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)
And for what it’s worth, your new girlfriend looks like she’s special. A special piece of trash.
I clamped my hands into fists.
That’d be something that I would be bringing up to Danyetta when we were alone next.
“He’s something.” I paused. “But I don’t think he’s dumb enough to get into trouble with kids his age. He’s at that new school, and they’re all nerds. Bowie barely leaves his room, and when he does, it’s to go to his friend’s house that’s the next street over. Once there, they livestream, cuss, and video themselves doing mini raves when they finally manage to kill someone in COD.”
COD being Call of Duty.
He didn’t know it, but even though I freakin’ hated Call of Duty, and video games in general, I was their only follower. When Bowie got onto the live stream, a notification popped up on my phone, and no matter what I was doing, I got on and watched them. And when I couldn’t do it, I got an SOS signal out to Danyetta, and she watched them.
At first, it was because we wanted to make sure they were being safe about it. With the internet and information age being what it was, I’d wanted to make sure that he wasn’t inadvertently sharing information about his life, where he lived, where he went to school, stuff like that.
But now, it was because when Bowie was livestreaming, it was as if I was witnessing a different kid. One that didn’t hate me and everything there was about me.
“That’s good.” Sunny nodded. “Anyway, there’re a few things on my mind lately, and right now, I don’t think that I can pinpoint why. But if any of those end up involving any of y’all.” He gestured at my cut, the one that denoted me a member of the Gator Bait MC, and finished with, “I’ll let y’all know.”
I nodded, offered him my hand, and was watching him leave when Folsom and Danyetta walked out the door.
“Did we give you enough time to talk without us?” Folsom asked.
I grinned at her. “He was concerned about a lot of things, one of which being Yeti and my son. But I told him he had nothing to worry about there.”
“Cool.” Folsom nodded. “Goodbye, Aodhan. Be gentle with her.”
I tilted my head and watched as a mirthful gleam entered her eyes.
I wasn’t quite sure that she meant “be gentle with her” in the “take care of her soul, it’s gentle” kind of way. More like a “if you decide to fuck her brains out, be gentle with her because she was just strangled” kind of way.
“I’ll do that,” I said as I watched her walk away to a moped that I hadn’t seen parked down the street until now.
It was old, too.
So old, in fact, that there wasn’t a single speck of paint on it that wasn’t flecked off and showing primer beneath.
Only when she was successfully on her way did I turn to face Danyetta.
“I didn’t mean to go blurting all that out today,” she admitted to me. “But when I got started, I just felt like she needed to know it all.” She grimaced. “I lay there in bed last night, thinking about all the things. And I decided that as a woman, I would want to know the guy that I’ve been in love with half my life didn’t actually, in fact, sleep with another woman during the middle of him supposedly being in love with me.”
I grimaced.
When she put it that way, it did sound bad.
I wouldn’t have been very happy to think that, either.
Just now, it was absolutely killing me to think that she’d moved on.
If she had, I wouldn’t have blamed her. I mean, my God. I’d pushed her away, supposedly moved on, and had a kid with someone else. Then, I’d gone to prison. If that didn’t have bad news written all over it, I didn’t know what did.
“Move on with your life, Aodhan,” she said as she started moving toward her own car. The one that I’d seen and immediately had an apoplectic fit to see when I’d arrived. Yeti always moved to the beat of her own drum. There’d been no telling what I’d walk in on. “Allow yourself to be happy. If she offers you the chance, I want you to hold on and never let go.”
Her words made me remember what Bowie said as I’d dropped him off today.
“Wait,” I called as she was almost to her car.
She turned around.
“Did you get a chance to talk to Bowie about Morrigan last night?” I asked.
She nodded. “I wanted him to know that I was okay with the move. That, even though we weren’t together anymore, we’d still be a family. I showed him and Lolo a picture of you and Morrigan when y’all were young.”