Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 82651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
I could almost imagine how beautiful her tits would be all soaped up with hard nipples, and yeah…I’d get off to the fantasy of it while I lay in bed and listened to the water run.
But as I walk back to my bedroom, past the bathroom door, and listen to the water hitting the shower floor, I also hear something else.
I lean toward the door, and fuck me…I can hear her crying in there.
Something completely different punches into me this time, and I don’t like that fucking feeling at all. I quickly pull away from the door and march staunchly into my room, determined that when the sun rises, I’m going to be putting Simone back on the other side of my wall.
Chapter 4
Simone
Apparently tomato sauce on light blue porous paint doesn’t come out so easy. I’ve been scrubbing the wall in the kitchen for over an hour now, and there’s still a tinge of orange stain. I bend my elbow and scrub harder, trying to work out my angst over this situation.
Not the tomato sauce, but Lucas.
He was gone this morning when I woke up, and that was sending me a very direct message. I know he has to feel like shit this morning given how drunk he was last night and the copious amounts of vomit he threw up. Because I work late and don’t get home until two or so in the morning, I usually sleep in. But this morning I made myself get up so I could make a pot of coffee and some dry toast for Lucas.
Except when I knocked on his bedroom door and peeked my head in, he was gone.
I can’t even imagine where he went or how he snuck by me while I slept on the couch. Perhaps he went over to Stephanie’s to try to talk some sense into her. Perhaps he went out to breakfast. Or perhaps he went over to the Neuse River Greenway to walk the beautiful paths and mourn his loss.
My heart squeezes painfully at that thought. I actually can’t bear the thought of Lucas being in pain from a broken heart. Not when I’ve seen how he feels about her, and not when I know how important this baby has become to him. Certainly not when I know that he loves her, and his dream of having a family with her has just been crushed.
I scrub harder at the wall and tears spring to my eyes in frustration, as I just can’t get the stain out. I have been nothing more than a screaming ball of frustration for months. Beyond distressed over dropping out of school, knowing it was the moronic thing to do and would kill my parents, but truly having no other choice for my own happiness. Stressed about not knowing what the hell to do with my life. Fretting over how to pay my parents back the massive amounts of money they put into three and a half years at Dartmouth for me. Feeling lost as I moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, without any job or home, and crashing on my brother’s couch.
And finally, beyond crazed over what might be an actual unhealthy, stalker-attraction thing I’ve got going on with Van that seems so fucking unnatural and yet completely right at the same time that I’m having a hard time sleeping at night because of it.
“Fuck this,” I mutter as my gaze sweeps the wall, trying to see if I missed anything that I could at least give another scrub. My eyes take in the spread pattern of tomato sauce as it goes up the wall and over the top of fridge.
Hmmmm.
I pull a chair from the small table, placing it in front of the appliance. I hop up and take a look, and sure enough, there’s lasagna all over the top as well.
This actually makes me feel better.
It gives me something proactive to do to help remedy the situation. It might not ease Lucas’s broken heart, and it might not fix things between Stephanie and him, but I can at least help to clean up the fucking mess he made last night.
I rearm myself with cleaning spray, a new rag, and fresh determination.
Climbing back up on the chair, I start to work. The top of the refrigerator is far easier to clean dried-up lasagna off than the painted walls, but the top is also super gross, as there has to be years of dust and dirt up there.
Despite my best efforts at almost pulling my arm out of my socket, I can’t quite get to the small portion of wall behind the top of the refrigerator. There are small splatters of sauce, a tiny sliver of cheese, and a lonely piece of ground beef up there. No one can see it from the floor, and I should just leave it, but I can’t leave this job undone. I feel it would be a disservice to the entire situation.