Total pages in book: 191
Estimated words: 188966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 945(@200wpm)___ 756(@250wpm)___ 630(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 188966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 945(@200wpm)___ 756(@250wpm)___ 630(@300wpm)
But as I stole Neri’s bike and cycled to meet Bethany or Claire or Tanya, I couldn’t even touch them.
A single smile, a simple word, and my skin would break out in sweat. My stomach would twist, my heart would race, and my cock, which I wished would fucking cooperate, shrivelled with refusal.
It wanted one girl and one girl only.
Regardless that that one girl was off fucking another.
After the fourth shameful experience of apologising for wasting the girl’s time, I stopped trying. I settled on sinking into hell and jerking off to daydreams of Neri finally realising that I was here, I was begging, I was on my fucking knees for her to come back to me.
At least I could come that way.
I could ease some of the frustration in my blood.
Pity that each time I came, I just felt evermore hollow. As if, with every release, I lost another piece of myself.
One day, I’d lose the final piece, and nothing would be left.
“What do you mean, you’re at the Craypot? I thought you were with Joel.” Jack scowled as he dropped his hand. “Right, stay there. I’ll come get you.”
He hung up before Neri could reply.
Looking at Anna who was watching a shark doco on TV, he growled, “Our no-good daughter is at a pub downtown. She sounds tipsy, for God’s sake.”
Anna turned and looked over her shoulder. “What on earth? Why would she be drunk? How would she? She’s underage.”
“She said she made some new friends. I’m guessing slightly older new friends.” Jack marched to the side table where keys and junk lived. “I’ll give her a piece of my mind as I drive her—” He cut himself off with a curse. “Dammit, I’ve had three beers. I’m over the limit.”
“Shit, I’ve had two glasses of wine,” Anna muttered.
Both their eyes landed on me.
“Have you drunk anything tonight, Aslan?” Jack’s tone turned hopeful.
Sitting back, I saved the bathymetric map and closed the laptop. “Not a drop.”
I hadn’t drunk in months.
I found alcohol made my mood far too black.
The last time I’d had a few, I’d stood outside Neri’s bedroom until dawn, wondering if I had the strength to sneak inside and confess everything. Tell her how much I was hurting. Tell her how much I wanted to let my family’s death pass through me. How much I needed a friend.
I’d stood like a fucking stalker in the night, wishing I could cry like I had the first day she’d found me but only finding desiccated despair instead.
“Would you mind?” Jack jingled his keys. “I know we said that we should restrict your driving at night...just in case you get pulled over for whatever reason, but...she can’t walk home on her own. Not at this time.”
“It’s fine, Jack.”
At this point, the fear of being caught had dulled under the sadness of never having Neri creep into my bedroom again.
Slipping my bare feet into my discarded flip-flops under the table, I checked that my black shorts and grey t-shirt weren’t filthy from a day at sea before striding toward Jack and grabbing his keys.
“I’ll be back soon. With your drunk daughter.”
Jack rolled his eyes. “She better not be. Otherwise, she’s grounded for a month.”
I forced a smile. “Good luck with that.”
“Do you know where the Craypot is?”
“Yeah, I’ve been before.” Once. On a failed hook-up.
“What would we do without you, huh?” Jack yanked me into a hug. “Thanks, mate. I don’t tell you enough, but thanks. For all of it.”
I froze.
Contact.
Human contact after so long with nothing.
The walls I hid behind. The chains I padlocked. The barriers I’d erected to protect me from pain all threatened to crash.
Extracting myself from his embrace, I kept my eyes down as I hurried out the door to find Neri.
Chapter Thirty-One
*
Aslan
*
(Moon in Polish: Księżyc)
FLASHING LIGHTS UP AHEAD.
Blue and red, blue and red.
Men and women in uniform.
Barriers and road cones, funnelling the three cars in front of me to the curb.
Kahretsin!
Sweat broke out on my palms as I fisted the steering wheel.
SHIT!
Looking in the rear-view mirror, I deliberated pulling a U-turn, but a male cop waved at me, catching my eyes, and beckoning me past one of the cars already pulled over.
Nausea waked in my gut.
I waited for a panic attack. For the very real nightmare of cold cuffs to snap on my wrists and my borrowed time to be over.
I expected my heart rate to go through the roof as I slowly pulled over, threw the banged-up Jeep into park, and rolled down the window.
Instead, I turned cold inside.
Ice, ice cold as the depression fog wrapped me in thick terror and demoralizing grief.
I couldn’t fight it.
I couldn’t stop it sucking me down into the inevitability that I was a dead man. I had been for four years, and death had finally found me.
My pulse went dangerously slow.