Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
“Will do. You married to her?”
“Will be tomorrow.” At least, I hope to hell that I will be.
“Hmmph.” She begins muddling the old fashioned. “Well, honey—if you change your mind between now and then, I’m looking for husband number six.”
Shit. With a grin, I ask her, “What happened to husbands one through five? Because you kinda look like a lady who’ll eat a man alive.”
“Chewed ’em up,” she agrees. “Then had to spit ’em out.”
“That settles it, then. You don’t want me. I look real tasty, but I’m hard on the teeth.”
“Oh, I know it. You tough boys are why I’ve got dentures,” she says, popping them off her gums and clicking them together, and I’m still laughing when she puts the drinks in front of me. “Go on, then. Take care of your girl. Just wave when you need another.”
Probably won’t need too many more. Maxine’s already got the flushed, slightly sleepy look of someone working a good buzz. Sexy as fuck, too.
But that ain’t happening. Not tonight. Probably not ever again.
Though she might kill me in the meantime. Because I slide in right beside her, and she begins giggling.
“Look.” She plucks the toothpick out of her drink, a maraschino skewered on it. “I got my cherry back.”
She pops it into her mouth, still giggling. And yeah, that’s not a buzz. She’s flat-out drunk off those two shots.
And so damn cute. “So you just ate your own cherry,” I point out and she sputters, burying her face in her folded arms, shoulders shaking.
For a minute I wonder if she’s just going to laugh herself to sleep right there, then she lifts her head and pulls the old fashioned closer. Then I nearly fucking lose it when she sips from the stirring straw, cheeks hollowing as she sucks hard, desperately trying to get more than a trickle through the little tube.
Torn between laughing and groaning, I ask her, “You’re more of a margarita girl, aren’t you?”
If she’s a drinker at all. But I’m guessing if she is, it’s party drinks with big straws, or sweet wines.
She nods, then stops sucking to say, “Or rosé. But this is good, too.”
“Yeah, it is.” To distract myself from her mouth, I pull out my phone. “So I was looking up how to get married—”
Maxine gives a little snort. “Internet research again.”
“You got a better way?”
She nods solemnly, then grins and shakes her head before sipping from her straw again. Her eyebrows arch.
Waiting for me to continue. As if I can think clearly while she’s teasing me. Or sucking on that straw.
But I try. “So we can pre-register for our marriage license. That way we don’t wait in line at the county office.”
Her brow furrows. “I thought you just had to show up at a chapel?”
“Apparently not. See? Internet research will save our asses. So we’ll fill it out now, yeah?”
She nods, scooting closer, watching as I begin typing in my info. “Your name is Aaron?”
“Yeah.”
“How’d you get Stone?” Then she giggles. “Never mind. I can guess.”
She’d be guessing wrong. Except that my cock’s hard enough to prove her right. “It’s because of high school football.”
Her eyes go wide. “You pulled your dick out during a football game?”
Oh shit. When I stop laughing, I explain, “They called me the stone wall. Because of my last name. And it stuck.”
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh,” she says like it’s the most amazing story she’s ever heard. “Stone Wall.”
“Yep.”
“Matt used to call me Mad Max. But it didn’t stick.”
“Mad?” I type my parents’ info into the form. “As in angry or as in crazy?”
“Neither, really. More like…survived the apocalypse that took everyone else.”
Everyone in her family except her grandfather and her brother. And now…even them. I hear when that realization hits her, the hitch in her breath.
Grief swims in her eyes. “I guess I really did.”
“Hey.” I set down the phone, cradle her face in my hands. “It’s all right. I know it hurts. But they’re real glad you survived. That you made it through.”
“I’m not sure I’m through yet.” Her tears slip over, and I can feel that hot salty pain in the back of my throat. “I’m not sure I ever will be.”
“Yeah, you will. Because I’m going to help you.”
Though that doesn’t reassure her. Her eyes close and her voice breaks on a sob. “I probably won’t even live through this. Everything always goes so wrong. Saving Matt. Saving you. This plan to get Papa probably will, too.”
“No, angel,” I tell her, chest aching. “Don’t you think that. We’ll do this together, yeah? And we’ll both get through. Because I won’t let anything happen to you. All right?”
She doesn’t answer, eyes still closed, mouth trembling.
With more steel in my voice, I ask again, “All right?”
Finally she nods but doesn’t look at me. Instead she sniffles and pulls her drink close again, then drains the glass with a long swallow.