Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 73192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
“What is he doing here?” Tara asked. “Better yet, what are you doing here?”
I didn’t bother to look at or respond to her and neither did Rome.
Liner did, though.
“Why don’t you go get yourself a manicure and stop swinging your bitch around for everyone to hear?” Liner drawled. “Or are you waiting for Rome to offer you his credit card? Don’t you normally leave the moment he arrives?”
Rome had ignored Tara and instead went over to the couch where his son was.
I, on the other hand, had frozen right inside the door.
Memories slammed through me and I remembered exactly how she used to be.
Snarling at me. Hating my job. Disliking my sisters.
At the time, all of those hadn’t been a big deal. I’d remembered vividly that she’d immediately apologized for herself, saying that she was just cranky.
I’d been so caught up in my job, trying to integrate back into general society after being in the military and working my ass off to get onto the SWAT team that I hadn’t had it in me to look hard enough to see Tara for her true self.
One time in particular stood out—showing me just how blind I’d been.
It’d been a few days after New Year’s. I’d rushed home, late as hell thanks to an arrest that I’d made about ten minutes before my shift had ended and I’d been in a rush to get the game on.
I’d arrived, said hello to Tara who’d been on my couch watching some fashion show on the television in my living room. I reached for the remote and immediately changed the channel to put the game on and Tara flew completely off the fuckin’ handle.
She’d screamed at me for changing the channel, even though she knew that I was on my way home to watch the game—I always watched the games. I’d even told her an hour before that I was running late, that I wanted to watch the game and asked her to have it on for me, if she could get the television on that is, since she sometimes had trouble getting my complicated system on and tuned to the right channel.
I remembered vividly the meltdown she’d had and how her eyes had narrowed at me when I’d continued to ignore her because Rome’s face had popped up on the screen with news of a possible injury. Something that I’d heard a bit about on my way home but needed the whole story now that I was home.
When I continued to ignore her, she just yelled even louder.
It was after she stormed up to me, stole the remote and turned the television off, that I’d gotten angry.
After turning it back on and then raising my voice at her, she’d glared at me, glared at the screen where Rome’s smiling face had filled the fifty-two inches and then she stormed out.
It wasn’t until later after I’d calmed down, that she’d called with an apology.
I should’ve known then and there that she was a vindictive bitch.
Should’ve put all those two and twos together and made a whole lot of fours.
“Why are you here, Liner?” she hissed. “You especially I don’t need in my house.”
“This isn’t your house, this is Rome’s house, in case you forgot that little fact, too,” Liner continued with the one-liners.
I wondered if that was the meaning behind his road name, but now wasn’t the best time to ask him.
“What did I ever see in her?” I muttered mostly to myself.
Liner, who had been staring at Tara’s back, turned to me. “I ask Rome that every second of every day. He continues to reiterate that we all do stupid shit when we’re drunk…which I totally agree with. As long as she doesn’t open her mouth, she’s smokin’ hot. But the moment she starts talking, the nastiness she spews eclipses anything that was attractive about her.”
I felt my lips twitch.
I totally agreed with Liner…and I also now felt so completely and utterly stupid.
I’d essentially thrown away a lifelong friendship based on the lies that came out of this vicious bitch’s mouth.
The more I thought about it, the less angry I became at Rome and the angrier I became at myself. I’d wasted four fuckin’ years because I’d been a stubborn asshole with wounded pride.
It didn’t matter that I’d been seeing Tara for months. It didn’t matter that Tara had hidden her true self. What mattered was that, at the end of the day, I’d trusted a girl over my best friend and I hadn’t even given him the chance to explain himself.
Four fuckin’ years.
I felt so goddamn stupid.
“Yes, this is Tyler. My best friend,” Rome said to his son. “The man I named you after.”
Another shot right to the fuckin’ heart.
Fuck.
“Go fuck yourself,” Tara hissed.
“Tara,” Rome growled, sounding angry.
I came unstuck and made my way across the room, coming to a stop next to the couch where the little boy was laying.