Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Well ...
He’d been given a bed to sleep in, anyway. There was always food to eat. Love and attention that wasn’t manipulation or abuse, though? No, he’d just been cut off, left to his own devices, finding trouble quickly, and the system stepped in after that. His mother, and her husband, were all too happy to let him go. They wiped their hands clean of him and let the system do his raising after that. Malachi was convinced, in a way, that it wasn’t entirely done with him. After all, his twenty-seventh year of life had taken him nowhere in the end except right back here.
“Listen,” Sonny muttered, breaking the silence between them, “you need to move the bike in case the cops—”
Malachi only scoffed. “Let’s not. It’s noon and the one car the copshop keeps is already up the hill getting his lunch before he parks down by the bridge to give some tickets. She’s eighteen, man. You’re twenty-five, what are you doing?”
Sonny’s gaze surveyed the street over Malachi’s shoulder as calm as ever. Perhaps life in a prominent valley family had done something good for the man. His confidence was on point, but that had very little to do with the obvious discomfort Malachi created for them both. His mother had always liked to say that everything was perfect until he stuck his dirty hands into it.
“She’s not an angel,” Sonny eventually replied.
Not coolly.
Or indifferently.
Not even teasingly, to his damned benefit. Because if he had been cocky about that remark, Malachi would not be responsible for the way the pretty gray gravel under their feet would look with Sonny’s blood seeping between every crevice and crack. A guy could only take so fucking much. Even if Malachi and his sister had been estranged for reasons that were not entirely by their choosing.
“And,” Sonny added, his tone lifting slightly with his second point, “for what it matters, she is eighteen. So, I guess I should say it doesn’t matter, and leave it at that which is my right. But for the respect of it, and you being her brother—”
“Did it matter two months ago when she was still seventeen? I saw the Harvest Ball pictures. It was cute,” Malachi deadpanned, “even your orange bowtie and vest matched her scarves.”
“You’ve been away for a few years, Malachi,” Sonny interjected quietly as his gaze shifted down to the gravel between their feet. “You don’t know everything about everybody, you know what I’m saying? Some of those people might not want me sharing their stories. So, here’s what I can tell you of mine, and you can take what you want from it, and go from there.”
Malachi released the air he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in, opting to keep his rising irritation hidden. “Try me.”
“The town’s done some fundraising over the last year with different organizations and businesses that were mutually beneficial. Or so my father put it when he had to sign over that fifty thousand,” Sonny said, shooting a glance over his shoulder like he was trying to check for observers inside the business. The place seemed quiet. “The tabernacle had an invitation to the fundraising as well.”
“I get it, your circles crossed. Get to the point.”
Sonny sighed hard. “Could you relax? I barely even know you as her brother, Malachi. Back when we talked, life looked a lot different. You’re—”
“Her brother,” Malachi cut in with no regrets. “It’s the only thing that matters to me. So again, I know you’ve been seeing her for a while, but she’s only recently turned legal, so ...”
He didn’t really have anything else left to say.
The only left were Sonny’s answers.
“Just say it,” Sonny told Malachi, his upper lip twitching as if he were holding back a sneer. “Say it, what’s the problem? Are you fucking my—”
“Don’t be a prick. I came here and did this with you like this so neither one of us had to be fucking crude.”
If the respect of the matter counted for something in Sonny’s playbook, then Malachi’s efforts should matter. At the very least. Because there was an important reason why he’d come here to ask Sonny these things in the first place.
It went deeper than just his sister.
He needed to get back to that.
“You’re right,” Malachi said, “I’ve been gone for a while.”
“She said the last time you talked was when you were eighteen, just after you’d signed up for bootcamp.”
“It was made clear I wasn’t welcomed at home,” Malachi said, choosing every word carefully.
Sonny’s jaw grinded over his thoughts while he eyed Malachi. “He’s still like that with them—all of them, really.”
He.
Was that the closest Malachi could get Sonny to saying something negative about his future father-in-law? Talking badly about a man like Frankie Beau could be a dangerous thing. Depending on a person’s level of threat to the church—or more specifically, the pastor preaching from the pulpit—well, it determined the level of response action.