Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 173392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 867(@200wpm)___ 694(@250wpm)___ 578(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 173392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 867(@200wpm)___ 694(@250wpm)___ 578(@300wpm)
I watch her, and I’m more and more curious about her as time goes on. She didn’t want to stay close to the family. She wanted to stay close to Army. Any way she could. Cleaning their house, working their restaurant, dating Iron and Dallas …
Maybe Army would find out he misses her if there came a time when she wasn’t around. She strikes me as the type who, unlike me, knows exactly what she wants to do with her life.
We pull onto my street, and she says, “I can do better anyway. Clay’s dad is single, right?”
I burst into a laugh. We swing up to my gate, and I see through the bars that the house is dark. Paisleigh and Mars are at my grandparents’, and if the gate is closed, my mom is still gone. “Five-five-eight-three-oh-two.” I tell Aracely the code.
She looks at me, lifting her eyebrows for a second like she didn’t expect me to tell her. All my friends have the code.
She punches in the numbers and waits for the gate to open before she speeds through. Winding around my driveway, she stops in front of my door.
I’m about to ask if she wants to come in and make margaritas, but she speaks before I do. “What was he like?” she asks, staring at the steering wheel. “Army?”
I drop my eyes. “Please don’t ask me that.”
But she argues, “You owe me. Was it good?”
I unfasten my seat belt, but I don’t leave.
“Is he big?” she whispers, sounding so small all of a sudden. “Where does he touch?”
My chest aches, not because of the questions, but her tone. She wants to know because she wants to know how he’d be with her.
“You’re going to get everything you want.” I meet her eyes. “I wouldn’t say that to everyone, but I don’t think you’ll fail.”
I climb out of the car and dip down, peeking back inside through the window. “He won’t be able to stand it,” I tell her. “When he falls for you.”
A smile peeks out at the corner of her lips, and I slam the door, heading inside.
26
Macon
“Do me a favor, man.” Dallas runs his hand through his hair. “Please?”
The music pounds, and I move my eyes around the room, glaring but not seeing anything but her in my head.
“Get laid,” he tells me, gesturing to the women at the table near the jukebox. “Pick one. Pick two. You need something warm. A woman. Not a kid.”
A kid …
Exactly.
Krisjen Conroy acts like a fucking child. Just like Trace. Instead of admitting she did something wrong, she gets pouty and leaves. What was I thinking? That’s how all of my days with her would be. Putting up with an endless stream of bullshit because she’s fun to fuck?
I bite the inside of my mouth. Hard.
A kid …
That kid … is a fucking planet.
God, I never wanted something so much until her. The light spilling through the windows in my room cast this purple glow on her skin tonight. All I saw were stars. Another world.
“I thought you liked her now,” Army gripes to Dallas.
“I do like her,” he replies. “But she was never going to stay. None of them stay.”
A blonde with a high ponytail, wearing a yellow tank top, holds my eyes. I ball my fists under my arms.
“She’ll marry rich,” Dallas continues, “and we’ll eventually be no more than a passing nod on the street. We’ll be mowing her lawn someday.”
She’d fucking love that, wouldn’t she? Paying me to come to her house …
“She’s theirs,” he goes on.
Allowing me to step inside her shiny, white foyer so she can write me a check …
“Not ours,” he finishes.
I drop my arms and shoot off, seeing the blonde at the table sit up straight with a smile playing on her lips.
But I veer right, heading away from her and straight out the goddamn door.
“Macon!” Army calls behind me.
Followed by Dallas shouting, “Where are you going?”
I pull my keys out of my pocket and head for my truck, but a thought occurs to me, and I head inside the house instead. Running up the stairs, I dive into my bedroom and whip open the closet door. Pulling out the garment bag, I unzip it and pull out the black suit I wore to my parents’ funerals.
I stopped attending them after that, and haven’t touched these clothes since, priding myself on being a working man. I never wanted to look like I was trying to be better than the rest of Sanoa Bay.
I don’t know why I want her to see me differently. I’m not ashamed of being a worker. Trace wears jeans and T-shirts. Iron, too.
Army wears shirts as little as possible, and Dallas knows he’ll get laid with just a smile.
I want her to know I’m not them.