Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 141281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 706(@200wpm)___ 565(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 706(@200wpm)___ 565(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
Correction: two dickheads.
I say nothing.
“C’mon, man, I’d know that look anywhere,” Gering says. “You finally started fucking some chick for more than one night. Wish you’d told me sooner. I would’ve let Sex know we’ve got a double agent in our midst.”
“You’re right. He’s a boring-as-hell, married jackass who never gets more than five nights of sleep chasing after his grandmunchkins,” I say.
And I dart them both a middle finger salute after I finish my first set when I notice they’re still staring.
He laughs it off, and I’m left stewing because he’s right.
No matter how many times I tell Delia the same shit I’ve been telling myself—it’s just a summer fling, a perfect season of wrong—it doesn’t work.
It doesn’t stop this madness I can’t quit.
I don’t even know what this is—I’m sure as shit not dating my stepsister.
Am I?
Fuck, I wonder if I belong in a nuthouse every time I think about it, and maybe I do.
Too bad my dick decided a long time ago it isn’t listening to reason.
I work out for more than an hour, breaking every major muscle group into a puddle of weeping jelly, and suffering a few more shitty one-liners from two guys who are supposed to be my friends.
No question, I’d trust them with my life, but I let them know their comedy routines suck elephant balls.
The workout doesn’t help, and neither do my denials every time they fling their crap.
I still can’t get Delia out of my head.
Hell, I haven’t even followed up on the family shit with Ma yet. Weirdly, I can’t get angry like before at her latest nosedive. I’m just disgusted.
Maybe there’s a silver lining in Bruce running after her and falling all over himself, helping enable her bullshit even if he doesn’t realize it.
Let him cry over her until she stabs him in the back like she inevitably will.
I can’t make tears for that woman anymore.
Especially when I’m too stuck on Delia and that last conflicted look she gave me. Like I finally stirred up something too bitter and disappointing to carry on with these games.
And I probably did.
I’m that kind of oblivious rockhead.
I wish I could say Evie was the only one in this family who gets hooked on bad habits.
Hers is heroin—unless she’s moved on to something worse.
Sex is mine.
And sex that makes me obsess over a chick when I ought to be dwelling on survival, poring over those maps and reports for any small advantage the brainiacs missed, may well be the end of me.
It wouldn’t be the first time we found a detour that saved lives at the eleventh hour, but only if I look.
Goddamn.
I need to quit her before I wind up dead.
Before I trample her heart like the emotionally deranged moose I am.
Delia doesn’t deserve permanent scars just because her pussy gets my rocks off harder than anyone else’s.
Or because it’s a struggle not to whisper about impossible futures and shit I should not feel that can only get her hopes up.
That’s what makes this so difficult.
I shake my head, grabbing a towel to wipe the sweat off my face.
With the peanut gallery gone, I’m the only man left in the gym, working myself on a rowing machine until my arms feel like burning ropes.
I’m trying and failing to soften the broken glass rattling around in my skull.
It’s no damn use.
Nothing changes the fact that I’ll only hurt her worse by dragging this out, especially if I catch a bullet in Mexico.
I’m used to people disappointing me.
Not the other way around.
That’s all Evie’s ever done, and it’s happened so many times I’m numb to most feelings.
But I can’t be the one for Delia to pine after, to wish over, to star in her what-ifs until she’s so bitter she thinks she’s just settling when she finds a normal guy—a man with a heart that cares and knows how to show it.
Staring at my own reflection in the locker room mirror, I resist the urge to smash it into a thousand bits. I always get this dull shine in my eyes when I’ve finally come to my senses—and right now my gaze reminds me of fogged glass.
What happens next will not be pretty.
Not the fun thing, but the right thing.
I have to break it off clean.
No matter how much it shreds my soul.
“Do it fast, you fuck monkey,” I mutter to myself, hating how my voice sounds so scorched. “Quick and clean and gentle. As gentle as you can, before you fuck her up too bad.”
I’m deadly serious as I dress, chugging water to chase back the rock in my throat.
I know what I need to do.
But first, one last talk.
* * *
It’s a balmy evening by the time I’m back in my truck.
I head for the mansion, expecting to find Delia sprawled out by the pool again, where it seems like she always sits and reflects whenever the sun is coming up or down.