Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75640 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75640 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“Hey,” my hand reaches out to land comfortingly on his arm, “it’s totally fine.”
He lets his stare linger a little too hard at where we’re connected.
A little too long.
A little too hot for me to leave it there any longer.
“Hoes before bros,” I impishly taunt returning my fingers to my mug. “I get it.” There’s no stopping the newest giggles that his mortified sneer creates. “We can just bro out another night instead.”
“For the love of my dear ma in church on Sunday, please stop fuckin’ callin’ me a bro.” He pops up from his position to retrieve his dessert. “I’m too close to touchin’ forty for that shit.”
Additional snickers swirl around the room brightening his beam even more.
God, I love how much time we spend smiling.
And laughing.
I know it’s trite to say; however, I swear it’s like life stands still when we’re together. Traps us in a tiny bubble of snorts and sniggers and smirks that make me feel like we’re the only two people in the whole world who matter.
Who exist.
Will it always be like this?
Can it?
Probably not if he ever decides that settling down is more fun than rescuing twin toddlers off a pirate ship on the coast of Jamaica.
Something tells me his future wife – whoever the lucky wench may be – isn’t going to care for our level of closeness. I imagine I’ll have to get used to more than just watching Snipes of the Week alone while gorging myself to death on delivery food. I just hope that when the day inevitably comes – statistically speaking its more likely to than not – that I don’t have to give him up altogether.
Because the simple truth is I don’t know how to live life without Slater Wahl.
And honestly?
I pray I never have to.
Chapter 3
Arley
I hit send on the email I marked as urgent and reach for the bedazzled apple trinket Slater brought me from his first trip to Applecourt, MI, needing something to fidget with while reflecting on my decision.
Not about sending it.
It definitely needed to be sent.
The number of agents unexpectedly quitting after assignments isn’t typically something worth noting. No matter the division you’re in, it’s a hard gig. There are injuries – both mental and physical. Extensive travel – for unknown durations. Pay flexes – emergency aid costs someone and it’s usually not the client. Once you add in mandatory training, continued education, and having to be open to work twenty-four hours, the turnover rate that occurs is expected. What isn’t expected is the cycle it seems to have tumbled into. The company has been losing one agent from the top of their preferred department in the same order every three weeks for the last seven months.
That’s a bit much.
And when you dig a little deeper into the data, you can spot another pattern.
They’ve been leaving in a geographical circle of north, east, south, west.
Coincidence?
Unlikely.
But I’m also not the biggest believer in things happening for “no reason”.
The analytical portion of my brain recognizes patterns, searches for the causes, spots the anomalies, seeks the reasons, and creates a hypothesis for why something has occurred.
Take this situation with my ex-boyfriend, for instance.
Despite the fact that I don’t know what has caused his interest in rekindling what once was, I know the reason I’m actually entertaining it is because Slater bailed on me tonight. He’s sharing dinner with some woman who can be in public with him without getting overwhelmed by all the voices after only ten minutes. He’s out with some female he can take dancing or to play darts who won’t have a panic attack because her mixed senses are screaming run, run for your life. His…decision…to go on a real date – something the one-nightstand fan he is doesn’t typically do – has drudged up dark feelings of inadequacy. It’s unburied the bleak truth that the number of men who can tolerate me long enough to be in a relationship is low. Very low. So low that…perhaps hearing Harv talk about giving us another chance is logically in my best interest. This consideration is a direct correlation coming from the idea of the man I’m secretly in love with being out there, right now, openly falling in love with someone else. It’s not some seemingly random idea that “just so happens” to be occurring at the same time he’s out with another female.
Same for this sequence of events.
There’s an undeniable connection.
I just need to figure out what it is.
And also, I need to figure out if it’s only affecting field agents or other areas that house other high value assets such as our engineers and scientists and finance specialists.
Running my fingers across the bumpy textures of the red object pulls a long breath of relief from my lungs.
Yup.
Marking it urgent was the right call.