Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 143382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 717(@200wpm)___ 574(@250wpm)___ 478(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 143382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 717(@200wpm)___ 574(@250wpm)___ 478(@300wpm)
Since it came to me it was Harlow, and then it came to me I loved her, I then came to the realization that I’d need to adjust my plans for the day to ones that were less homicidal.
It was the next morning, post-stakeout, and I needed to get up and get to work.
But first, allow me to catch you up from then to now.
After Eric left yesterday, I texted the girls (and Tito) that I wouldn’t be in and thanked them for covering for me.
I then resisted the urge to text my brother and ask him how he was doing, because I knew how he was doing (rotten), I knew what he had to do that day with his friends’ families had to stink, and I didn’t want him to think I was going to get up in his shit now that I had his new number.
I then dove into research on how to fry the best burger and discovered the mind-boggling number of philosophies regarding this concept (approximately 25,739—perhaps a slight exaggeration).
And I might have spent a few minutes (okay, it was more) looking at black wedding gowns.
Eventually, I morphed a few of the recipes together and realized, in all my kitchen accoutrement buying, I didn’t own a cast iron grill pan.
So I took a shower, swiped on some makeup, went to the mall to grab a pan and the grocery store to get the food.
Eric came home, we ate, and he declared my burgers were fantastic. I thought they were only pedestrian and made a mental vow to try again.
Though, the roasted fingerling potatoes with rosemary were da bomb.
We went to bed early because we had to drag ourselves out of it to go to the stakeout.
Important note: twice in this time I discovered Eric could fuck just as good as he could make love. And my testimony to that was the fact, after the nighttime version (the afternoon version was a quickie, still good, but it only hinted at what was to come), I passed out pretty much right after I got back in bed from cleaning up, which I barely had the energy to do, the sex had been so physical, and I’d come so hard.
Mm.
Onward from that…
My early morning QuikTrip choice was a bacon, egg grilled cheese, and proving he could surprise a girl on occasion, so was Eric’s.
We munched them on the way to the warehouse, and when we got to the stakeout zone, I saw Harlow and Brady there instead of Cap and Raye (she told me she was first up to spell their shitty timeslot, Luna and Knox were doing it tomorrow, and I hoped we’d wrap this case up before it became Eric’s and my turn, because our timeslot already sucked, it was just that Raye and Cap’s sucked more).
When we arrived, Harlow bounced up to me with ponytail swinging in an exuberant way that made me worry Eric and I weren’t doing stakeouts right.
Harlow asked after Jeff and Javi, though I was pretty sure she was more interested in Javi.
I gave her the expected response that they were both not in a good place, and she told me to tell them they were in her thoughts (and I was pretty sure she was keener I get that message to Javi).
After that, they took off.
I took first watch.
While I did, Eric lounged in the camp chair with his long legs stretched out and elevated, his boots resting on the edge of the window (hot), and he sipped coffee (also somehow hot, then again, I thought everything he did was hot).
Sometimes we chatted.
I learned Eric’s family never got another puppy after the one that died in the wreck with his mom, and Savannah didn’t like animals, so after the dog Eric had when he met her sadly passed, he didn’t get another one. I also learned he’d never had a cat. And last, I learned his favorite color was blue.
On the other hand, Eric had learned I took my photos with my phone, I’d never had a pet at all, and I confirmed my favorite non-color was black, my second favorite one was white, and I didn’t have a favorite actual color, but if forced to pick one under threat of torture, I’d pick red.
Through this, all was quiet on the camp front, and I fell asleep after my third shift of watching, so Eric did the whole final hour (was my guy the greatest, or what?).
He took me home. We had another quickie. It was a good one. So I was passed out before he even left my room to go to work (I mean, how does the man do it? He’s a machine).
Which brought me to now.
“Ugh,” I grunted as I hauled myself out of bed.
I pulled on my stretchy cotton nightie, my undies, hit the bathroom and loaded up my toothbrush. I was going at my teeth while heading into the kitchen to fire up the Nespresso when I screamed, jolted, my toothbrush went flying across the bar only to land on the floor in the living room, still vibrating and sending specks of toothpaste everywhere.