Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 153544 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 768(@200wpm)___ 614(@250wpm)___ 512(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 153544 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 768(@200wpm)___ 614(@250wpm)___ 512(@300wpm)
“I’ve been busy with studies. You know how brutal med school is. Besides”—I hold my brother by the shoulder—“I’m sure Gareth tells you all about me.”
His smile remains in place and he doesn’t even stiffen. We have an unspoken rule that we’re the perfect siblings in front of our parents.
I break that rule if I feel like it, but Gareth never does.
He cares.
“I’m sure you’re busy, but check in occasionally.” She sighs. “I miss your faces all the time. Will you come visit, Kill? I haven’t seen you since the summer.”
“I’ll see how things go with school.”
“Make time and visit over the next holiday,” Dad tells me—no, he informs me.
I counter the hostile energy with an even bigger smile. “Hi, Dad. Do you miss me, too?”
I expect him to fall for the provocation, but he smiles while stroking Mom’s shoulder. “Of course, I miss you, son. Your mom and I would love to have you over with your brother next time.”
“I’ll make sure he comes along,” Gareth says like the golden fucking boy he is.
“Wait a second.” Mom gets close to the camera, staring at me. “Oh my God! Is that a cut on your lip? Killian Patrick Carson, did you get into a fight?”
Mom’s habit of using my middle name when she’s upset is a translation of her giver-of-life-and-name status.
I can’t help being amused by it every time.
Gareth goes rigid, completely blindsided, but by the time he opens his mouth, I’m already grinning. “Unless making out is a fight, I don’t think so?”
Her lips fall open. “Didn’t need that image.”
“You’re the one who asked, Mom. Besides, I’m at my prime. You didn’t think I’d just be studying, right?”
“Tone it down,” Dad warns. He has a sixth sense of figuring out when it’ll become too much for my mom and cuts it off. Over time, I’ve started to develop that sense, too.
Only, I use it to push people to their limits. Not my mom.
Others.
That’s the only thing Dad and I agree on.
“Well, I guess that’s fine as long as you’re not getting into trouble.” Her voice softens. “Take care of each other, boys, okay? I love you.”
“Love you, too, Mom,” Gareth says.
“Love you, Mom,” I speak with the same level of sincerity as my brother.
She hangs up with a huge smile on her face.
As soon as they’re gone, Gareth pushes away from me as if I were the plague.
“Go easy on the disgust level, big bro. It makes you look weak.”
He flips me off and stalks back to his room.
I head to mine and check my phone. Countless unread texts and booty calls sit in my notifications. A few from annoying clingy pests who don’t know how to simply pick up their dignity and back off.
My feet come to a halt in the middle of the room as I scroll to the photos from tonight.
Plural.
The first was from afar when I first saw Glyndon with Annika and her friends. I watched her for exactly fifteen minutes before I told Jeremy about his sister’s presence and got my opening to approach her.
In the pictures I’ve taken, Glyndon is either listening or laughing about something they said. She’s not the talker in that group—or in her family—and it shows.
The other pictures were with the fireflies. I zoom in on her face, then trail my finger down to where her hand is clenched on her shorts.
I can almost smell raspberries and paint as I trace the contours of her cheeks, neck, lips.
My thumb taps on her face and I can finally see what Devlin loved about her, what he struggled with for her.
How he floundered and cried and begged on his fucking knees for her.
Still, he didn’t fuck her.
She didn’t want to, is what she said.
Motherfucker got friend-zoned to death. Literally.
I’d feel sorry for him if I knew how. But since I don’t, I’m completely fine with finishing what he couldn’t.
12
GLYNDON
“Where the hell have you been?”
I fidget at the entrance to the en-suite flat that I share with Cecily, Ava—and more recently, Annika.
She was supposed to stay in a secured solitary dorm that her family arranged for her, but since the three of us like her and we have a spare room, we invited her to stay with us. Apparently, her brother was against it, but she once again got approval directly from her father—with her mother’s help.
The other day, we talked to her mother over a video call and she was the sweetest, most stunning woman I’ve ever seen. Okay, maybe top five with Mum, Aunt Elsa, and my grandma.
Anyway, Annika’s mother didn’t look the part of being married into the mafia at all. But then again, Anni doesn’t look the part of a mafia princess either, so maybe it’s hereditary.
Our flat is cozy, with a spacious living area, four bedrooms, and a kitchen with black countertops.