Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 72401 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72401 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
“What’s your fucking problem?” I yelled, tired of his attitude.
He stopped and put his hands up on his head.
“I’m just...I need you...I’m confused,” he finally decided.
I blinked quickly. “What are you confused about? Can you call for directions?”
He sighed. “I know where we are.”
“Then what are you confused about?” I finally asked.
He rubbed his palms roughly over his face. “A lot of things. Mainly I’m just not used to being wrong. I fucked up by leaving, and then not calling. I fully admit that, but I thought I was doing the right thing. I didn’t want you to be a statistic. Now here you are giving me the time of day when I don’t deserve it, and I just don’t know why I deserve that.”
I looked down at his bike, tracing my finger around the bright silver dials of the motorcycle’s gauges while I thought about what I wanted to say.
Looking up, I swallowed tightly, admitting one of my inner fears.
“You don’t deserve it, Cleo. You really hurt me. Gutted me. However, that being said, I’ve missed you. You were...still are, one of my best friends. I want that back, and if that means I have to put my trust in you again, then I’ll do that. It’s my decision to make. Just don’t fuck it up again, okay?”
He laughed.
The shit.
“Okay, baby. I won’t fuck it up again,” he said.
Walking back towards the bike, he swung his leg over and settled back between my legs.
Just before he started the bike back up, he reached his large palm back and cupped the back of my head, pulling it towards him.
I leaned in and lifted up until I could touch his lips with my own.
“Love you,” he said before the roar of him starting up his bike covered up my surprised exclamation.
“Holy fucking shit!” I squealed.
He laughed as he took off down the dirt road.
***
Rue
“Have you ever shot a gun before?” The woman asked.
I smiled down at the ground, not wanting to show my face to the men.
“Yep,” I said quietly.
“I have, too. But I’m not good enough to outshoot Trance,” the black haired woman with the black dog at her feet said.
She’d introduced herself as Viddy earlier, and the dog as Radar.
She’d come in a big, monster of a truck with one of the most devastatingly handsome men I’d ever seen before in my life.
He had curly, baby fine blonde hair, two different colored eyes, one green and one blue, and a killer smile.
However, I knew as soon as he’d looked at me that there was more than what met the eye.
I could tell with just one look that Trance and Viddy were in love. Trance only had eyes for Viddy; just being around them made me feel like I was a voyeur.
They instinctively knew where the other was, even without glancing over at each other.
Radar had stuck to Viddy’s side like glue for the last twenty minutes we’d been here.
“That’s ‘cause you can’t see,” Adeline, Viddy’s twin sister, said.
It was most obvious that the two of them were twins. It’d saddened me to hear that Viddy had limited eyesight; however, from what I could tell, she’d dealt with it just fine.
“Be nice, and don’t start,” a deep, rumbled command came from behind us.
That would be Kettle.
He was large.
In fact, I would even go as far as saying he was massive.
Tall, with dark brown hair and nearly translucent, pale blue eyes, he was hypnotic.
He could easily compete in the looks department with Trance.
No one held a candle to Cleo, though.
“Make me,” Adeline retorted.
I giggled as Kettle’s eyes narrowed on his wife.
“Really?” Kettle asked with a tilt of his head.
“Uh, no?” Adeline back tracked.
He rolled his eyes and turned, but left with a parting shot. “I didn’t think so.”
When would men ever learn?
She started tiptoeing in his direction, coming to a stop about three feet away from him before launching herself at his back and reaching her arms over his shoulders to start digging her fingers into his armpits.
“Ack!” He roared.
Adeline held onto Kettle like a monkey while the man started doing everything in his power to get her off without actually using force.
“They’re not always this weird,” Cleo said as he locked an arm around my neck and pulled me into his chest.
“Sure they aren’t,” I teased good-naturedly.
I liked that he had friends that could be silly.
I was practically annoying when I was in ‘one of those moods,’ as my dad used to call it.
A wave of sadness hit me as I remembered how I used to go into those hyperactive times, and then my dad would take me out to burn off the energy.
He was a gun smith.
Which was why I smiled slyly when Cleo had patiently showed me how to use a shotgun a little over a half hour ago.
Cleo knew my dad had been a gun smith.
Just who did he think helped test those guns out before my dad sold them?
They may have died ten years ago, but shooting was kind of like riding a bike.
You never forgot.
“Okay, what are we doing?” I asked after a few more minutes of the impromptu WWF show going on in front of me.
Cleo grinned at me. “Can you pull that lever back?”
I looked where he was pointing at the skeet thrower and blinked. “Well yeah, but I thought I was going to shoot?”
“Well, really we just brought y’all along so you wouldn’t feel lonely. Now y’all have each other to talk to while we shoot, but it’d be nice if one of you would load the skeet and pull for us,” he said slowly.
I looked over at the two women with me, and they hid knowing smiles.
“So…you wanted me to come along with you so you could shoot with these two. Not for me to do it with you, do I have that correct?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yep.”
I inhaled slowly. “What if I wanted to shoot?”
“Can you shoot?” He asked in return.
I nodded.
“You can shoot…this?” He asked as he held up the shotgun for my inspection.