Total pages in book: 169
Estimated words: 167671 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 838(@200wpm)___ 671(@250wpm)___ 559(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 167671 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 838(@200wpm)___ 671(@250wpm)___ 559(@300wpm)
She raises a brow. “Oh? Well, then, tell me all about it over dinner.”
“There’s just one more thing I have to do,” I say, walking to the bathroom.
“Cool, I’ll see you in there,” Cece says, wrinkling her nose when she smiles.
I head to the nearest toilet and pull out my bottle of pills.
The one bottle I’ve been carrying with me all this time because I wondered if I would need them again. But that’s just it. I don’t think I do.
These feelings I’ve been numbing are allowed to exist, no matter how dark or sad or how incredibly overpowering they get. Nothing is too difficult to deal with that it will ever make me want to hide again.
Because I have them now.
Ivy and Max.
And the loneliness will never again take hold of my heart.
I open the lid of the toilet, pour out the bottle's contents, and stare at the pills for a few seconds before I flush them down.
And it feels like a giant weight has been lifted off my shoulders for the first time in a long while.
Max
I pull out a seat for Ivy and let her sit down first before I sit beside her.
“So … who’s that lady over there?” Atlas asks, running his fingers through his wolf-cut hair.
“She’s taken already,” I say, putting my arm around her shoulders.
“Relax, I was just asking.” He chuckles. “I have better things on my mind than girls.”
“I haven’t seen you before,” Ivy says, holding out a hand. “Ivy Clark.”
“Atlas Torres,” he says, shaking her hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“You aren’t at Spine Ridge U yet, are you?” she asks him.
He shakes his head. “Not yet. I’m planning to go there next year. If it all works out.”
“Wait, I’m confused. Are you Levi’s brother?” Ivy asks Atlas.
“No, Apollo’s,” I explain. “I know, it’s confusing. Levi is my half brother. Atlas and Apollo are Crystal and Ares’s kids. He’s the youngest of the two.”
“Youngest, but not the dumbest,” Atlas says, snorting.
“If you say so,” I reply.
“Don’t get all crummy on me, Max. That’s not your style.”
“Max has style?” Elliot Fletcher muses as he sits down beside me, and he punches me in the shoulder. “Good to see you finally got the girl.”
“Hold on, he’s sharing,” Heath says as he sits down across from us together with Cecelia. “With me and Silas.”
“Three boys from our family?” Sunny Reed suddenly comes to sit beside Ivy. “Damn, girl. I don’t know anyone who’d have the stomach for that.”
“Don’t listen to her. She hates everyone in this room,” Elliot whispers to Ivy.
Sunny chucks a piece of bread at him so hard it leaves an imprint on his forehead. “Shut it, lil’ dicky.”
“Little?!” Elliot scoffs. “I do not—”
“Prove it,” Sunny says, leaning back in the chair. “Go on then, show the rest your teeny tiny dick. They’re waiting.”
“Sunny, we’re at a family dinner, please.”
My mother steps closer and clutches our chairs. Sunny immediately straightens herself in her seat.
“And you boys, behave around the new girl. For the love of God, we do not need to scare her away the first time she meets us,” my mom tells Atlas and Elliot, and they immediately look away as if they’re scared for their lives.
And something about that is so funny, I burst out into laughter.
Mom leans over to stare at me with those killer eyes of hers. “Stop laughing.”
I nearly shit my pants.
“Yes, Mom.”
“Good.”
She smiles. “Keep it civil. This is a family dinner, after all,” she says before walking off.
“Holy shit, your mom’s intimidating as hell,” Ivy says.
“You should’ve seen her when she was in her twenties.” I look up at one of my extra dads, Nathan, suddenly hovering over my chair.
“Jesus, where’d you come from?” I say, grabbing my heart. “I didn’t even fucking see you approach.”
“I’m a ghost.” Nathan wriggles his fingers in the air.
“The ghost with nine fingers, how scary,” Dylan says, wriggling his fingers in the air too.
And boy, I have never seen anyone more willing to grab a fork and stab Dylan’s eyes out. Luckily, they’re all made of plastic. Silas’s mom knows how to prepare for the worst.
“Not again …” My other extra dad Kai shakes his head from the corner of the room. “Can you guys not start another fight for once? We promised Penelope and Lana.”
“Kai’s right, don’t offend the moms,” my dad says, patting me on the shoulder. “I’m proud of you, Max. You did it.”
“Thanks,” I say.
“I love these family dinners,” Blaine, Orion’s dad says, as he leans back in his chair. “Reminds me of the good old days.”
“You make it sound like we weren’t fighting every other day,” Ares, Atlas and Apollo’s dad, says.
“Me? Fighting? With who?” Blaine raises his brows. “I was just reading my books in the corner, minding my own business, enjoying the view.”
“The view of us knocking each other’s heads off, yeah,” Kai says, chuckling.