Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 90919 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90919 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
“Really, that’s all you’re going to say? Mm-hmm?”
“Of course he called to apologize,” Lou said with a shrug. “He’s Cian. He doesn’t like it when you guys fight.”
“True,” I mused.
“That doesn’t mean anything has changed, My,” she said, pouring frozen potatoes into the pan. “He always apologizes. He always makes it right. But he keeps making it wrong again, you know?”
Her words proved to be prophetic.
I called my mom back and then spent the day doing laundry and helping the girls clean the house. We tried to do it at least once a week, together, so none of us ever felt like the others weren’t pulling their weight. It was a system that had worked for years. After the house was spotless, we went to dinner and stopped by a thrift store to look around for anything new they’d gotten in. By the time we got home, Lou curled up on the couch with a book, and Frankie closed herself up in her room to…do whatever Frankie did. I checked my phone before I hopped in the shower. I checked it again after. I kept an eye on it while I blow-dried my hair and got into pajamas.
Cian never called. In fact, I didn’t hear from him for over a week, and by then, my decision to stop waiting for him had solidified into something tangible.
Chapter 12
Cian
“It’s all right, Ash,” Bas said as he helped my sister over the broken plates in the entryway. “Just keep your shoes on, yeah? Don’t want you gettin’ cut.”
“Doubt I’d even feel it at this point,” she replied softly, looking around her apartment in defeat.
I’d stopped by to pick up her car and some clothes a couple days before and I’d seen the mess, but with everything going on, I hadn’t had a chance to clean it before we brought Aisling over to pack.
Someone, and we all knew who, had broken into her place and ransacked it. If their goal had been to inflict maximum damage, they’d succeeded. Anything that could be broken, was. Anything that could be torn, was. Anything that had been on the walls was smashed on the floor. The couch was torn apart. Stuffing was ripped out of the pillows. Food and cleaning supplies and toiletries, and even the water from a vase on the counter, was poured out all over the floor.
“I’m not sure there’s anything to pack,” Aisling said as she made her way slowly toward her bedroom. “It’s all ruined.”
“She’s not wrong,” Bas ground out, looking around at the mess. “This is fuckin’ excessive.”
“And it took some time,” I added. “How long was that fuckwad in here? He’s throwin’ shit at the walls and breakin’ every dish and no one heard him? What the fuck?”
“People don’t wanna get involved,” Bas replied, moving a kitchen stool against the wall. One of the legs was busted.
I followed Aisling into her bedroom and found her on the slashed-up mattress staring into the closet.
“You find anything salvageable?” I asked gently.
Aisling laughed humorlessly. “Maybe this?” she said, her voice breaking as she lifted the Afghan on her lap. I recognized it instantly because all of us kids had one. Our mom had crocheted one for each of us when we were born. It was one of the only good things we had left of her. Mine was blue and gray—Aisling’s was pink and yellow.
Hers had been cut into three pieces, the edges already fraying.
“Aw, shit, Ash,” I murmured.
“It’s fine.” She sniffled. “It’s—he didn’t take it, right? I still have it. That’s something. I can just put it away. Maybe in one of those picture boxes or something so it doesn’t unravel anymore.”
“You see anything else?”
“There’s a couple of boxes under the bed,” she said, standing up. “It’s—you’ll have to pull up the mattress.”
Reaching out, I flipped the mattress up onto its side. Beneath it was what looked like a trap door built into the bedframe.
“It’s why I chose this bed,” Aisling said, setting the blanket down gently on an overturned nightstand. She leaned across the bed carefully and flipped up the trapdoor. Inside were two small bins of stuff. “I figured if someone ever broke in, they wouldn’t think to take the entire mattress off the bed. Unless, of course, they had the same one and knew what it was hiding. Then I’d be fucked.”
“Smart.”
She pulled the bins out and opened each of them. In one was a tightly wrapped roll of bills.
I whistled quietly.
“Tips,” she said nonchalantly. “I was saving up to go to Europe. If I kept it in here, I knew I wouldn’t spend it.”
She carefully sorted through the bins, making sure everything was where she’d left it, closed them, and set them down next to her blanket.
“The bathroom is a nightmare,” she said. “Oh, you can put the mattress back.”