Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 58615 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 293(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58615 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 293(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
This new house is ours.
Every single one of us has contributed to what we wanted out of this place. The guys wanted functional shit, but it was Clo who wanted to pick out furniture and décor. Every day she’s online picking out new stuff we have to house in storage until the house is built. But at least she’s happy. That’s all any of us have ever hoped for.
A car pulls up the gravel drive on the new land the four of us purchased for our girl and our new home. I recognize it as Rick’s. He climbs out with Rachel and Seth in tow. Seth runs over to the framed house to run around, checking out shit like kids do.
“Can’t believe you’re selling your property,” Rachel says grumpily. “You kicked us out.”
Rick rolls his eyes at me, but he’s clearly amused.
“I didn’t kick you out,” I say with a chuckle. “I’m selling my property that you freeloaded on. Besides, I didn’t leave you hanging. You’re out of that trailer that scares the hell out of you every time a storm comes through.”
She smirks because she knows it’s true. Another buddy of mine has a ranch with horses and other livestock. He’s always traveling for rodeo shows, but needs someone to keep up the property while he’s gone. Since Rachel did a good job all these years with mine, I recommended her to him. Instead of staying in a dinky trailer, she gets to live in a big-ass house with a nice view.
“At least Henry pays me,” she agrees. “And he doesn’t mind if Rick stays over.”
Rachel has always been a sleepover girl. Fast and onto the next guy. Rick sleeps over but doesn’t leave. And now that she looks like she’s carrying a basketball in her stomach, I don’t think he’ll be keen on leaving his daughter either. Eventually he’ll work on her enough that she’ll marry him. Zac and I are especially thankful for Rick. Now she leaves us the fuck alone.
“Did you just come to torture me?” I ask, my brows lifting in question.
She laughs, her blond ponytail swaying with the movement. “No, asshole. I came to invite you and your harem to dinner. Rick has brisket going and I made some of my famous potato salad.”
Clo fucking loves her potato salad.
“Yeah, yeah, we’ll be there,” I grumble. “What time?”
She smirks, knowing she won the battle. Her potato salad always wins. And once Clo gave us the scare of a lifetime, Rachel held up a white flag of defeat. It was slow at first, but being that neither woman has any girlfriends, they forged a friendship that has strengthened over the past several months.
“Seven. Tell Clove to bring something chocolate. I will die unless I get chocolate. Tell her those exact words,” Rachel says dramatically.
I laugh. “Got it. Chocolate and my harem. Anything else, your royal pain in the ass?”
“Nope,” she says with a smile and then yells at Seth. “Let’s go, baby!”
Seth gives me a hug before they all climb back into their car. I slide into my new Ford F150 extended cab truck and head home. It won’t be home for long. Soon, this bigger house will be built and we’ll make plenty of new memories here.
It’s a twenty-minute drive back to the house, so I call Zac. He’s up at the office in town. We love fucking Clo like it’s our job, but the reality is we can’t do that for a living. Not to mention, we’d go stir crazy and it’d only give Zac more time to think up kinky ways to truss up our girl. Not that I mind seeing her tied up and at our mercy, but we still have to put food on the table.
“Yo,” he answers. “How’s the house looking?”
“Awesome. They framed it fast. If we have a dry summer, we might have it finished early fall,” I tell him. “How’s the Briggs file?”
He launches into our newest client. Once we decided we weren’t going anywhere else, we set up headquarters for Integral Defense Security in a brick building on Main Street right next to the police station. So far, we’ve gained jobs from aiding the police to investigating cheating husbands. Fontaine Briggs is an old man in his seventies who thinks people are poaching on his land. The man is fucking senile as all hell and is pretty sure the game wardens and forest rangers are in on the gig. But crazy or not, his dollar spends like the rest of them.
“You know, the old coot isn’t as half off his rocker as everyone would like to think,” Zac says with a chuckle. “All it took was a little surveillance on his property to know something’s going on. One of the game wardens, Abe Frye, is a shifty-eyed fucker. I’m looking into him now. His truck sure visits Briggs’ woods an awful lot and he always leaves with something tarped in the bed.”