Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 70546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
“Alright then. I’ll buy just enough to get me through the week and meet you back at whatever coffee shop you want. I’m assuming the main street in this place is all there is?”
Shit. I didn’t think there wouldn’t be a clothing store here. “I think there are a few stores on the other side of the streets too. Surrounding us.”
“That’s perfect.” She gives me a thumbs up, which is even more annoying in real life than it is when someone gives it to you as an emoji. Go freaking figure. But even worse than that? Everything under the sun seems to be revolving around seven days. The car, my family’s threats… If I weren’t already annoyed about everything that’s gone on in the past few months, I’d find myself getting ready to be annoyed at this very moment. As it is, it’s just more poo on the big dung pile of annoyance.
“I’ll be at the coffee shop right—”
“There.” She points. “It’s super cute! Can I get a hot chocolate after?”
Of course she’d ask for hot chocolate. Not real coffee, like an actual grown-up. She wants something happy and sugary. “Only if they have the unicorn hot chocolate.”
“Oh my god, is that a thing?” she asks excitedly. I dearly hope it’s not. “Okay, well, I’ll see you in an hour?”
“An hour? It’s going to take that long?”
She gives me the kind of look my mom has given me my whole life when I say obtuse things. It’s freaky how close Nina already has it mastered. It makes a shiver ripple through me, and not in a good way.
“I’ll order two coffees then. For myself.” I watch as Nina nods and heads off down the street, those nasty poo flip-flops slapping disgustingly with her every step. Her hips bounce prettily in her jeans, her bum swaying, and I quickly tear my eyes away and give myself one of those conversations.
The—we’re not having this conversation—conversation.
At the door of the coffee shop—a little mom-and-pop family-run business like most of the places in Upperhand—I turn around to make sure Nina is okay. It’s just instinct. She’s new here, alone and small. It should be my job to protect her, even if I don’t like it or want it. She walks down to the end of the sidewalk, pauses to look at the sign on the building, which I seem to remember is a thrift store, and goes inside.
I wait for a good minute, but she doesn’t come back out. She’s going to be okay in there. She’s a grown woman. It doesn’t matter that she’s too nice, and anyone could take advantage of her. She needs to learn to look after herself sometime. She can look after herself. She made it all this way on her own.
In a week, she’ll leave here on her own too.
And between then and now, we can work on fixing our lives to the point where no one can mess with them again.
That should be worth celebrating, but it leaves me feeling like I took a donkey kick to the gut. Alright, it’s not that bad. Maybe more like a chicken kick. Never underestimate a chicken who knows karate. They’ll cluck you up. Anyway, that sensation is terrible and uncalled for, and I think I can banish it with coffee, though it’s probably more than that. I’m darn well out of sorts from my mom and grandma this morning, all the usual chaos, and then the chaos that went over and over and above.
The cameras, for one.
Coffee can’t help me start the day over, but it can give me enough energy to get through it and, hopefully, the rest of this week too.
CHAPTER 10
Nina
Ever since we got back, Thaddius has been showing his general displeasure and rubbing it in with just how unwanted my presence is here by stomping around outside and doing all sorts of different chores, so I hide away in the kitchen.
I found a pound of ground beef in the fridge, which, for a bachelor, is pretty well stocked. With my phone that I retrieved out of the car and charged on the way home, I looked up a recipe that used the best of both beef and goat worlds. Well, I’m using a recipe for goat cheeseburgers because there’s no way I’d find anything with sheep cheese. At least, I don’t think I would. I hope subbing it in isn’t a huge mistake.
Cooking is the one thing I’ve always been decently good at. My mom did most of the family dinners, but I always loved baking. In school, I took cooking whenever I could, which was pretty much every year. It took my love of baking to a new level, and suddenly, it wasn’t just my mom doing all the cooking. I stepped up and started making meals at least two nights a week, sometimes more, and of course, I always helped her out whenever she didn’t chase me out of the kitchen for causing more chaos than I was helping.