Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
“I don’t know if you can afford my book buying plans,” Saff said as the bells to the front door jingled.
We all turned to look to see Cage starting to make his way in. But as soon as he spotted Saff, he turned and headed back out.
“Hey!” Saff yelled loud enough to make me jolt as she whipped around on the counter, then jumped down. “Get back here, you asshole,” she called, rushing out of the shop to, it seemed, catch up to the retreating Cage.
“What was that about?” I asked when we were alone.
“When it comes to Saff? Who the fuck knows. Could be he screwed her over on a deal. Could be he ate the last donut at brunch. So, you’re having a girls day with Saff?” he asked.
“Yeah. She invited me to be part of her book club,” I said, lips curving up. “I haven’t had girl friends in a really long time,” I added. “It’s nice to be included.”
“So, what kind of books are you getting?” he asked as I went back to wiping down surfaces to have the shop ready for the morning.
“Oh, just some ones that Saff recommended,” I said, not exactly lying, but my ears felt hot at the idea of telling him the whole truth.
“Would it happen to be more books about seven-foot aliens with notched cocks?” he asked, making me spin around, eyes going huge. “Found the book stashed behind a pillow on the couch. Were you hiding it?” he asked.
“I just… it was, you know…”
“Don’t have to hide your alien porn,” he said. “Actually, I think I’d like to reenact that scene on page one-fifty,” he said, ducking down to throw me over his shoulder, slapping my ass with one hand, and carrying me into the back.
Where, in fact, we reenacted the scene from page one-fifty. Which was leaps and bounds better in real life than fiction.
Kick - 3 months
“Ugh, damnit!” I snapped, tossing the Allen wrench just as the apartment door opened.
“The fuck are you doing?” Rico asked, tossing his keys in the bowl then closing the door behind him.
“Building a rotating bookcase. Or, failing to build a rotating bookshelf, more like,” I said, waving at the mess of parts still spread out in front of me on the floor. Except for the box it came in. Which was set a few feet away with Evander happily sleeping inside of it. Only popping his head out every once in a while to remind me with judgmental eyes how little he thought of me and my skills.
I should have known I would have no success with this after trying to put together that little plant stand I’d bought after a simple spider plant from the grocery store led to a pothos which led to a fiddle leaf fig and a monstera. And, well, it just kept going. We were going to be living in a jungle in the near future at this rate.
But it was the first time in my adult life that I could actually buy things without having to worry about leaving them behind. My life had stability. It was safe to start accumulating things. Plants, books, stuff I found I loved and that Rico was happy to have in the apartment.
He was always trying to get me to spread out, to really move in, to make the place my own.
Rico had ended up needing to step in and build that plant stand for me. With the kind of ease that made me embarrassed to have spent the whole afternoon on something that took him fifteen minutes.
“You should have just waited for me,” Rico said, coming over to sit on the ground next to me and reaching for the Allen wrench. “How about you get the books while I get this together?” he suggested.
They were currently sitting in a sad little stack in our walk-in closet.
“Maybe we should keep the spicier books in the bedroom, though,” he said, shooting me a wicked little smirk as he reached for some of the pieces of the shelf.
After he’d read that one alien smut scene, then we had the time of our lives reenacting it in the office at the meat shop, I’d started to share the steamy book scenes with him in bed. Sometimes, he would even read them aloud to me while his fingers slipped into my panties and started to tease me.
“That’s a good idea,” I agreed, going to grab the thick, heavy romantasy tomes that Lore was always recommending to me when I was at her and Renzo’s place.
After the first book club meeting, we’d gotten just as close as I had with Saff and, eventually, Cinna. Where Lore shared books with me and gave me some basic cooking lessons once I’d confessed wanting to be able to cook for Rico on occasion, and Saff provided lots of fun trips out of the apartment and exploring Brooklyn, and Cinna gave me some basic self-defense lessons.