Total pages in book: 37
Estimated words: 34791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 174(@200wpm)___ 139(@250wpm)___ 116(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 174(@200wpm)___ 139(@250wpm)___ 116(@300wpm)
Nolan pushed out of his chair with a soft groan and shuffled behind him to the front door. Just as Sky grabbed the handle to let himself out, Nolan placed his hand on the door, stopping him from opening it. Sky’s heart sped up. He was used to being shorter than most people, but Nolan felt like a bleak, hovering shadow behind him.
“Why are you doing all this, Sky?” Nolan inquired in a low voice.
Sky forced a bright smile as he turned to face him. “Because it’s the nice, neighborly thing to do.”
“I don’t believe you,” Nolan immediately replied without blinking an eye.
Okay, fine. Why he ever tried to filter his words to be palatable for the world was beyond him. “Fine. I’m doing it because you’re hot. Even dead exhausted, you’re still hot. And even if I can’t date you, this gives me the chance to get a closer look at you, to talk to you, right?”
Nolan released the door and took an unsteady step back, his mouth falling open. Clearly, not the response he’d been expecting.
With an even wider grin on his lips, Sky reached up and booped him right on the tip of the nose—mostly because he could—and laughed. “Sleep, Nolan. I’ll come report this evening.”
Before the tired, sexy human could say anything else, Sky swept out of the house and scurried across to the street to his own place, flinching at the icy wind that tried to cut through him.
There were a few people he could call, but not many and even fewer he could reach while the sun was up. He didn’t want to admit this to Nolan, but his hope for finding Owen alive and well was dwindling by the minute. Colette and Aldo didn’t strike him as the same type of nice vampires he knew. But there were few people in this world—human, vampire, witch, or other—who were as sweet as Gideon Varik.
Chapter 4
Nolan Banks
The day didn’t quite go how he’d planned.
As it was, he was already running behind on the book he was currently working on and he’d hoped to put in some serious “ass in chair” time once he got this Owen bullshit all settled.
The only problem was that this wasn’t Owen’s typical bullshit that could be fixed in a few hours and by draining a chunk of his bank account.
He was grateful for Sky’s help. The man had saved his ass and fed him this morning. Two things he was pretty sure he couldn’t handle on his own right now.
Maybe he wasn’t so weird after all.
No, Sky was weird, but it wasn’t a bad weird.
When Nolan had moved into the neighborhood two years ago, he’d immediately noticed his neighbor with his eye-catching clothes and sunny disposition. Nolan might have spent a little time standing in his living room, peeking through a crack in the curtains, watching the man putter around in his yard and greet the steady flow of visitors to his place. Sky’s three friends were regular fixtures, showing up at least once a week. They were easy to spot.
But what gave him pause were the visitors who stopped by once and never returned. He’d assumed Sky was running some business out of his home. His first thoughts had been interior designer or possibly tax accountant. It had never crossed his mind that Sky was a motherfucking necromancer until some guy knocked on his door and asked if Nolan was the person who could help him contact his dead mother.
Nolan’s mouth was still hanging open in shock when Sky’d hurried to the edge of his own yard and waved one hand in the air as he called, “Yoo-hoo! Over here! Wrong house!” Sky’s gold waistcoat had sparkled in the afternoon sun, nearly blinding anyone who looked directly at him. But that just went with the man’s personality.
The guy had muttered an apology and scurried across the street while Nolan slammed his door shut in horror. In the man’s defense, this had been only a few months after Nolan moved in and he might have painted the shutters on his house black and all the plants in his front yard were brown and dead. And he might have answered the door with black hair and pale skin, appearing to be a corpse Sky had raised.
Not his fault. This was also about the same time his ex had dumped him while he was in the middle of writing a dark gothic romance. His head hadn’t been in a healthy place at the time.
Of course, two years had passed. He was totally over his ex, his flowers were still dead, and he hadn’t repainted his shutters yet. People still came to his door at least three or four times a month thinking that he was the one who talked to the dead. Not the adorable, cheerful house across the street.