Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
“You can take my car if you want, man,” Kylo offered.
Kylo was the newest member of the club. He’d been the neighbor of Alaric’s new girl. A former party drug dealer who nearly died for that job before deciding it wasn’t the future he wanted. But people like that, they didn’t just go straight. And learning about the club made him see he had a way to stay in a less-than-legal profession, but have a bit less risk thanks to the protection of an entire club around him.
Kylo stood, stretching out his ridiculous six-four frame. Like Coast, he was heavily tattooed. But he was darker haired with dark eyes. Though just like Coast, he had that ‘bad news’ sign practically inked on his forehead.
He grabbed his keys out of the bowl and tossed them at me.
“You know the neighborhood I’m taking this to, right?” I asked.
“If they haven’t stripped Eddie or Che’s cars, they won’t fuck with mine,” he said, shrugging it off.
“You could get yourself a car, you know,” Coast said.
I could.
I made a nice income working for the club. And thanks to living at the clubhouse and having Eddie cook pretty much all of my meals, I had almost no expenses.
It was likely the added responsibility that had me pausing. What can I say? I liked life… easy. Shit was hard enough growing up. I just wanted to kind of coast through life as much as possible, soaking up all the good shit, and avoiding the bad as much as I could.
If I ended up needing to start doing shit like transport my uncle to visits or something, though, I’d have to invest. But not in anything as cool as the other club brothers’ cars. It would need to be practical enough to store a wheelchair in. And there was nothing fun about that.
“I wouldn’t be driving anything as nice as their cars, though,” I said, shrugging it off. “Besides, I liked to fuck with their saved radio stations,” I said, making Kylo shake his head as he headed toward the stairs.
I ended up helping Eddie with the salad to waste the time. Then I loaded up a small plastic container of the enchiladas and an even smaller one of the salad I knew he likely wasn’t going to eat, climbed in Kylo’s white Corvette, and made my way to my uncle’s building.
Was I practically buzzing with anticipation as I juggled the bags, tins of food, and a cardboard sleeve of my uncle’s diet soda? Yeah, yeah, I was.
And it was pretty ridiculous how disappointed I felt when I didn’t see Jade in the hallway.
On her whiteboard was a little drawing that was clearly done by two separate people, judging by the different styles. Jade’s contribution was a pretty, delicate bouquet of flowers. The second person’s addition was a fucking coffin that the flowers were sitting on. Morbid, sure, but Jade scribbled a little note regardless.
A little more shading & it’ll look more realistic.
Maybe I’d catch her on my way out, I decided, then made my way in to deal with my uncle.
He accepted the enchiladas, but told me to throw away the salad.
I decided to take it with me down to the laundry room to eat while I waited instead of staying in his apartment while his clothes washed. For both of our good, to be honest.
He was short of temper.
I was short on patience.
And it was right there in that dark hole of a room lined in ancient machines that rocked and knocked noisily, sitting on top of the empty table for folding laundry with a sketchpad on her lap, that I found Jade.
She was dressed in a flowing skirt in a pink and white floral pattern with a long slit up one thigh. She paired it with one of those crop tops that, when she stood, would show off a nice chunk of her midriff.
Her long brown hair was pulled up into a claw clip with just a few face-framing strands hanging down.
She was oblivious to my presence. Her warm brown eyes scrunched up as she eyed what she was working on, then quickly erased some part of the image before drawing it again.
As she drew, little gemstone rings on her long, thin fingers caught my eyes.
I waited until she lifted her pencil off the page so I didn’t make her screw something up before I cleared my throat to announce my presence.
“Oh,” she said after jumping slightly. Reaching up, she removed the one earbud she had in, tucking it back with its twin in the little white holder. “It’s you,” she added, shooting me that big, happy smile of hers. Like she was genuinely glad to see me.
“How you been, doll?” I asked, dropping the laundry basket on one machine. I moved the salad to the side, then dumped the laundry into the machine, added a pod, then put the change in the slots.