Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76713 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76713 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Would my absence make my community safer?
Those were my thoughts as I lowered myself into the too-hot water. It burned at my skin, turning it pink, but still, a shiver coursed through me as I sank down.
The shivers continued as, it seemed, the numbness wore off, and the reality sank in.
It had all happened too quickly for me to truly experience the moment before, but I felt like I was reliving it in the tub.
Aurelio’s yell.
August’s lightning speed as he shoved me to the floor, then covered my body with his.
He crushed me into the unyielding floor, covering me from head to toe, making it so that a bullet would have to rip through him to get to me.
He had been willing to take a bullet for me.
Aurelio had been shot. A graze, sure, but he’d been bleeding pretty bad for a while there. It must have stopped on its own, though, because he clearly hadn’t gone to the ER like I’d begged him to do.
“Fuck,” I said, pressing the heels of my hands to my eyes as I felt the stupid, useless tears start to slide down my cheeks.
There was no winning against them, though. It seemed like I just needed to let them flow, to empty out.
Only afterward did my mind seem capable of moving forward in the day, thinking about the hospital, about the nurses and the doctor, about the scans and the medical jargon I’d been trying my hardest to keep up with.
It all boiled down to… he was a fighter. He was recovering. The swelling was better. And they wanted to wake him up to be able to run different sorts of tests on him. For his memory and his mobility and stuff like that.
Apparently, there were chances of him not having the same mental capacities as he used to, or having to relearn how to feed himself and walk and things like that.
I was having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of my big, strong father who’d always been annoyingly on-the-money and sharp-witted suddenly not being able to hold a conversation, or needing me to remind him of things from his life before the coma.
But if that was what he was like, well, I would help him get the best possible therapy to get him as back to his normal self as possible.
That, at least, I felt like there were steps to take, a future to work toward.
My shop, my life, my very safety? That felt a hell of a lot murkier.
I couldn’t reopen if guys were going to break in and hurt me, or drive by and kill me. I couldn’t go home for the same reason.
Okay.
Enough.
I had to hope that my father woke up, that he knew who’d done this, and that the police could handle it from there.
Then maybe I could go back to my life.
But if that happened, what was going to go on with August?
Would he just leave town?
Isn’t that what I wanted?
This was always meant to be casual, right?
I didn’t do anything other than casual anymore?
But then why did the thought of him leaving make my chest hurt?
“God, get it together,” I grumbled to myself as I opened the drain, then climbed out of the tub, drying off, and changing into pajamas, even though it was only the afternoon.
Enough had happened for one day.
I planned to eat the takeaway August said he was going to order, then go to bed and try to sleep this whole day away.
With that in mind, I walked through the bedroom.
I didn’t smell it until I pulled the door open.
But the main area of the suite was filled with the tang of tomato sauce, with spices, fresh cheese.
“You ordered alread—“ I started as I walked through the living room, but then cut off as I moved into the doorway of the kitchen.
Where I found August with his jacket off and his sleeves rolled up.
Cooking.
He was cooking.
I stood there for a moment, transfixed, watching him squeeze cheese—ricotta?—out of a piping bag and into oversized shells.
“You cook?” I asked when he finally looked up, looking surprised, then pleased as I stood there.
“Ma always does the cooking, but she taught all of us. It’s a life skill, she says. What?” he asked, head cocked to the side, watching me.
“I don’t remember the last time someone cooked for me,” I admitted. And a man had never cooked for me, but I wasn’t about to admit that.
“I figured,” he agreed. “That’s why I wanted to do it. To be honest, though, I haven’t done this in a long time. I don’t know if this is gonna be as good as I hope.”
“It smells amazing,” I told him, pulling up a seat on the other side of the island.
Maybe I was supposed to offer to help, but I was enjoying watching him a little too much.