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)
When hushed voices break into the alleyway, I switch my focus from one dangerous endeavor to another. “I need you to go inside, Caleb.” When he shakes his head, I use the only defense capable of getting through to him. “I need you to look after Tivy for me until I get back.”
“Tivy? What’s wrong with Tivy?”
I guide him to the open lobby door, which is no easy accomplishment for how legless he is now the adrenaline is wearing off. “She’s upset. That’s why I came home early. Something about Ronnie…”
I stop before my lie gets away on me. The hunch I was running with back in July was accurate. Octavia has no feelings for Ronnie whatsoever, but he refused to take the hint until Caleb had a word with him.
From what Octavia told me, that conversation didn’t include fists—although it may this time around from the riled look on Caleb’s face.
He looks set for a second beatdown.
“Go check if Tivy is okay, Caleb. I’ll be up in a minute.” When he hesitates, I wipe the anguish from my face before muttering, “It’s okay. I’ve got everything handled.”
“Jess…” When my eyes shoot to Octavia, hers widen to saucers. “Caleb, are you okay?” She rushes to our side. “Why is he bleeding?”
I thank my lucky stars that I moved Caleb far enough into the lobby to stop his cousin from witnessing the brutality he unleashes when he blacks out with rage. “I think he got into a fight at the bar.”
Octavia sounds disappointed when she mutters, “I told you not to go out tonight.”
With the stairwell not big enough for the three of us to walk side by side, I leave the task to Octavia before pretending I need to pay for my cab fare. “I’ll be up in a minute.”
I think she replies, but don’t make me place my hand on the Bible and swear. She’s breathing far too heavy to articulate speech clearly, and I’m just as breathless when I pull my cell phone out of my pocket a second after returning to Dominic’s side.
My father answers my call not even a full ring later. “Daddy, I need your help.” After peering up at Caleb and Octavia’s kitchen window, I add, “With more than one thing.”
CHAPTER 28
CALEB
NEW YEAR’S EVE
“This is so boring? Why do you always make us attend the lame parties?” Like a leech I can’t un-suction, Tash pivots around to face me, her twirl so fast, her extensions slap me in the face. Her lips are double the size they were when she asked me to mix her a cocktail at her father’s bar two blocks from home, and they look utterly ridiculous on her plastic-looking face. “Can we please leave? I’m bored.”
“If you want to go, Tash, go. I’m not keeping you here.” Yes, that sounded as rude as you’re thinking.
At the start, I thought I could look past Tash’s annoying traits since making her happy keeps me employed. But the more we hang out, the more I realize we have nothing in common.
Don’t misconstrue what I’m saying. We’re not dating. Even the rumination of that becoming a possibility ended many months ago. I simply tolerate her so I can pay my share of the rent.
And Jess’s food service bill, but we will keep that between us.
It seems like a douche move tagging someone along for over a year, but not everything is as it seems. Tash believes the forbidden are more desirable, so she’s fine with my hands-off approach as long as I don’t tell anyone a bottle of tequila and a line of coke couldn’t get me hard enough for her to grind her way to climax on my crotch.
Just like I couldn’t fake an interest in the bride-to-be at my last stripper gig, I can’t with Tash either. Every time I try to use Jess as motivation, my brain races back to her father handing her rosary beads before it zooms to my grandfather wrapping them around my cock while pleading to God for me not to go to hell for continuously ‘tempting him.’
I was six the first time he touched me. Nothing I did was to tempt him. I wanted him to stay away from me, but no matter how many times I tell myself that, I still take some of the blame.
I’m fucked in the head—even more so now since I have to deal with life without alcohol and coke. I was put on probation for a bar brawl I can’t remember last Thanksgiving. The main stipulations of my bail are random drug and alcohol testing and to attend counseling two days a week.
I’d like to say it’s helping, but I would need to be honest with my counselor for that to occur. She thinks my ‘tenancies for violence’ stem from drug and alcohol abuse in my formative years. She has no fucking clue just how deep my secrets go.