Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 69555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Which, of course, was when Eerie decided to acknowledge my presence.
“You,” Eerie sneered. “I heard that you worked here.”
I would’ve rolled my eyes had I not known that it would just make this situation worse.
Eerie hated my guts.
With good reason.
Nathan used me as an excuse to end things with Eerie. And though I hadn’t actually been dating him at the time of his defection, Eerie still thought that I was the reason that Nathan had ‘fallen out of love’ with her.
I wasn’t.
But she didn’t need to know that.
“That’s a little excessive.”
My brows shot up. “What is?”
She gestured to the ring with a curl of her lips.
“That.” She jerked her chin at it as if just the existence of it pissed her off. “Can’t believe you wear that out of the house. Especially here.”
I frowned.
I looked down at my finger to see the ring in place.
“I don’t usually wear it,” I admitted, hating that she was judging me. “In fact, I had it in my pocket until about two seconds ago.”
I hadn’t even realized that I’d been fingering the stupid ring, or that it’d made it onto my ring finger, until she’d brought it to my attention.
“Did you wash the ring?” she countered. “It could be contaminated.”
I gritted my teeth. “Actually, no. But only because I’m not in the NICU yet. Which I would’ve done the moment I was needed.”
Eerie rolled her eyes. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with you working on my child.”
I smiled serenely at her.
“The good thing is, I’m not your child’s nurse. Sierra is.” I grinned even though that hadn’t been the case. We hadn’t actually seen our patient assignments yet. But Peyton, our boss, likely wouldn’t care if we switched. “But I’ll be sure to keep my distance.”
Bitch.
I hated Eerie.
In fact, hated wasn’t even a strong enough word for what I felt for the woman.
“Just make sure that you keep it that way,” she instructed. “I have to go. I’ll be back, though. Make sure you’re not anywhere near my kid when I get back.”
It would only be a few days later that I’d realize exactly why she wanted me as far away from her kid as possible.
And Nathan wasn’t going to like the reason.
Chapter 4
It’s okay. I’m on 500 mg of Fuckitall.
-Text from Reggie to Nathan
Nathan
“What?” I asked, not sure that I heard him correctly.
“I said,” Sammy repeated, “that Reggie’s apartment was broken into last night. Hastings called to tell me to look into it. She said that Reggie was acting off.”
I felt a surge of anger pour through me upon hearing that news.
“I didn’t know,” I said, my hands clenching into fists at the mention of Regina Morton. “Are you sure?”
“Hastings said that it happened. She met with Sierra and Reggie for lunch. Just thought you might want to know.” Sammy picked up his gun and re-holstered it. “I gotta go to work. See you tomorrow.”
I was just getting off of my shift and heading home, but he had just started his shift.
A lot of us on the SWAT team worked a lot of random shifts, and unfortunately, when the time came that we had to respond to a SWAT call, we were fucking tired.
“Oh, hey,” Sammy called, stopping me from hanging my uniform shirt up. “I forgot to ask. Do you want to come float the river with us on Saturday? A few of us are going to go.”
I thought that sounded awful, but I liked that they were including me.
I wouldn’t be going, though.
“Actually,” I said, seconds away from turning him down.
“Reggie’s going to come.”
I narrowed my eyes at my friend.
It was as if he knew what mentioning Reggie’s name did to me.
Hell, maybe he knew something I didn’t.
All I knew was that the woman threw me off course. That I could never manage to hit it into fair territory where she was concerned.
“I’ll have to check my schedule,” I lied.
“You don’t have a schedule,” Sammy said. “You’ve been at home for the last six Saturdays.”
That was true, but why did he know that?
“Why do you know that?” I voiced my inner dialogue.
Inner me had a point.
Sammy grinned. “Hastings has the whole place wired. She can see all. Like Santa. She knows when you’ve been sleeping. Knows when you’re awake.”
“Knows if you’ve been bad or good?” I finished for him.
Sammy, the jovial bastard, wasn’t singing yet, but it was a close thing.
“So be good for goodness sake.”
Malachi said in a deep, dark timbre as he came around the corner, “Are we already singing Christmas songs?”
I crossed my arms over my chest and said, “No. He’s trying to convince me to go float down the river. And then he informed me that he knows my whereabouts at all times.”
“Hastings has a sweet ass setup at her place,” Malachi said as he crossed to his own locker.