Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
When I’d call home that first year in the service my daddy had a hard time finding things to say, my mama would always start crying before we hung up, and my little sister didn’t even want to talk to me. Though I don’t think that last bit was personal. I think Olive was just too busy being a bratty nine-year-old and pushing all the boundaries.
By the time Amon and I were on our first post-military job, I had already accepted reality. The only family I had anymore were the guys from Silence, our security company.
Me, Amon, Nash, and Ryan will probably always be tight. I mean… when you’ve done the things we’ve done, who else can you count on? Who else is gonna have your back but the boys who did that shit with you?
Nash and Ryan are driving in from DC this morning. They’re not involved in the real estate deal. I’m the only one putting my name on that deed. Amon is just here to see his parents—who apparently still love him, despite the fact that he never calls home, never sends presents, and, for all intents and purposes, is a giant fuck-up.
I’m kinda jealous. Actually, looking back, I’ve always been jealous of Amon. He was the wild kid in school. He was always in detention, always in fights, the first in our year to get drunk and arrested, and talk about a man whore. There were no fewer than three pregnancy scares before he was eighteen and each time the town went wild with gossip. Thankfully, no teenage girls were actually pregnant and if ever there was a guy who gave no fucks about town gossip, it’s Amon, so each and every incident just slid off his back like water.
He was the town asshole. And still, his parents couldn’t wait for him to get home. They’ve been calling him constantly for the last few days. Wanting to pick him up from the airport, wanting him to stay at the house, wanting him to come to dinner, blah, blah, blah.
Anyway. After the whole congressional hearing thing, Silence was liquidated. I guess that’s the best word for what happened. Everything was sold off and the whole endeavor was dissolved.
Everything but us, of course. The four of us aren’t going anywhere. And we’ve got a new company starting up as soon as I put my signature on those real estate papers.
We’re buying a compound on the edge of Disciple. The place started out as housing for coal miners back in in the late 1800’s, then it was a Baptist church, a summer camp in the late Sixties, and then, once that ran its course, forgotten about. It’s been abandoned for almost twenty years now, so we’re getting a killer deal on it.
Apparently, Grimm is the local real estate mogul around here these days, so that’s who’s doing the paperwork.
A sharp knock at the motel room door makes my head jerk.
“Collin! I know you’re in there. Open. The door.”
Shit. Fucking Bryn is back.
“Collin!”
I sigh, get up, and crack the door open. “What.”
Her eyes flash down to my towel, but recover quickly. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
I take a long drag on my smoke, then blow it in her face. I quit smoking ten days ago, but quitting things is a process for me. I like to take it slow so I don’t beat myself up when I fail.
Bryn coughs and waves the smoke away. As a kid, I never even looked twice at her. But as a teenager, I never liked her much. She’s loud, and aggressive, and always sticking her fucking nose into shit that’s none of her concern.
May I present Exhibit fucking A.
She points her finger at me. “My sister is in a good place—”
I laugh so loud she has to stop talking. “Good place?” I laugh again. “She bought my fucking childhood home and made my teenage bedroom a shrine, Bryn!”
Now it’s Bryn’s turn to laugh. It’s a good one too. Just as loud and aggressive as her personality. “You think…” She stops, almost doubles over, then giggles as she continues. “You think that room is a shrine to you?”
I take another drag, really annoyed. “Sure looks like one to me. Sure looks like she’s stuck in the past from where I’m standing.”
“Stuck in the past?” Bryn guffaws. “She owns a world-famous retro shop, Collin. That room is filled with shit for sale. Everything in her house is for sale! It’s all on the fuckin’ website, you idiot.”
“What?”
“God, you’re really full of yourself. Do you really think she’s been pining over you for twelve years? She’s rich, Collin. And happy. And you”—Bryn points that finger at me again—“will leave her alone. Do you understand me?”
“Fuck off, Bryn. And you’re full of shit. That was my Jim Morrison poster!”