Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 66929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
I mumbled something under my breath that sounded a lot like “sure,” and she picked up her beer, chugged half of it, and left.
I watched her leave and smiled.
“You did that on purpose,” Cassius murmured.
“I asked her not to even come,” I pointed out, barely containing the exhaustion in my voice. Owning and running your own business was hard. Dealing with people was hard. Dealing with Ellen was harder. “I didn’t know that Matilda would be here. But it worked out in my favor. There’s only so much of Ellen I can handle in a day, and I definitely met my quota about two in the afternoon.”
The boys at the table chuckled.
In the meantime, my eyes once again wandered to Matilda.
Now she was sitting at her favorite table—at least, I assumed it was her favorite table—and was bouncing her leg to the beat of the song on the barstool in front of her.
Once again, she had her paperback out, and she was reading it very intently.
In her hand was one of those squeeze balls.
One that I’d been missing since last week when I left it at her jobsite.
Not that it was actually mine or anything. It’d been a sample that I’d gotten in the mail when I’d changed my business address over, and had ordered some business cards. They’d sent some complimentary items over that had my business name on it—LaFayette Construction—and that stress ball had been one of the items in the box.
Now that I saw her using it, I remembered that the ball hadn’t been seen since.
My lips twitched as I brought the bottle of my beer up to my lips and took a healthy swallow.
“Hear your brother-in-law is on his way to town,” Bain said as he sat down at our table with Aodhan at his heels.
“Yeah,” Aodhan grinned. “I hear that you get to find him something to do.”
I grimaced.
“It’s not for a few more days yet, but he’s hoping that I’ll find him something to do since I ‘took away all his responsibilities,’” I admitted. “He’s upset that he has to come here, too. Since all of the jobs he was overseeing back home have been completed.”
I’d given him six months to finish everything, and not take on another job, because I was done with doing business in Louisiana. I’d even gone as far as not to renew my business license in the state. Because seriously, I had no plans of going back.
Ever.
I loved my hometown. I loved my nephew. But those were the only two things that would keep me going back.
Not my parents. Not my crew—by the time that I’d gotten back after doing my time in prison, none of our original crew had been there anyway. So I didn’t feel bad letting any of them go. If ol’ Jeff wanted to go back and start his own business in his own name, while also keeping his crews intact, that was on him.
Surprise, he hadn’t cared enough to do it.
Another surprise, he’d followed me once those freebies had dried up.
Not that I planned on allowing him to work with me anymore. He could come to town all he wanted. I wouldn’t be employing him.
I had a good thing going here. Much smaller, and easier to maintain, than back home. I didn’t need a hundred employees, the best of the best, or recognition only the elite could get anymore.
I was… humbled.
I liked where I was. I liked my crews.
And, despite one employee that was rough to have around, I had exactly what I wanted.
“Sounds like he’s not going to get what he wants,” Kobe grumbled as he took the final spot at our table.
Kobe, although the newest and most rough around the edges to our friends’ group—meeting in prison could really help you figure out who you could depend on the most—he was growing on me.
That’d been how we’d all met. Cassius and Wake, KD, Kobe, Bain and Aodhan. We’d gone through hell together and come out the other side.
Needless to say, we had an unbreakable bond that would surpass anything that we could ever form on the outside.
“Uh-oh,” I heard Wake say. “Your girl’s on the move.”
I looked over to see her walking toward the bar, stress ball in hand.
She had an empty glass, and she was setting it down on the bar top when a man sidled up beside her.
However, it wasn’t the man that had her attention, but the girl beside the man.
The girl was throwing her arms up in the air and pointing at Matilda as if she could help how close her “man” had come to her as she’d been stopped at the bar.
Matilda handed over a five-dollar bill, all the while holding direct eye contact with the girl that was now screaming about Matilda’s lack of personal space.
I was just standing up when the bartender took the money.