Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 79314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Shane stared. Looked down. Peeked up at Ros again, and still couldn’t think of anything worth saying. He’d been working on seducing Ros for over two weeks, so why the hell had he dug himself into a hole now, when it had been going so well?
He’d grown to like this cute little puppy—that was why.
He was a moron.
His neck creaked when he rolled his head, increasingly tense from the smoke poisoning every cell in his body. “It’s not like that.”
Ros wiped the tears from his face with his forearm and took a deep breath. “Then think about what it is like. We need to get out of here with the body, so consider what you want to say, and we can talk in the car.” He didn’t look like someone who had his shit together, but at least he sounded as if he did.
Shane’s thoughts were a chaotic whirlwind, and no matter how hard he tried to focus on the task at hand, Ros’s presence was a reminder of all his past fuck-ups. Brad was pale as a sheet as the three of them used the cover of darkness and moved the body to the back of Rosen’s vehicle.
Shane should have never gotten into Ed Beck’s car and touched his steering wheel, which had made incriminating him so easy. He should have listened to Frank and fucked Ros over before they’d gone on countless date-like meetups. What should have been easy seduction had now become a flashing light at the back of his mind, constantly warning him of the disaster to come.
He got a strange sense of déjà vu when he sat in the driver’s seat of Ros’s car. He could smell the booze Ed Beck had drank that fateful night.
It wasn’t that Shane didn’t deserve prison time. He’d done shit even before he crossed paths with Ros’s father, but to lose ten years of his life for something he didn’t do—that he couldn’t stand.
“Are we gonna talk?” Ros asked when Shane started the engine, eager to get off campus as fast as possible.
“What about?” Shane asked in a grim tone before glancing to the back seat where the corpse was hidden under a comforter.
“How long were you in prison?”
That was a much easier question than any involving feelings, so Shane rolled his shoulders, staring at the road ahead. He’d never been a reckless driver, but one could never be too careful with a body or drugs in the car. “Ten years.”
Ros gasped and grabbed his forearm. “Jesus! Shane.”
Shane froze and squeezed the wheel, going frantic. But there was no one he could have hit. Not even a squirrel. “What…?”
“Ten years? And you only just got out a few weeks ago? Are you okay?”
What an odd question to ask.
“Of course I’m fine. I have a job at Frank’s. I have some place to live, and I’ve never become a junkie. Pretty good outcome.”
Ros shook his head and bumped it against the back of his seat. “Really? That’s it? It doesn’t bother you?”
“That’s not what I said. Of course it bothers me! I lost my twenties locked away and always having to watch my back! When I got out and tried to use Grindr, a friend had to fucking help me, so yeah, it’s not nothing. But that’s what happens to people like me, and you just gotta adapt,” he snapped, trying to even out his breathing as the air got thicker.
Ros’s soft fingers slid down to Shane’s hand. “I’m sorry.”
Shane didn’t know what to do with that kind of support. Frank had given him a pat on the back, put a beer in his hand, and helped him hook up, but what Ros offered felt more personal. Something none of Shane’s friends could have given. And yet, Shane wasn’t sure how to name it.
“It’s… fine. There’s nothing you can do. But it’s nice to be around you. Like I haven’t lost a decade of my life.”
And despite being a wreck himself after tonight’s events, Ros still flashed Shane a little smile and winked. “If it helps, I was eleven ten years ago, so we wouldn’t have been a match.”
What had little Ros been up to the night his dad had fucked Shane over?
A strange mixture of anger and guilt flooded Shane’s chest, but he squared his shoulders and bore it. “No.”
They sat with that for a while, Ros’s tired face illuminated by yellow street lights every now and then.
“Shane?” Ros finally asked. “Where are we going?”
Something deep inside Shane told him to leave Ros at the nearby motel, or lie, but the warm hand resting on his knee kept him from saying anything but the truth. He’d deal with the consequences later.
“Home.”
Chapter 8 – Ros
Ros wasn’t sure anymore if he was stressed out of his mind or numb. His life took a turn tonight in a direction that he’d only seen in movies, and yet he was right in the middle of it. He’d handled a dead body, and he was on his way to dispose of it with his drug dealer boyfriend who’d spent the last ten years in prison.