Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
“She needs it, probably,” I said. “Bring her over. That’s an order.”
Nathan reached out, squeezing my shoulder. “I already owe you for life, Kace.”
He got in the black car and it took off down my driveway. As I watched them drive off, I felt like a little string was tugging on my heart the further away Nathan got from me.
Fuck, I thought, a strange sensation riding through me. I realized with a wave of discomfort that I was involved, now. I gave a shit. Nathan was just a fun hookup, sure. A straight guy who was older than me and didn’t know what he wanted.
But I was starting to care about him, in a way that I never could have seen coming. I cared about his daughter, and her well-being. I cared about his past.
As I walked back into the backyard to help the other guys set up at the guest house, I pulled out my phone and took a selfie in front of my pool. It was a carefree photo like all of my other ones, the sun shining on the glass panes of my mansion behind me, the jewel blue of the pool glittering in the bottom of the frame.
To my fans, it was just another smiling, shirtless photo of me. A picture for them to “like” and “favorite” and probably jerk off to—for some of the fans at least.
But right now, Nathan was the only one who knew what was going on in my world. I could sense disaster like the smell of rain right before a big storm. I knew what it was like to fall for someone who kept me secret. Someone who was in the closet and wasn’t ready to come out of it.
It had crushed me, back in the day, when my first real love just couldn’t be there for me, and I knew I was teetering dangerously close to plunging right back down a path like that now. I could have any guy I wanted, hook up with anyone, and I had everything in the world I needed, at my fingertips.
And all I wanted was the guy I couldn’t have.
Someone straight. Someone who still wanted to hide what we were doing.
I was fucked. But I already knew I was going to let myself have fun until it crashed and burned, because that’s what I always did.
No off button.
13
NATHAN
Maddy was only about twenty minutes away from Kace’s house, but as the car moved through the streets felt like we’d entered another world. Clutter and sun-bleached objects littered the lawns of every house we drove by, and weeds sprung up out of the ground, surrounding chain-link fences and broken car parts. We were in Wheelen, one town over from Jade River, a town that had once housed numerous factories and homes that had mostly ended up abandoned by now.
My heart pounded as we approached the address Maddy had given me. I saw her, sitting out on the curb in front of one of the ramshackle homes, wearing a blue dress and standing up as she saw the car.
The spot behind my sternum ached as I saw her. My kid, scared and alone, in a strange place. The moment the black car pulled up outside the house, Maddy burst into tears. I opened the back door of the car, getting out and pulling her into a hug, keeping her close.
“Tell me you’re okay?” I asked her.
“I’m fine,” she said, her voice sounding anything but. “I just want to get out of here. His roommates are creepy—“
“They didn’t do anything to you, did they?” I said, anger flashing in me like a flare.
“No,” she assured me. “They were so high already. I woke up to one of the guys busting into the room where I was sleeping and asking me if I had any coke.”
“Cocaine, Madeleine?” I lost my cool for a moment.
“I didn’t do any drugs, Dad,” she said, and somehow I immediately knew she was telling the truth. “Like, seriously? I have no desire for that. I just want to get the hell out of here.”
I clenched my jaw, resisting the urge to head inside the house and strangle these guys, whoever the hell they were. But instead I just squeezed Maddy tighter.
“These do not sound like guys you should be hanging out with,” I said, trying to keep my cool and not blow up. I’d have plenty of time for serious talks with her about this, but right now wasn’t the time.
“I never want to see them again,” she said, and relief hit me like a wave.
It looked like she still had makeup on from the previous night. After I’d held her for at least a minute, we got into the back of the car, and Maddy looked around, confused.
“Wait. Um, what car is this?” she asked quietly, wiping away mascara-streaked tears from her cheek.