Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
The third signal that I ignored was when I got out and put my card into the card reader and it said “see cashier.”
It would be at this point that I’d normally leave. I didn’t, under any circumstances, go to a place where I had to see the cashier. If I could’ve afforded to leave in that moment, I would have. Even if I had to pay the extra gas prices for somewhere else.
That was the first way to lose my business. Forcing me to go inside and see a cashier. I didn’t know why, but that was the biggest pet peeve I had.
Locking my car up, I put the keys into my pocket, wrapped my hand around my credit card, and then got halfway across the parking lot when I realized that I’d forgotten my phone.
I hesitated there in the middle of the dark lot before deciding that I would go all the way inside and see the cashier.
Luckily, the inside of the gas station had more light than the outside.
I walked up to the attendant that looked like he’d rather be anywhere but where he was at, and smiled. “Hello. I need to fill up the car at pump four.”
He didn’t bother looking out the window to see which car, just took me at my word as he started typing in numbers. “Can’t fill it up without leaving your card in here. You’ll have to leave it and come back for it.”
I gritted my teeth.
“Okay,” I said. “Then put fifty dollars into it.”
That should get me all the way to full.
But I wasn’t certain, so I didn’t add any more, even though my car was really empty.
“Okay,” he said. “Here.”
He gave me my card back.
I took it with a small smile, then walked back out the door, my eyes on my car, and not my surroundings.
Had they been on my surroundings, I was fairly sure I would’ve seen the man coming at me from the shadows.
But even if I had seen, it wasn’t like I could’ve stopped him.
The arm wrapped around my throat and whirled me like a doll, forcing me straight up against the side of the building right outside the door.
“Saw you with Gator Bait,” he hissed, squeezing hard, his fingers so tight around my throat that I couldn’t draw a breath.
I didn’t know what to say, and even if I did know, I wouldn’t be able to get the words out. He was squeezing that hard.
“Since you like to do bad boys, I figure you won’t mind doing me,” he rasped, squeezing harder.
That’s when I started to fight.
But even I could feel how useless the fight in me was.
The man was large, had strong hands, and I was half his size and didn’t work out even a little bit. Not to mention, the fear and adrenaline coursing through my body were causing me to feel the impending blackout that was inevitable.
Any sort of adrenaline spike was enough to cause me to pass out. Plain and simple.
“Bet your pussy is sweet.” He shook me a bit, causing my elbows to scrape against the rough brick at my back.
I fought.
Oh, boy did I fight.
I gave it everything I had.
But with the oxygen deprivation, as well as the impending pass out, it wasn’t all that much in the grand scheme of things.
The last thing I heard as my world went dark around the edges was the rasp of tailpipes.
CHAPTER 8
Maybe I’m the problem. Never mind. That doesn’t even sound right.
-Text from Aodhan to Wake
AODHAN
“Son of a bitch,” I grumbled out.
“What?” Kyle Davis, better known as KD among our club, Gator Bait, asked.
“I need gas. Like now,” I said. “I forgot that I needed to get it last night in my haste to get Bowie from soccer practice.”
Bowie was in club soccer, as well as club baseball. Both seasons overlapped, and with Danyetta having an emergency at her restaurant that she owned, Bowie was sadly left with me as a chauffeur.
The only problem was, by the time I picked him up, it was already nine fifteen. Then he needed fed, and a new pair of baseball cleats, which then pushed us into ten thirty.
By the time I got him showered, made sure he was in bed and not fucking around on his phone, I didn’t get out of Yeti’s house until around eleven thirty.
When I got on my bike, the last damn thing I wanted to do was fuel up.
So I’d gone home with the promise that I would leave early and get it on my own before we were set to ride out, which ended up not happening when I’d spent the majority of the night thinking about a certain brown-eyed girl.
“I could go for a Dr Pepper anyway,” KD said as he pulled off at the only gas station I’d trust in this town. “And a Snickers.”