Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 125135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
“Hey.” I stepped in front of her and put my hands up. “Slow your roll, buddy. What’s going on here?”
Lala pointed to the guy. “I was trying to back in, and he raced up out of nowhere and is trying to take the spot. He was definitely not behind me when I reversed to parallel park.”
I looked at the guy. He was bald, with a big belly and ruddy face. “Listen, dude, the lady is moving into this building right here today.”
“I don’t give two shits where she’s going,” he spat. “I saw the spot first.”
Lala put her hands on her hips. “You did not!”
“Come on, buddy. Even if you were here first, can’t you just be a gentleman and let her take the spot?” I pointed to the backseat of her car, which was filled with boxes. “She’s got a lot of stuff that needs to get moved.”
He folded his arms across his chest. “Blow me.”
“Very nice.” I shook my head. “You’re a real peach, I can see.”
Lala opened the back door to her car. “Fine. If you’re not going to move, I’m just going to leave my car parked like this and carry my boxes up. I have a lot of them, so if you’re thinking of waiting until I’m done, it’s going to be a while.”
“Uhh, Lala,” I leaned in and whispered. “I’m not sure you should leave your car parked like that.”
She pursed her lips, reached into the car, and grabbed a box anyway. “Oh well.”
I looked at the guy and shrugged. “You heard the lady.” Then I loaded a few boxes into my arms, and Lala and I headed to the front door of the building. The guy screamed something about having her car towed.
Lala stopped at the door and yelled, “Go suck an egg, baldy!”
Inside the elevator, I grinned. “That was pretty badass.”
She set her box down and showed me a shaking hand. “I guess it was the adrenaline pumping because I’m shaking now. I’m a big chicken.”
I chuckled. “Could’ve fooled me.”
The elevator dinged on our floor, and I motioned with my chin for Lala to step off first. Halfway down the hall, the bottom of the three boxes I had stacked in my arms burst open, and everything inside fell to the floor.
“Shit.”
Lala and I put everything down, and I attempted to reseal the box where the tape had come undone. I shook my head. “This isn’t going to hold. I need to put this box in the middle of the other two, so there’s support on the bottom, then we can toss everything back in just to get the stuff into the apartment.”
“Good idea.”
We scooped everything back into the box and stacked the third on top. Lala picked up the box she’d been carrying, and we walked another five or six steps…until the box in her hands gave out, and the contents spilled all over the floor.
“Oh no!” Lala bent down. “Does tape go bad?”
“If it’s old enough. The stickiness dries up. Why? How old was the tape you used to make these boxes?”
She made a face. “I found it in Ryan’s closet. I’m pretty sure it’s from when we packed up some of his clothes for Goodwill a few months after he died.”
Oh shit. “Did you use it for all the boxes?”
She nodded and bit her bottom lip.
I chuckled. “I have packing tape in my apartment. We’ll bring it down with us and reinforce the rest of the boxes before we carry them up.”
Together, we repacked the second broken box and managed to get all of the first batch into the apartment before anything else busted. I went next door to grab fresh tape and came back a minute later. “I thought Warren was coming to help you move in?”
“He’s busy working on a project deadline, and I thought I could handle it myself.”
That’s strike number three against Dr. Douchebag. Two was that pebble of an engagement ring he bought her, and strike one…well, that was because he existed.
I frowned. “We better head back down.”
“Do you mind if I use the bathroom first?”
I gestured toward it. “Help yourself.”
While she took care of her business, I went back next door to my apartment and got us two bottles of water. I offered her one when she came out.
“Oh, thank you. I’m actually really thirsty. I didn’t drink anything before I left because I didn’t want to have to leave all my stuff alone at a rest stop.”
“Good idea.” I twisted the cap and chugged some water. “You ready to do the next trip? Mr. Happy out there is probably stomping his feet by now.”
But when we walked outside, Mr. Happy wasn’t pouting. The fucker was all smiles. His sudden good mood was most likely due to the tow truck lifting the front of Lala’s car into the air. I ran over to the guy running the crank.