Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 129460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
I groan when Heidi reads me like no one else can. Well, no one since Caleb. “Still an open wound?”
She picks through the box of chocolates for the caramel ones while I contemplate a reply. The wound is still open, but solely because Caleb has made no effort to close it. We’ve bypassed each other a handful of times over the past eleven months, but our interactions are as lackluster as my run-ins with Lou. There is no heat to them whatsoever, which is shocking considering how combustible we once were.
I want to blame the lack of fire on Caleb’s obvious drunken state, but there’s more to blame than that. He never looks me in the eyes, and anytime I force a connection, it doubles the iciness between us even further.
I’m truly lost on what happened between us.
“I’ve never had the preacher’s daughter tag backfire on me so badly before,” I huff out with a groan.
Heidi laughs. It isn’t her true laugh, merely the one she uses while guiding me off the ledge. “Usually, it works in your favor. They either think they have the skills to coerce you to the wild side or know you’re already there since you lived such a bland and boring childhood.” Her eccentric annunciation of her final four words makes me laugh even with them hitting the nail on the head.
Confident a lack of sexual contact the past eleven months is the cause of my faulty head, I mutter, “I need to get laid.”
Since Heidi can’t disagree with me, she bumps me with her hip, then whispers, “Why do you think I sent you Daniel?”
“Daniel couldn’t find my clit if it was the size of a light switch.” I snap my eyes to Samuel, horrified my tone wasn’t as hushed as his wife’s. “Sorry, Sam.”
His unmortified expression convinces me my comment wasn’t far off the mark. “That’s fine.”
His grin turns into a full-blown smile when Heidi strokes his wilting peacock feathers back into their original position. He knocked her up in a week, so he has a good reason to feel cocky. “You’ll be amazed at the skills you unlock when someone who’s been deprived of something for a long time is finally handed the key to the castle. It is wild.”
As my hand shoots up to cover the color creeping up my neck, I mutter, “Do tell.”
Octavia’s eyes dart to mine when the shouted voices bellowing out of her apartment reach mine. We’re storing the leftover food from the barbecue in my freezer since it is bigger than hers.
“It wouldn’t be a fucking issue if your mouth didn’t smell like as ashtray.”
I’m torn between following Octavia up the stairs separating our apartments and staying put when a female voice replies, “So I’m too blame for your broken dick?” I assume Caleb answers his guest with a head bob when she shouts, “You’re an asshole, Caleb.”
“Never denied it,” I murmur to myself, my snarky voice snuffed out by the brutal stomp of a pair of stilettos galloping down the stairwell.
Too curious for my own good, I race out of my apartment before pretending to check the noticeboard tacked near the stairwell.
I wish I wasn’t so nosy when my eyes collide with Caleb’s guest. Tash looks dazzling in a sparkling red dress. Her lips are either kiss-swollen or plumped out with some sort of cosmetic, and her hair is long waves of faultless blonde strands cascading down her tanned shoulders.
She is stunningly beautiful, and now I feel like the frog who got tossed back into the pond after an unsuccessful kiss transformation.
My jealousy takes a step back for anger when Tash glares at me as if she hates me before she continues her drastic yet unchased storm out.
I don’t know what her issue is. I didn’t call her a slut in a roundabout way then let her leave without a fight. Her wrath for that solely belongs on Caleb’s shoulders.
Once again incapable of keeping my nose out of other people’s business, I mosey up the stairs when shouted voices continue bellowing down it over the next ten minutes. It is purely because the shouting is one-sided. Caleb is the only one yelling, and although I know he’d never hurt Octavia, I have a feeling she isn’t who he wants to tear to shreds.
My assumption is proven accurate when Caleb’s bloodshot eyes lock with mine within a second of him spotting me in the doorway of his apartment. “Oh, great, here comes the calvary.” His slur exposes how he celebrated his Fourth of July. With his lips around numerous bottles of alcohol and perhaps something else when I spot a dusting of white powder on the glass coffee table.
I shift my eyes from the rolled-up dollar bill near Octavia’s foot to Caleb when he asks, “What are you doing here, Jessie? Come to ruin the fun again?”