Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 63563 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63563 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Great. Dad’s voice shifts to more of the rusty chainsaw variety, and I’m finished. We’re both crying, clinging to each other, and soaking each other with sweat, tears, and maybe even a little snot. When I pull away and rub my sore, swollen eyes, I can see Ash standing in the kitchen doorway. He has his arms crossed, and he looks totally at ease there. He also has zero smugness about him. Instead, he just looks happy. Seeing his perfectly handsome face completely devoid of anything other than that one emotion does things to me. Not in a shivery, ovary-awakening way, but in a much more wholesome, deeper, and raw way one experiences when one feels a connection with someone because they’ve shared something meaningful.
I can’t believe I’m having one of these moments with Ash Asswell. I mean Cromwell. And I shouldn’t call him an ass, asshat, asshole, douche, douchebag, or any other name after this. No, he didn’t save my dad as this is just the first step in a very long path, but he did reset my dad, and I guess me too, along with it. He did it for us when he didn’t have to, and it means a lot to me.
“I’ll let you get back to what you were doing before you had to come and scrape my ass out of that chair,” Dad says. He looks a little bit embarrassed over the big display of emotion as I hug him one more time.
“Okay.” I need to do a full-face swipe again to clear away the tears. “Okay, dad. I’ll be back in a few—”
“No, honey, let me call you. You absolutely do not need to come and clean this house every couple of days. I’ve got this, and I’m not going to slide backward again. I promise I’ll call you tomorrow night. And we’ll set up dinner. Or lunch. Either here or out somewhere. You pick.”
Before the tears start coming in great rushes again, I nod, blow my dad a kiss, and hightail it out of there. Ash opens the passenger door for me, and it’s the icing on the not-asshole cake. Because assholes don’t hold open doors, help complete strangers, and kiss like—nope. We are not going there. Assholes can be good kissers. I happen to know that for a fact from previous experiences.
We’re both quiet, each of us lost in thought, or at least I am, while Ash drives us back to his house. When we pull up, there’s a sleek black car in front. Even I, with my limited knowledge of cars, know it’s one of those expensive beasts that came from Europe. It’s also a classic. There’s no way I would park it on the street, but I can see the shadow of a large form behind the wheel, and I realize that whoever this is, they’re not only rich enough to afford something that came straight out of the fifties or sixties—I really am useless with my car decades—but they have a driver for it too.
“Who’s here?” I point out the car, trying hard not to shiver. It seems a little bit sinister. Like maybe Ash is mixed up in things I don’t want to know about. Underground things that would make a good story.
Ash’s eyes twinkle, but not in the sort of way that means whoever owns the car is a gangster come to do business, or even worse, bust kneecaps. Then, he answers, “My granny.”
Oh. That explains a lot. The price of the car, the driver, the classiness of it, and how it’s black and looks a little bit gangster. Not that I think his granny is underground, but she sure has taken over a lot of this city and the world’s media.
“She’s inside?”
“Yeah. She has the code for the door.”
“Of course she does.” My tone indicates I’m less than thrilled to have this confrontation—oh, I mean meeting—with his granny right after a very emotionally trying evening. Plus, I’m still sweat-soaked, so I look like a bedraggled dog who bathed in its own stink. On a grossness scale of one to ten, with ten being really fucking nasty beyond redemption, I’m at least a six hundred and fifty-two.
“Hey.” Ash sets his hand on my knee as we pull into the garage, and I nearly explode through the roof of the car. He retracts it quickly, and I force myself not to be so jumpy.
“Sorry. Long day.”
“I, uh, I was going to say…” He kills the ignition. “That I called my granny because I thought she could offer some unique insight into the situation.”
“The situation?” It just goes to show how tired I am that the ring doesn’t even occur to me until I catch Ash squinting at it. “Oh, yeah. That situation.”
“Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to call her. I meant for her to come over tomorrow, but I should have known she’d be beside herself with granny delight. Anyway…” He shakes his head, smiling innocently enough. He looks boyish and charming, and if I weren’t so gross and tired, I’d take note. And banish those notes to the fiery abyss part of my mind where all nonsense thoughts should end up. “I didn’t mean for her to come right over, but she wanted to do just that.”