Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
But, in my opinion, so did Whitney.
I just had to find the right time to offer it to her.
Whitney - Eight months
“So, what do you think about me lining this whole wall with bookcases?” I asked, waving toward one of them in the living room of the new place.
Our new place.
I had to keep correcting myself in my own head when I thought about it.
It was just proving difficult to wrap my head around.
Almost as difficult, in fact, as the ring on my finger.
The same one he’d slipped on the first time he’d shown me the new condo.
Our new condo.
It was significantly larger than anywhere I’d ever lived. Even as a kid living with my parents, our places had always been very modest.
But the Costa Family, well, they didn’t do a whole hell of a lot modestly. And, I guess, when you were bringing in that much money, you didn’t have to worry about things like the seven-figure price-tag of the condo you were about to move into.
Everything about the Costas was everything I’d never really known.
Big.
Loud.
Crazy.
Everything they did, they went all-out with. From decorations for parties to birthday gifts and even just the food that was available at the—many—family gatherings.
Having grown up in such a small family, it had been a bit overwhelming at first. But, eventually, I started to feel like I fit in. So did Wren and Liam, who’d been brought into the fold as well.
They were getting married in the spring.
The Costa women were already hard at work on the arrangements.
I was thinking of a fall or winter wedding, myself.
It was hard to believe my mind was on those things.
Marriage.
Decorating a new home.
When less than a year before, I was killing myself at a job I hated to try to help my sister hide away from the man who was bent on destroying her life.
I tried not to think about Josh much. There wasn’t exactly anything good to harp on there. Not the years that Wren was with him. Not the night in that house where I’d made sure he would never be a problem again. Not even the months surrounding the news of his disappearance, living with a constant knot in my stomach, worried about someone finding a hair or fingerprint that would implicate one of us.
But, true to his reputation, Silvano was good at his job.
No one ever found anything.
Well, that’s not entirely true.
Josh’s mother’s rival for her office eventually did “find” some things about her that oh-so-conveniently found its way into his hands.
She never got charged for that murder all those years before, but there had been enough speculation and outrage that she’d been forced to drop out of the race. And, eventually, sell the house, and move across the country where no one had ever heard of her before.
It was like a horrible chapter got closed.
And it was finally time to move forward.
“And the dining table, the actual dining table, not the poker table,” I said, giving him a smirk. “Can go here. Which leaves room for the pool table over there,” I went on, already seeing it all in my head. The colors, the textures, the combination of his things and mine. But spread apart more than in his cramped apartment we’d been sharing for a while already. “Then… who is that?” I asked when there was a knock at the apartment door.
Sure, everyone knew we were planning on moving into the place, but everyone also knew we were decorating first.
“Dunno,” Salvatore said, walking toward the door, opening it to reveal Brio. Of all people.
“Heard you two got a new place,” he said, oddly standing in the doorway, refusing to come in. “I got a reputation for new home presents. Usually give everyone an animal. Ezmeray said that a plant is a more appropriate gift, though. So, here’s this spiky fucker,” he said, handing a Mother-In-Law’s Tongue plant to Salvatore. “And a puppy,” he added, suddenly shoving a ball of fluff at me. “Aight. That’s it. Nice place,” he said, then turned and walked away.
“What if we didn’t want a dog?” I asked as the puppy licked my neck with gusto.
“You know that trope in movies and TV where you go to the restaurant and you don’t order because the chef knows better than you do what you should have?” Salvatore asked.
“Yeah…”
“Brio is like that, but with animals,” Salvatore said, putting the plant down, then reaching out to pet the puppy’s head. “He’s got big paws,” he declared, pulling one up to look at it. “Got any name ideas?” he asked.
It didn’t take me long to come up with one.
“Dolin,” I decided.
Sure, I freaking hated working at Dolin’s diner. I despised my boss. I didn’t like losing all of my free time.
But Dolin’s was where Salvatore had first kissed me, first been intimate with me. It was where he’d gone all possessive and protective on me when he’d seen me bruised, where he’d assaulted a rude customer for me.