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)
“God, no. My brother is fully anti-kid,” I admitted. “He has two dogs that he travels around with when he’s got time away from work. And it’s just the two of us.”
“Does he live around here?”
“No. He’s back in Massachusetts still.”
“What brought you down here then?”
“I’ve never been a fan of the cold. I mean, don’t get me wrong, snow is magical. But I figure I can appreciate that from a distance. Or on the occasion when I go visit home in the winter. I wanted to be down by the beach.”
“Makes sense how you ended up in that neighborhood then,” he said. “Thought it was an odd place for you to be.”
“I don’t think I realized just how expensive the area was going to be. It was the only place I could afford right away. You know, with first, last, and security on top of furnishing the place and stuff. I have a five-year plan. Max. Probably more like two.”
Though I’ll have to admit that some part of me would find it hard to leave now that I was making connections.
That said, Lily and Curtis didn’t even want to be around for another year. And Mrs. Jackson and her husband were planning on retiring to Mr. Jackson’s parents’ house once things went through probate.
Sure, new people would move in. But I got a feeling that this building was a more transient of a place for most families. A stepping stone to a house or an apartment in a better school district. There were too many bad elements around for most people to want to settle down long-term.
“I know there is a lot of rough shit going on around there, but there were things I liked about my childhood in that neighborhood.”
“Did your parents move eventually?” I asked, since he said he’d grown up there. And it was only his uncle around now.
“My old man died a few years back. My ma ran out on us a long while before that. Not that I blame her. My father was a fuck. But—“
“But she left you alone with him,” I filled in for him.
“Yeah,” he said, eyes dark for a moment before he shook it off. “So where are you thinking of moving after this?” he asked.
“I honestly don’t know,” I admitted. “I entertained the idea of a bungalow by the beach.”
“Might not have enough room there for a litter of kids,” he warned.
“The next step doesn’t have to be my final destination,” I said, shrugging. There was time. I mean, you wouldn’t think that if you felt the little ovary explosion each time I was around a baby these days, but it wasn’t like I was anywhere close to settling down. I didn’t even have a serious man in the picture.
As much as I was into Levee, everything about this party bus and the comfort at which he felt around the drinking, mostly-naked girls, clubbing, and all of that suggested that this was all stuff he partook in fairly often. He clearly wasn’t in a settling down phase in his life.
This was just, you know, for fun.
Even if that little voice in my head was whispering about what cute babies he would make.
The bus drove around for about an hour as everyone drank and had fun. I’d even almost finished my drink before we pulled to a stop, and the driver opened the door.
“Do I want to know where we are, Zayn?” Levee asked as I propped up onto my knees to look out the window.
They were almost completely blackout, but I could still see the words on the front of the building we were in front of.
“Ah, we are going to the World Erotic Art Museum,” I told him, beaming at the idea, figuring this place was going to have all sorts of art to check out.
“Huh,” Levee said a while later, his arm sitting heavily around my shoulders. “I don’t know what I was expecting exactly,” he admitted, “but a wall of pussy sculptures wasn’t it.”
“I still can’t get over the bed made of four penis pillars,” I admitted. Each one of them had been carved with various sexual positions. “And I really want to know if I can find a print of those scissor people in a meadow.”
“Did you two see the giant copper phallus?” Zayn asked, waving over toward where two of the girls we’d brought with us were each sitting on one of the testicles and smiling at Raff, who was taking their picture.
“Hard to miss,” I said, smiling.
“I’ve lived in this area all my life and I had no idea this place existed,” Levee admitted.
“To be fair, it seems like the kind of place you really only need to see once.”
“Zayn isn’t from here, is he?” I asked.
“No. Well, I mean, who the fuck knows? The man seems to exist everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Why?”