Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 85725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 429(@200wpm)___ 343(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 429(@200wpm)___ 343(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
I clear my throat, divert my gaze back to my book, and do my best to ignore the curled legs I wish I could rest a hand on.
Friendship may be possible but anything more…that’s just unfathomable even if I swear, she’s been flirting with me all day. I’m sure that’s just more of my being unsocial for too long bullshit. Can’t even distinguish the difference between the two. Post breakfast and her call in to work, we watched a few episodes of a cop drama called Lawless Lives – she started it over from the beginning so I wouldn’t be ‘lost’ – had lunch – haven’t had a grilled cheese that good since I had something called an Irish Grilled cheese during my last leave – and crashed back on this purple cushion of glory to read for a bit. Like I mentioned earlier, her reading lasted all of five minutes while mine on the other hand is being done in between longingly looking at her and trying to figure out just how in the fuck I got here. Got so…unexpectedly fortunate. No. Not luck. I don’t believe in that shit. Never have.
All of a sudden, a loud yawn escapes Jaye at the same time she rolls over onto her back. I expected fear to be the first emotion on her face considering the fact she’s not used to having company in her house; however, the first thing I see is relief.
Followed swiftly by excitement.
Fuckin’ hell, what’s going on with this woman? She can’t actually like me this much, can she?
“You’re still here,” she sweetly coos.
“I’m a man of my word. I told you I’d stay another night.”
“At least another night.”
“I didn’t say those two words.”
“No, but I did.” Girlish giggles are followed by her tucking her hands behind her head. “I can’t believe I fell asleep like that. Well, I can,” she quickly corrects, “because I always do on this couch. It’s the only place I get decent sleep, which is crazy when you consider the California King just eating up the middle of my bedroom, but I don’t know. This couch just…feels…better. Could be because it’s one of the only things in this house – besides all the books – that’s really mine.” Her pause isn’t long enough for me to ask questions. “Sorry to fall asleep during book time.”
“You don’t need to apologize for that, sweetheart. You needed the rest. I’m glad you took it.”
“Yes, but you needed me to explain how much Janet Evanovich’s One for the Money made me feel like I could’ve been a kick ass bounty hunter in another life.”
Smiling is done absentmindedly. “Did I need that?”
“Of course you did,” Jaye laughs even louder, “and you needed to hear about how you’re reading my original copy because I have a personalized copy Chris got me during one of his business trips locked away so that people can’t even look at it, although now that I bring it up, I’m not sure I don’t want people looking at it so much as I don’t really have a place to display it.”
My eyes cut around the enormous room we’re occupying prior to poking. “You fuckin’ with me?”
Bafflement instantly blasts itself in her expression. “Uh…no?”
“You live in mega mansion with four bedrooms and can’t find space to put up one of your favorite signed books?”
“Four bedrooms, two offices, one game room, one living room, one loft, one formal dining room and one kitchen.”
Her breakdown twitches my eyebrows in further confusion. “And there’s not a single space in any of those places you could display the book?”
She offers me an absentminded shrug. “Chris would’ve considered it clutter.”
“And Chris has been dead for three years.”
The bluntness tumbles her jaw down and my own to tighten.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. See what I mean. Combat skills? Pristine. Fitness regime? Sharp. Social capabilities? Non. Fucking. Existent. I gotta learn to either say the right things or say fucking nothing at all. I’m leaning towards that one.
Softening my tone to the most apologetic one I can find, I start, “Jaye, I’m-”
“Right,” she quietly chokes out before sitting up and forcing a grin on her face. “You ready to go grocery shopping?”
Hesitation to speak is hard to deny. “You sure you still want me to go with? What if I say something else fucked up on accident?”
Her feet suddenly disappear from my lap to be crossed and tucked in towards her. “Is what you’re saying fucked up?” She lets a small bounce hit her shoulder. “Maybe? Words are strange that way. What one person hears as ‘fucked up’, another may hear as honesty. As tough love. As an attempt to help. And despite how uncomfortable it makes me to hear some of these things, I need them said. I know I need them said. And like the adorable children often in my care, I know I have to hear these things repeated in order for them to truly stick. So…worry less about saying ‘fucked up’ things on accident and more about receiving the ‘fucked up’ things I may someday say to you in an attempt to…help. Like what I’m about to for instance.”