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)
“You’re right.” They nodded at each other.
“Cool and calm Kali,” Aly added. “That’s what we call her.”
“Guys!” I held a hand up. My head was starting to hurt. “I still need a drink.”
Aly needed to be the bartender, always. She could be ferocious if we got inventive with our own mixology. It wasn’t allowed.
Her eyes got big, and she stood. “Right! I’m on it. We’ve been drinking since four today.”
I frowned. “Four?”
Harper’s eyes got hard.
Harper’s eyes barely ever got hard.
Now I was alarmed. I leaned forward. “What happened at four today?”
“It was more like three when it happened.” Aly went to the bar.
Yes, we had a whole bar. It was a counter set up on the far side of the kitchen. Wine glasses, shot glasses, and glass mugs lined the bottom and the top was shelved with all the hard liquor a regular bar would have. Wine had its own shelf. Next to the counter was a smaller fridge that housed the chilled wine and beer. Harper enjoyed beer. He liked his Coronas, but recently he’d been on a dark beer kick. We did a brewery tour last weekend. He’d been enthralled the whole time.
Anyway…
“What happened at three?” I looked between the two.
They were looking at each other.
Harper pursed his lips and looked at his lap.
Aly pressed her lips firmly together and turned to the bar, giving us her back.
I zeroed in on Harper. “Harp. What happened?” I didn’t have a good feeling.
Please let it be a good thing that happened. Please, please, please.
“My manufacturer called me. They’re shutting down, like forever.”
“What?!” No! No way.
He dipped his head down in a quick nod. “Yeah. I know. I can try to find another one, but this one was perfect. They did all my products. I never had an issue with them. Now…”
“We’ve already come up with a plan.” Aly came over, setting a drink in front of me before taking her seat. “My views always double when he’s with me, and today we did one in costume. It tripled, and the shares have been amazing. It’s not much, but we’re going to try to be smarter about branding. Though without a manufacturer…”
She swallowed, and I reached for my drink. My arms felt like lead.
I didn’t know what was in the drink, but it burned, and that’s all I needed at that moment.
“Wait.” Harper held up a hand, blinking a few times. “You didn’t actually tell us why that biker came to see you.”
“Yeah.” It was my turn to swallow, and I took another drink. “This is good stuff, Aly. Real good.”
She pulled her sunglasses all the way off and leaned forward, crossing her arms over her chest. “Spill it, woman. Also, I’m blaming the fact that we’ve been drinking since four that we didn’t think to ask why he came to find her. I mean, that’s Basic Interrogation 101.”
“I know.” Harper bobbed his head. “We’re slacking in our skills.”
“Totally slacking.”
Two more large gulps, and then I gave them the CliffsNotes.
There was a beat of silence.
Then, explosion.
“You knew him before?!”
“Wait! That guy that Connor was friends with?”
“What guy? Why am I not remembering? I need to remember too. Help me remember!”
“The guy that beat up Hank and Miller and that whole group. You know. Connor’s friend. Sophomore year. He wasn’t back the next year, but that guy.” Aly slammed her hand on the table. “I had no idea you had the hots for him! You totally iced me out. We were best friends. Best friends tell each other everything!”
“That guy?!” It seemed Harper had just remembered.
Both their voices went shrill.
I told them about Gloves, about the prison favor. I kept out the help they were going to give to Ruby and Claudia, but I loved my friends. They were still stuck on who Shane King was from high school.
Aly fanned herself. “Too bad he’s not a farmer. I’d totally do him then.”
That was another thing Aly liked. Farmers. She’d been burned by a guy out of high school, and after that, she started a quest for a millionaire farmer. She kept hoping to meet one, but so far, she’d not been successful. She met a lot of guys. A few of them had met Harper afterwards, but that was pre-Harper’s boyfriend.
I wasn’t sure if we were saying his name yet. I took my cues from Harper on that. Sometimes he needed to vent for days. Sometimes it was a while until he started talking. In high school, there’d been an incident he didn’t talk about for six months. That was the hardest for me to handle, because it’d been a really bad situation.
Also, once I found out all the details, I’d told Connor. On the down-low, he’d beaten the shit out of the guy who did the bad thing to Harper. I had no clue if Harper ever found out.