Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 78696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
I bolted out of bed, my legs tangling in the sheet that was underneath Griffin’s ass.
I fell to my knees, making a mad dash to the bathroom.
Griffin was up and hauling me to my feet, and I was silently thankful as I ran to the bathroom and purged my stomach into the toilet.
Well…what was left in it, anyway.
Which inevitably wasn’t much.
Only Gatorade, this time.
At least it tasted good coming back up.
Kind of.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Griffin asked.
I pointed to the papers on the counter.
The same papers that I left with after every treatment.
It detailed the treatment I’d had, what I should do in case of extreme vomiting, dizziness, or dehydration.
It seemed easier than explaining to him what was going on while I was still dry heaving.
I collapsed onto my ass and let my head rest on the lip of the toilet seat.
I knew it was gross…but right then I couldn’t find it in me to give a crap.
Griffin, however, did.
He picked me up, cradling me like a small child instead of a one hundred and thirty-pound woman, and carried me back to my bed.
“You okay?” He asked. “Shit, I feel like an ass for waking you up.”
“Fine,” I mumbled, curling into my pillow.
“You need anything?” He asked.
“Nuh uh,” I shook my head. “Nothing.”
I thought he’d left, he’d been silent so long, but his next question startled me.
“Who was the man that was here today?” Griffin asked as he ran his fingers through my hair.
“Best friend. He’s married,” I thought to add.
Griffin hummed. “He looked concerned when he didn’t find you at home. Came over and talked to one of the officers to ask what was going on.”
“Remy’s nosy. He’s a born and bred busy body. He gets it from his mother.”
Griffin snorted. “More like he’s protective of you.”
“Remy’s got a wife that means the world to him. He doesn’t worry for me like you think he does,” I admitted.
“Well, that’s not the way he came off when I spoke to him earlier,” Griffin said, settling down on the bed beside me.
I rolled over and buried my nose into his side.
I could smell his deodorant, and it smelled good.
Was that weird of me to think?
I couldn’t tell.
“So you have cancer,” Griffin said.
I shook my head. “No. Yes….no.”
I couldn’t make up my mind.
“I do and I don’t. Well, I don’t,” I said, making myself confused.
“That’s clear as mud,” Griffin said dryly.
I snorted.
“I know, believe me. I feel the same. I have a small, pea-sized mass on my brain, and they don’t know what it is. They can’t biopsy it because it’s in my brain stem, the area that controls my breathing. So they can’t explore it like they would somewhere else in the body,” I mumbled into his side. “They tried chemo to see if it’d shrink, it didn’t but it also hasn’t grown, which is good. So now they’re back to the benign mass that they’re just going to monitor and hope it doesn’t change the diagnosis.”
“So you don’t have cancer…but they also don’t know what you have. Do I have that correct?” He clarified.
I nodded, my hair catching as I did.
Griffin had my braid in his hand, and he was running it between his fingers.
“You still have hair,” he observed.
I nodded again, getting the same result when he refused to let go of my hair to let me nod properly.
“Yep. My reaction to the chemo was some mild ‘thinning.’ It wasn’t enough that anyone besides me would really notice,” I murmured.
“You gonna be okay if I leave?” He asked.
“Mmm,” I said, my eyes going heavy once again.
“That a yes?” He persisted.
I nodded again.
“It feels like your circling your head around, not nodding yes or shaking no. Which one is it?” He nagged.
I fell asleep before I could answer, so I didn’t know that he stayed with me until the dawn kissed the sky.
And not because he felt bad for me, either, but because he wanted to.
Chapter 5
When the beard of your dream walks into the room.
-Beardgasm
Griffin
“Where were you last night?” Wolf asked, leaning back in his seat and staring at me with those cold eyes.
I turned to him and gave him a look.
One that clearly said, ‘Since when do I answer to you?’
He grinned.
“You were supposed to meet Peek up here at midnight, but you never showed. He whined about it this morning,” Wolf explained.
I shrugged.
I was supposed to meet Peek.
But I’d gone by Lenore’s place just to see her.
I wasn’t sure what kept me going back there.
I wasn’t even sure what it was about her that held my interest.
She had long red hair… I preferred blonde and short.
She had freckles and never wore makeup.
I usually went for women with painted-on faces, who wore enough mascara to make them look mysterious.
She was everything I never went for in a woman, so why did her innocence attract me like it did?
Why was sex with her the best I’d had in my thirty-four years of life?
I’d had more women than I could count, and none of them had ever affected me like she had.
I didn’t know why I stayed all night.
Maybe it was because I’d felt bad for waking her up when I shouldn’t have.
I didn’t know that the chick had fuckin’ cancer, though.
Although, if I’d known that, I probably wouldn’t have looked twice at her.
Most of the girls I fuck only see me for one night.
Very few of them, if any, ever received repeat status.
Just Lenore.
And look what I’d done.
Gone and fucking sunk my cock into a girl that could die.
Like I needed that in my life.
I needed it like I needed a hole in my fuckin’ lung.
Goddammit!
She would not get to me like this!
I had too many other fuckin’ things to worry about to add her ass to the list.
Motherfucker!
I would not fall to her! I would get my act together, find the motherfucker who’d killed my boy, then I’d get on with my life.
And it wouldn’t have that sweet ass, or her pretty eyes anywhere in it.