Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 80176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Then there were the tattoos.
And there were a lot of them.
From underneath his t-shirt all the way down to his hands. They were even on the palms of his hands. It was more than obvious that the man liked his ink.
The cart hit me in the ankles again, and I jumped in surprise, then shot the kid a glare.
“Ouch.”
The mother snorted. “Honey, he’s out of your league.”
Then she pulled the cart back and started back to the boots she’d been checking out, completely shutting me out.
Rolling my eyes at her words, I started toward where my cart was now stopped directly next to the register, and listened to the man behind the checkout counter and Evander speaking.
“I need a three-hundred-and-forty-foot roll of goat wire fence, eighty t-posts, and some tie wire,” Evander murmured. “I also have an ag exemption.”
The boy started clicking away at his computer, but my eyes were only for the man who was now looking out the front window.
“Okay, that’ll be four hundred and sixty-two dollars and thirty-two cents,” the boy hesitated. “Please sign for the ag exemption.”
Evander did, and I watched the way his muscled forearm bunched as he wrote his name. In perfect cursive.
Who the hell could write that pretty on those little stupid screens?
I knew I couldn’t. Those things were the devil, and it never failed that my cursive would end up looking like someone else’s name that wasn’t mine.
“If you’ll take the receipt to the side gate, someone will load you…”
Evander suddenly darted outside, leaving his receipt.
I watched him go, then turned back to the checker, who was also watching Evander go.
“I’ll give it to him on my way out,” I said. “He’s parked right next to me.”
I’d, of course, seen the tow truck as I’d parked my old Ford Diesel next to it. It was beautiful—big, black, and shiny with skulls and crossbones painted across the hood. The airbrushed words, Hail Auto Recovery, were even prettier.
It had to be new, probably even brand new.
I’d have driven the hell out of that truck.
“Okay,” the checker shrugged. “That all you have today?”
I nodded. “Yep. Until next week.”
He chuckled and rang me up. After I signed for my own ag exemption, I pocketed both receipts and started outside, only to stop when I saw the tow truck moved and now backing up to a car that was so shiny and beautiful that I’d be scared to even walk next to it for fear of scratching it on my way inside the store.
I knew it was a sports car, but beyond that, I didn’t know exactly what kind it was. But it looked expensive…and it was now being towed by the biggest, meanest looking motherfucker on the planet.
There was a small man dressed in gym clothes—expensive ones that matched and were in bright, obnoxious colors—talking to Evander, but Evander kept loading the car up without saying a word.
Then the little man tried to touch Evander, and Evander shoved him away so brutally that I winced.
The guy hit the pavement with a crash, but he was up again and got even further into Evander’s face within seconds.
I bit my lip, watching as the two fought it out.
Evander only thwarting the little man’s attempts to touch the controls that were on the side of the tow truck.
Then the car was lifted into the air by the huge boom thing hanging at the back of the truck, and the little guy started to scream at the top of his lungs like a six-year-old girl—a kind of high-pitched squeal that hurt my ears even from all the way across the parking lot.
A crowd had gathered outside the feed store’s front entrance as everyone started to come outside to watch.
The occupants from the other buildings—a cake shop, the gym that it was likely the little man had come from, and a restaurant just a little down from the gym—came outside as well and gawked at the spectacle.
“Man, I don’t know why you didn’t pay your bills, but I’m only doing my job. If you want it back, you’ll have to get your payments current.”
“Can I at least get my stuff?”
The little guy panted, no longer screaming.
He must’ve seen the reality of the situation, because he looked defeated.
“No. But if you want to come by Hail, then you can get your shit there from the office lady,” Evander grunted. “Have a good day.”
The man backed up as Evander started to round his truck, and then went back to the gym.
“Asshole,” the guy muttered.
I didn’t agree. Evander hadn’t been an asshole. He’d been doing his job.
However, I suppose if that was me that that had happened to, I probably would have been thinking the same thing.
Regardless, I stepped out into the parking lot and started toward him.
“Umm, Evander?”
Evander looked up from where he’d been getting into his truck.