Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 117494 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117494 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
Corvette just handed me his phone. “Press three.”
I did, after wiping it clean of blood, and heard, “Ghost here.”
Ghost. The biker name for Shane King, the one that I actually did know.
“I’m calling from the Friendly Grocery Mart. You’ve got two members here who need assistance—medical assistance.”
“What?”
Gah. His voice was a low baritone, and raspy in a way that hit my vagina, in the right way.
I handed that phone off asap because I did not need to be reacting that way to just a ‘what’ from him. Nope. No how. I had enough drama to handle right now as is.
Corvette took the phone, and as he continued the conversation, I stepped over toward the remaining crowd. Viola and Mrs. Johnson leaned to the right so they could see around me. Noah was also still there, which had me ready to grab a can of soup myself.
“Are you serious?”
He jolted, his eyes wide. “What?”
“Work. Do something!”
Yep. My control had snapped. I was blaming Otis and not Ghost’s very fine voice.
“You come in here every day and do nothing. Ben does everything. If you don’t get your ass working, you’re fired.”
His eyes narrowed. “Right. Like you could do that.”
I stepped closer and lowered my voice. “I’m thirty-six and just divorced from a truly authentic piece of shit. I can walk, and my life will be better. This is my low, so when I go to Otis and tell him it’s you or me, who do you think he’s going to keep?”
His eyes went back to being big. He hadn’t thought of that.
“Get this aisle cleaned, and you’ve got ten minutes to do it.”
With that, I went to update Otis.
He was more than open to staying in his office and hiding for another thirty minutes, and Red Demons who? No Red Demons had been in his store.
I hit call on my phone.
He answered right away. “Daughter! How’s it going? Tell me something funny that happened to you today.”
I told him about the soup cans. And about Viola and Mrs. Johnson.
My dad laughed so hard he had to hang up. “Excuse me, my daughter and love of my life, but I went and almost had an accident. You got me laughing so hard.”
2
KALI
The bikers left the store within minutes, but they didn’t leave the parking lot right away. I steered clear of the front, content to finish up the inventory list we needed done by the end of the weekend, but I knew the Red Demons were outside because of their bikes. Trust me. You can’t not hear a Harley, let alone twenty of them.
This group sounded like fifty. Once they left, everything settled down in the store. It was almost boring.
Wait. No. It wasn’t almost boring. It was boring, but I was not complaining.
Noah begged off an hour early.
I sent Ben right after.
It was Sunday night. We usually had the church rush, but after that people were home for the evening, hoping to catch up on their sleep before work or school in the morning. That’s why I loved working on Sundays. A slow shift was peaceful to me. I said boring before because that’s the deflated feeling I got from those still in the store. Two Red Demons fighting had given everyone a rush, and now we were on the other side of that high.
“Kali.” Macy Rodding, the last checkout worker, came up from the back, her purse and keys in hand. In a way, she wasn’t so unlike me. In her forties, going through a divorce herself, but she had two little ones at home to feed, and I knew it was all on her shoulders. Her husband was the town’s lawyer. It wasn’t going to be a fair settlement. Everyone knew what Phil Rodding was like. If he’d been in the soup aisle earlier, I would’ve figured some way to accidentally deck him with a can. I had a feeling Viola and Mrs. Johnson would’ve backed me up.
She came the rest of the way down the aisle to where I was working the only register still open.
She frowned. “I bet you could close early. No one’s going to be coming in. Or I could stay, if you want? I don’t mind. Gets lonely in here when you’re the only one working.”
I was shaking my head before she finished. “I know Natalie and Oliver are waiting for you, and you know it too. No way they went to bed at their bedtime.”
She grinned, softening. “I know. They’re so damn cute. Little buggers, but cute.”
“Go home. I won’t be long behind you.”
She perked up. “You’re going to close early?”
I gave a nod. “I’m thinking Otis won’t get mad—not after today.”
She gave a hearty laugh, and her cheeks flushed. “You can say that again. I knew those bikers were in town, but they’d not come in before. You handled them well.” She cocked her head. “Any other time and Otis would’ve been having a fit at the loss of product. What’d you say to him? You know those bikers?”