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)
“Iron fell in when we tried to haul it out,” he adds.
Of course he did. One of the Jaegers is always on the verge of getting killed.
“Is everyone okay?” I ask.
But he just waves me off, grabbing a baseball bat from behind the coatrack. His short dark hair gleams with water. “Yeah, just keep your eyes peeled. We lost it, but it could be hanging around. We’re going to search for it.”
Awesome. I look over, seeing Iron throw back his beer, muscles tense and his clothes soaking wet. His black hair is slicked back. He started growing it out this summer, and his tan is still deep everywhere I can see. The vein in the side of his neck bulges underneath a tattoo.
But then another Jaeger steps up. “Great,” Dallas says in a snide tone. “Trace calls, you come running.”
Dallas’s green eyes are always looking at me like he’s imagining me on fire.
I turn my attention back to the remnants of the party and the damage in the living room. “We drove, actually.”
Trace lets out a chuckle and tosses a flashlight to his brother. “Be careful.”
Dallas takes it, pushing his hair back over the top of his head and slipping on a ball cap. He’s a year older than Trace. Twenty-one. And he doesn’t like me.
He doesn’t like me a lot.
Army, Iron, Dallas, and Trace. That’s four.
Army’s infant son, Dex, bawls upstairs.
“Why’s that kid still up?” Dallas barks.
“Because y’all are too fucking loud,” his father growls, heading out the door.
A girl calls after him. “Army, seriously. Should I wait in Liv’s old room or what?”
I look over at the half ponytail on top of her head and the bright red lipstick that matches her tight skirt and shirt. I cross my arms over my chest, covering the paint stain from helping Paisleigh with her art earlier tonight.
But Army just tells her, “Stay out of my sister’s room.”
He bolts through the door with Dallas as Iron starts to follow, swallowing down the rest of his bottle.
“How are you?” I ask him.
He doesn’t look at me, just shakes his head and sighs as he sets the beer down.
My grandfather is the district judge who always seems to have Iron in his courtroom for one arrest or another. Breaking and entering, theft, and, most recently … assault. Iron loves to get into fistfights. Something he still hasn’t grown out of at twenty-four years old.
Unfortunately, his luck ran out this summer. His last arrest resulted in bail, a court date, and finally a plea bargain. He’ll serve time. He has to surrender in a week.
I’m not responsible, but I also feel like I shouldn’t be in his house.
“Iron, you coming?” Dallas calls out.
Iron casts me a look, his eyes softening with the hint of a smile. An hourglass with a snake wrapped around it is inked on the side of his neck, and several more tattoos cover his body. I’ve never looked at length, but I know he has a palm tree with Sanoa Bay’s latitude and longitude on his forearm, and a huge alligator on the bottom left of his back.
He shrugs. “Nothing better to do, I guess, right?”
I half smile back, always liking him. Maybe even more than Trace. Iron is completely different around women and children. I once saw him stop and park his motorcycle, take an old lady’s groceries, put them in his saddlebags, and drop them at her house so she wouldn’t have to carry them. It was kind of funny, because she thought he was stealing them at first and tried to hit him. Now, they’re on a first-name basis, and she has him run her husband and his wheelchair to physical therapy for her once in a while. Not on the motorcycle, of course.
Engines start up outside as Iron, Dallas, and Army leave. Trace stays behind, and I have no idea where Macon is, but the garage was closed when I got here. If he’s home, that’s where he is.
No parents.
Just five brothers.
All in the same house.
I think some of them want to move out, but they wouldn’t know what to do without each other on a daily basis.
“Drink?”
I glance at Trace as he twists off the tops of a couple of beers. The same hourglass with a snake wrapped around it rests against his skin, forged in iron, and secured with three thin leather bands around his right wrist. All of his brothers wear the same bracelet. It’s the Tryst Six family crest. Tryst after their mother, Trysta, and Six because there are six children. Not sure who came up with the name. I’m pretty sure they didn’t give it to themselves.
Trace holds a bottle out to me. I hate beer. I’m sure I told him at some point.
“Where are my keys?” I ask.
“You know where they are.”