Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 71476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
I go through the motions picking up household supplies and grabbing hotdog buns for dinner. I don’t cook. I hate cooking and I’ve never had to do it in my life. About the only thing I’ve mastered is heating up soup and burgers and hotdogs. We’ve had soup and burgers this week. It looks like it’s time for hotdogs.
I go up to the front without paying attention and that was probably a mistake. I really should have known better. After all, being alert and paying attention to my surroundings has kept me alive. I need to remember that. Just because no one here knows me, it doesn’t mean I don’t need to be alert.
“Great.”
My head jerks up when I hear Rory. She starts ringing up my items on the register, her face tight.
“I didn’t know you worked here.”
“Probably a good thing you know now.”
“Why’s that?”
“So, you can make sure to keep your son away,” she says.
She’s being sarcastic, but she doesn’t realize that’s exactly what I’m planning. I don’t plan on telling her that, however.
“How long have you worked here?” I ask, trying to start a conversation—and it turns out I’m fucking horrible at it, because I can’t think of anything but that to say.
“Please don’t,” she says.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t pretend we’re friends or that you even want to be my friend.”
“What if I told you that I wanted to be your friend, Rory?”
“I’d call you a liar,” she says, smiling sweetly.
“I realize we got off to a bad start,” I respond, trying to figure out how to dig my way out of the corner I put myself in—all while simultaneously trying to figure out why I want her to think better of me and why I’m bothering to even try. Rory wasn’t wrong when she said I was all kinds of fucked up. I am and it’s becoming exhausting.
“A bad start? You accused me of…. Shit, I don’t even know what you accused me of and that’s how twisted it is! You don’t know me, buddy. You don’t know enough to make—”
“Noah.”
“Those assumptions—What?”
“My name is Noah,” I tell her. No one really knows that name. The boys have my name Westin Cross, because that’s what’s on my license and papers. Noah was my first name that no one has called me—not my parents, not anyone in my life other than my grandfather who died when I was five. Which means, I haven’t used it in a lifetime. I gave it to no one. Vicki and Violet sure as hell never knew it. None of my world did. Noah was a name I buried. Diesel is the name everyone knows. Noah was the name I had before I dumped a five-gallon jug of gasoline on the life I had, and struck a match to it. I haven’t looked back since then and maybe it’s a mistake to give Rory that name now… but it seems safer than telling her my road name.
“I don’t need to know your name,” she mutters. “That will be sixty-four dollars and ninety-nine cents,” she adds, while bagging up the last of my items.
“We’re neighbors. You should know my name. I know yours.”
“I already have a name for you,” she responds, taking the hundred I hand her.
“You do?” I ask. For some reason, I find myself grinning. I like the spunk she’s showing. I can usually get a woman without effort. Rory is a novelty—at least on the surface.
“Yeah.” She hands me my change and I gather up my bags. We’re alone in the store and it takes effort not to keep talking with her. I wouldn’t say I’m enjoying it—not completely—but, I definitely feel more alive than I have in a long time.
I’m almost at the door, when I turn around unable to stop myself from asking.
“What’s my name, Rory?”
She looks up at me and I think I see shock on her face for a second. Then, she shrugs.
“Fucking Asshole,” she says. “That’s your name.”
I do something then that I can’t remember the last time it’s happened.
I laugh.
7
Rory
“Nice dress.”
I look up to see Noah leaning against his truck.
“Are you stalking me now?”
“Not hardly, Cupcake. I was standing here waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“You to come outside.”
“So, you are stalking me?”
“Nope. I just knew you’d be outside soon,” he says and he’s got a sneaky grin on him that I’ve not seen before. I frown, wondering what’s going on. This man is beyond confusing.
“How did you know that?” I ask him, my eyes narrowing.
“I don’t think that’s a question you want to know the answer to right now, Rory.”
“It’s not?”
I really wish he’d not use my name. I like the way he says it way too much and that’s bad. It’s bad because, despite him being an asshole I’m still having dreams about him. It sucks because I’ve wore my vibrator out trying to get rid of any excess energy I have before I fall asleep—trying to not dream about him. And finally, it sucks because I do all of that and still dream about him.