Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 79940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
“I’ll get some plates and set the table,” I replied.
“Set the table? That’s not the way you eat burgers from the Doghouse,” he informed me. “These burgers must be eaten out of the bag, on the sofa, in front of the television.”
I hadn’t eaten anything on the sofa since I had been a kid. Smiling at the idea, I nodded. “Okay, then I’ll get the drinks. I have water, milk, and orange juice. Oh, and I still have that wine that you bought with the groceries.”
He smirked. “The wine.”
“I don’t have wineglasses here.”
“Good. Bring the bottle,” he called over his shoulder as he walked into the living room.
I took a deep breath and gave myself a mental scolding for going all fluttery in my chest when he was around. “It’s just dinner with a friend,” I whispered as I went to get the wine and a bottle opener.
Taking my time, I uncorked it before meeting him in the other room, then took out two regular drinking glasses from the cabinet.
Pausing as I entered the room, I realized I hadn’t considered that we would be sitting so close on the sofa together. It was an average sofa, but the table in front of it was on the smallish side. King had taken out the burgers from the bag and placed them on the table, along with a large container of what appeared to be fries, covered in sauce and crumbled cheese. He’d stuck two plastic forks in the fries and placed them between the two burgers.
“I got plenty of napkins. This shit gets messy,” he said, looking up at me.
I walked over and set the bottle between the two burgers. Then gave him one of the glasses before setting the other in front of me.
He reached for the bottle. “Too proper to just drink out of the bottle, huh?” he asked with a teasing lilt to his voice.
I shrugged. “I wasn’t sure that was what you meant, and, well, I do have glasses, just not actual wineglasses.”
He poured wine into my cup, filling it over halfway, before he filled his to the top. I laughed, and he cut his eyes over to me.
“What? It just keeps me from having to refill it so much.”
I nodded and took my glass to take a sip.
King picked up his burger and took a large bite, then grabbed the remote control. It was hard not to just watch him. The way his jaw flexed as he chewed and the muscles in his neck moved. Why was I doing this? Men could dominate. They had the power to control. King had saved me, but hadn’t I thought Hill was saving me once too? When I’d met him at the diner where I was waiting tables, wondering where I was going to sleep that night. My roommate hadn’t paid her part of the rent, and I couldn’t afford all of it. The landlord had given us two weeks, and my roommate had vanished during that time.
How many times had I wished he had never walked into the diner? How many times had I wished to be homeless instead of the life he had placed me in?
Yet here I was, reacting to another man in ways I never had with Hill. I was getting funny feelings in my chest. He had been showing up in my dreams. I had to get some control over it. Stop it. I was leaving soon. How easily I kept forgetting.
I began to eat while King went through the stations on the television. Then, he pressed something, and Netflix came up. I didn’t know how he had done that, but it didn’t really matter. I rarely watched the television. I preferred books.
“Action, romance, thriller, horror—what’s your preference?” he asked me.
I finished chewing and swallowed before replying, “Doesn’t matter. Whatever you want to watch.”
A loud clap of thunder outside, followed by hard rain that was blowing against the east side of the house, startled me.
King raised his eyebrows. “Might not matter soon. I doubt the electricity out here holds out for long.”
I continued to eat, and he put the remote down, then stood up and went to a window to observe. The lightning outside was so bright that it lit up the living room brighter than the lamp in here ever did. The thunder that trailed it was startling as it vibrated through the house.
“I’ll unplug the television. Wouldn’t want that to get hit,” he said to me before going over to it. “Do you have anything important plugged up? Computer?”
I shook my head. The only computer I had ever been allowed to use was the desktop that Hill had put in the office. Not his office, just the office in the house. One that was rarely used.
King walked through the rest of the small house before returning to the sofa and sitting back down. “Everything looks good,” he informed me, then picked up his burger. “So, what do you think of the burger?”