Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
“But you have to see the whole evolution. We can watch it whenever you have free time,” he added, and there was a needy edge to his words that pulled at something inside of me. It was that same thing that had me befriending Lore, even though we’d been polar opposites. I might like to project myself as cold and unfeeling, but some people could get to me.
Lore.
Joel.
Dav.
“Alright,” I agreed. “But I reserve the right to make fun of you mercilessly when we get to season five or six and we both find out you’re wrong about Dav.”
“I’m not,” he said, all teenage cockiness. “It’s gonna be nice to watch it on a big screen,” he admitted.
“What have you been watching it on?” I asked.
He reached into his pocket, producing a phone with a spiderweb crack toward the top corner, likely obscuring part of whatever he was trying to watch on it.
I’d never had just a strong urge to buy someone something as I did now. A big fucking tablet or something. I wondered if he would even accept it. Maybe I could lie about him needing it to work for me. That it was related in some way.
“Alright. Cue up the next episode.”
“Fair warning, this is one of the worst episodes,” Joel said. “Eclipsed only by the fucking swim team episode,” he said, grimacing.
“Look at you with the potty mouth,” I teased.
“You must be rubbing off on me,” he shot back.
We watched the show until, eventually, the last twenty-four-plus hours caught up to me, and I crashed on the edge of the couch, waking up covered in a blanket and confused by the daylight streaming in through the windows.
Stretching, I looked around.
“Joel?” I called, but got no answer.
I got up, making my way toward the scent of fresh coffee, finding a pot waiting for me with a note beside it.
School. Coffee new @ eight.
Huh.
There was a perk to having someone else around, it seemed, as I made coffee and finally went in search of my phone, reading through the texts from Renzo, talking about a meeting in two days about the whole butcher shop situation.
I’d almost forgotten all about that with everything else going on.
I was about to check in with my crew when there was a knock at the door, making my heart shoot up into my throat, and start pounding frantically, making it hard to breathe.
What was wrong with me?
I reached for my knife, the one that already had one body on it, and made my way to the door, only to have it shake as someone knocked again.
On a gasp, my coffee cup slipped from my hand, splashing hot liquid over my feet, porcelain shattering around me.
“Cin?” Dav called, voice tight, likely having heard the crash.
“Dav?” I asked, ripping at the locks to pull open the door and glower at him. “What the fuck?”
“Good morning to you too, love,” he said, head tilted to the side, looking at me. “Did I scare you?”
“Don’t be stupid,” I said, even though my chest and throat still felt tight.
“I would have called,” he said, pushing his way in, even though I hadn’t moved out of the doorway. “But I didn’t think you’d pick up,” he said as he reached out, tucking some of my hair behind my ear.
That little touch seemed to ease the tension in my chest and throat, letting me breathe again.
“I wouldn’t have,” I agreed, stooping down to gather the pieces of my cup. “Joel is going to be pissed at you.”
“The kid? Why?”
“Because he scrubbed the shit out of the floor last night,” I told him, tossing the cup fragments and reaching for the paper towels as Dav dropped a bag on the counter.
“He was still here when you got back?”
“He cleaned up then crashed on the couch. Then made me watch almost a whole season of Buffy with him.”
“He seems like a good kid.”
“He weighs all of a hundred pounds, but he rushed in here to crash a lamp against that asshole’s head while he’d been choking me out.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” Dav said, his gaze sliding to my throat.
There were some bruises there if you looked close, but that Chet Wheaton guy knew what he was doing, putting pressure in the carotid instead of just choking me with pure brute force.
“I didn’t think there needed to be a blow-by-blow,” I said, shrugging, as I wiped up the coffee. “What’s in the bag?”
“Breakfast sandwiches. Did he do anything else to you? Aside from your cheek.”
The cut from his ring had been pretty superficial, despite how bad it had bled. It was just an angry scratch now, likely sealed after a full day, and nothing but a memory in a week’s time.
“I’m fine.”
“And that’s not what I asked,” he said, digging into the bag to pull out two foil-wrapped sandwiches. “Bacon or sausage?”