Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 68424 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68424 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Chapter 7
Bishop
“I might’ve yelled at my old landlord today.” Confession was good for the soul, right? “But I shouldn’t be punished because he was poking my very last nerve, and I didn’t threaten him or anything.”
The fact that he was still alive was surprising…even my movers said so.
Cohen coughed, doing his best to badly cover a laugh as he shook his head. When he had his twisted sense of humor under control, he ignored my pout as he studied me through the phone. “What did he do? And I should probably ask what you said because the look on your face makes it seem very relevant.”
He was too smart for my own good.
“Um, well, he wanted to do a preliminary walk-through, and keep in mind this is a pre-walk-through before he does his actual walk-through next week.” He was a moron who was trying to make me kill him. That was the only logical explanation.
Cohen cocked his head like he thought he’d misheard me. “Why?”
I shrugged, aiming for innocent, but I wasn’t sure it was working. Stress was affecting my acting abilities. “The only thing I can think of is that he was hoping to catch me at a bad time so he could get away with stupid shit.”
He’d even been looking through the boxes the movers were packing. Thank god I’d packed the important stuff myself.
My landlord didn’t need to see my tails.
Rolling his eyes, Cohen frowned at me. “That’s not enough information and you know it.”
Maybe.
“The movers were packing today and it was chaos.” They’d done a great job. I had no issues with them, but it’d been barely controlled chaos. “My landlord kept coming in and wandering through like I was already out. He even took pictures.”
Maybe I’d have had more patience another time, but I was doing my best to get everything organized, and he hadn’t helped the situation anyway.
“Did he give you a reason why?” Cohen was so cute. He kept looking for logic in insanity.
“That he wanted to make sure he had everything organized.” I shrugged when Cohen’s face scrunched up. “I know. It even sounds fishy.”
“What did you say?” Cohen shifted the phone so it seemed to be perched on his knee as he leaned back against the head of the bed.
“Well…” I was kind of hoping he’d forgotten that part. “After he’d started taking pictures, he said he wanted me to sign a damage report for a scuff on the wall. I kind of snapped?”
Cohen raised an eyebrow and waited.
Sighing, I gave up and confessed. “I yelled at him that my boy and my Dom were waiting for me and he was making everything take twice as long just so he could scam me out of my security deposit.”
Cohen coughed, probably trying to decide if laughing was appropriate before his lips turned up at the corners. “How did your movers take that?”
That’d been weird.
“Well, I was prepared for drama, but they all nodded and the basic sentiment was that family came before assholes and that he was trying to scam me.” The fact that I was twice the size of most of them might’ve had some bearing on how they’d reacted, but not as much as Cohen might think.
One of my more colorful movers had even said that getting dick was more important than dealing with dicks. I’d agreed with him, but I wasn’t sure repeating that to Cohen was necessary.
He didn’t seem like the type to appreciate it.
Eli might, though.
“I’m glad they didn’t make an issue of it.” He chuckled and shook his head. “But that could’ve gone badly.”
“I know.” I shrugged and leaned back against the flimsy pillows that the hotel thought were reasonable. “I probably shouldn’t have shared the Daddy-boy part, but I’m not sure ignoring the two partners thing is possible.”
Cohen was back to giving me his thinking face, which just made me want to reach through the phone and squish his cheeks. He was so cute, but I behaved myself as he nodded slowly. “Yes, that’s something we’re going to have to get used to dealing with. But honestly, I think we’re all in a very fortunate place where it won’t matter personally or professionally.”
I hadn’t really thought about that, but he was right.
“Yeah, most of my friends are all in the lifestyle and so are Ian’s.” I had to grin. “He even works with such crazy people, nothing he says will ever shock anyone.”
Laughing, Cohen nodded. “I would have to agree with that assessment. Working for myself has its perks too.”
He narrowed his gaze, trying to look stern, but it just sent a shiver through me. “One being the ability to punish a naughty pup for letting his stress get too high without telling his Dom.”
Oops.
“It was only that one part, honest.” Mostly. “I’ve got things very organized and I’m not trying to do everything myself. I found cleaners to come in on Monday. I’m going to spend the weekend cleaning out the last of the weird stuff in the fridge and the cabinets. Then they’ll do the heavy lifting when it comes to the scrubbing.”