Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Why?
Because I was a freakin’ nutcase, that’s why.
I didn’t like being touched. And that stemmed from me just being me. Not from some trauma during my childhood, or lack of “skinship” as my dad liked to call me needing hugs all the damn time. I just plain ol’ didn’t like being touched.
It wasn’t some huge psychological disorder. I’d just never been a touchy-feely kind of person that really liked when someone touched me, hugged me, or even got close enough to me for me to feel the heat of their skin.
My mom used to hate it. She loved giving hugs. And when I was younger, the only one that I used to allow to hug me was my dad. But that, I think, was likely due to him giving me the hug and immediately allowing me to pull away when I was ready.
My mom didn’t have boundaries like that.
At first, neither did my best friend, either. Sara was all about hugs and doing each other’s hair and everything in between. Me, on the other hand? Nope. No. Nuh-uh.
How did that equate to me not liking to stay at people’s houses? A person’s house was an extension of themselves. They had stuff exactly the way that they liked it—and I did more than most. I had a pillow I liked sleeping with between my legs. I had a pillow that was the perfect height to go under my head but not give me a crick in my neck the next morning. I had a comforter that was soft but not cold because it was too soft. I had a set of pajamas that didn’t twist around my body as I tossed and turned during the night.
At someone else’s house, I’d have none of those things.
“I don’t want to stay at your house,” I said. “Or a safe house.”
His eyes narrowed. “What if this man who killed your boss comes over and does the same thing to you in the middle of the night? How would Sara feel?”
Well shit. When he put it like that…
“My bed has to be supersoft,” I said.
His eye twitched.
“And I have to have a king-size bed. That’s the size my sheets are, which I’ll be bringing with me,” I told him.
He rolled his eyes.
“And you can’t bitch about the number of pillows I bring or about the way that I have to sleep at night, at a perfect sixty-five degrees,” I continued.
“Anything else, Fancy Pants?” He narrowed his eyes.
“Yeah,” I said. “My birds have to come, too.”
“Fuckin’ wonderful,” he grumbled.
So that’s how I found myself going back to Davis’s place.
He wasn’t worried about my safety there. One, because he was there, and he could protect me and protect himself. Two, because Finn was there, and having a police officer in residence would deter any criminal.
And three, because the nurse that he hired was a retired Army sergeant that could hold her own in any fight she needed to.
Needless to say, with his assurance that his family would be okay, I finally gave in, most unwillingly.
CHAPTER 6
Only whores can see this.
-Coffee Cup
DAVIS
“What the hell is that?” Finn asked as I walked in with the birds’ perch.
“This,” I grumbled darkly, “is the perch that Greer’s birds sleep on at night.”
“Okay.” He paused. “And why are Greer’s birds sleeping over here?”
“Because your brother thinks I’m in danger at my own place,” Greer said as she came into the room with the birds. “And I wouldn’t stay over here without them.”
She placed both birds on the perch that I’d placed in the corner of the kitchen and then turned to Finn.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked.
He shrugged. “Because you look like you’re disgusted. Birds are actually very hygienic.”
“I’m not disgusted about the birds.” He looked from me to Greer and back. “I’m just really surprised right now to see you here. I didn’t realize you two got along.”
She snorted, causing me to grit my teeth.
“We don’t,” she said.
“We don’t,” I parroted.
“Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no, no,” the bigger of the two parrots sang.
I looked over just as the other bird said, “God is within her. She will not fall.”
Finn snorted. “He’s not talking about you, right?”
Greer crossed her arms over her chest and glared.
Was the girl in a perpetual bad mood all the damn time? Or was I just special and got shown it every single time she was in my presence?
“What’s the story on them?” Carrie asked as she sat at the kitchen table.
Her nurse sat next to her, handling her feeding tube.
There weren’t many things that Carrie could do normally, but eating with us as a family, even if she had to do it through a tube, was something she liked to do if we were all together.
“The story is,” Greer said, “The smaller one is an African gray. His name is Bryan. He’s the one that quotes Bible verses. The big bird, Bo Seefus, is an Amazon parrot. He quoted Bible verses also, but was able to move on to TikTok phrases. I got them from a woman that died. I stuffed one of her other birds.”