtown street crowded, people everywhere. Rats, that’s what they all were. Rats in mazes. Running around oblivious to their lack of purpose.
She spied a crosswalk and walked toward it, her eyes skipping over the buildings, looking for a place to hunker down for a few hours and hide. An electronics store caught her eye, the front display full of television screens, a name jumping out at her from the ticker on the bottom.
HAWK arrested. It was just a fleeting moment, the font whizzing by, replaced by useless sports updates and a hurricane warning somewhere in Florida. She stayed in place, her nose to the glass, waiting for the reel to return, and when it finally did, she inhaled sharply at what it said.
ON CHARGES OF BRIBERY, CASINO MOGUL ROBERT HAWK HAS BEEN ARRESTED.
Fucking rats.
BELL
“Come ya.”
Something poked at my calf and the sheet, which was tangled around me, tugged.
“Get up. Day’s a wasting.”
I rolled over and blinked at Laurent, taking in the plaid shirt and khakis—an interesting departure from his standard attire of fishing shirts and jeans. “Why are you all dressed up?”
He smacked my leg and nodded to the bathroom. “Allons. We running out of time.”
I sat up slowly, rubbing a sore spot on the side of my neck. “Running out of time for what?”
“Church. It’s Sunday, lazy bones.”
Church. The concept was so unexpected that I dropped my hand from my neck and turned to him. “Church? You’re going to church?”
He shook his head, his large hands coming to rest on his hips. “No, not me. We. Now go on and get washed up. We leaving in fifteen minutes.”
I didn’t move. “You want me to go to church?”
He grinned, his face creasing around the gesture. “Don’t worry, chere. You won’t catch fire.”
Catching fire hadn’t exactly been my concern. I slowly stood, grateful that Dario had had the sense to dress me before leaving. “Why do I have to come? Can’t I just stay here?”
From behind me, the bed beckoned. It’d be so easy to turn back around, crawl into the sheets, and go back to sleep. And during sleep, I didn’t have to think about Gwen, or Hawk, or anything. I started to get back on the bed, and Laurent caught my waist with a hand the size of a baseball glove.
“Ah, ah, ah. You going to church, because I’m not leaving you here. Boss man’s orders.”
I groaned, and any warm and fuzzies that may have accumulated during Dario’s pillow talk last night, vanished. “I don’t really go to church.”
He chuckled. “You don’t say. The little thing with the married man?” He wagged a finger at me as if I was a child. “Maybe you should. Be a lot less of a mess you in.”
I glared at him. “That sentence doesn’t even make sense.”
He clapped his hands, and the unexpected crack caused me to jump. “Now! Git or I be bringing Septime in here.”
I got. I could hear the shift of the living room floor as she moved and could imagine her striding in here, shoving me into the bathroom, and stripping me like a disobedient toddler.
I delicately trudged into the bathroom and turned on the shower, the red and orange number, hanging on a hook off the wall, caught my eye. I carefully lifted it, eyeing the dress, a size small, a clear indicator that it was for me.
“There’s a dress for you, hanging on the hook.”
“I found it.” I held it up against me, grimacing at the length, which ended right around my calves. It looked like the sort of thing an Amish wife would wear—if she liked gaudy colors and lace-trimmed collars. “Where did you get this?”
“It was my Momma’s.”
Great. Good thing I hadn’t insulted it. I gingerly hung it back on the hook and tried to imagine a size small woman who had birthed both Laurent and Septime. Poor thing. I hope they had the good drugs back then. A natural birth … I shuddered at the thought.
A fist pounded on the door and I glared in the direction of it.
“Be patient!”
“We leaving in ten minutes. If I need to, I’ll send Septime in after ya.”
Ten minutes. Ten minutes to shower and put on a dress that would make me the laughing stock of church.