Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
I wanted someone to share experiences outside of the bedroom with.
Halfway through my fajita, Number Nine showed up at the Electric Iguana and slammed a positive pregnancy test on the table in front of Theo. Needless to say, I took my plate to the bar, asked for a to-go bag, and left Theo to that clusterfuck.
Maybe it made me a bad friend, but Theo tended to go after girls who liked to break things. Last summer, one of his fuck-buddies chucked a bear he’d won for her at Coney Island into our sink, then set it on fire. Before I could grab the fire extinguisher, the cabinets had been scorched. Theo had sworn he had no clue what had sent her over the edge. My guess? He’d given her the impression things were more serious than they were. He always did that.
I finished my food in the park and grabbed a thesaurus from a corner market—the next time Blake came at me with her over-the-top words, I would come prepared. Then I went back to the office.
As soon as I’d sat down at my desk, my gaze narrowed on the lone piece of hole punch paper by my keyboard. My lips quirked at the memory of Blake losing it yesterday and chucking a barrage of office supplies over the cubicle wall. I swept the dot of paper into my hand. When I turned in my chair to toss it into the trash, Blake stood at the copier a few feet away. My gaze drifted from the dark waves of hair trailing down her back to her ass.
The stack of papers on the edge of the machine fell to the floor, and when she bent down to collect them, I bit my lip. I liked to think I was above primal urges, but the way the blood flow shifted to my dick was proof I absolutely was not. Not with her, at least.
A text dinged my phone, dragging my attention away from Blake and her perfect ass.
Dude. A baby? WTF am I supposed to do?
Theo.
I would say wear a condom, but that ship has sailed.
Seriously. I’m freaking out. She’s like twenty-one. She said her dad is insane.
Like pulled his molars out with a set of pliers insane.
PLIERS!
If that were true, I’d say the man wasn’t the most stable, but then the fact that she’d voluntarily told him this led me to believe maybe she wasn’t, either.
Why is she telling you this?
I don’t know. But I can’t die. I have too much left in life to do.
If I’m missing when you come back from Europe, know it was him.
He’s not going to kill you. I’ll bring home beer and try to help you sort out your life.
Because that’s what I always had to do. Help Theo sort out his shit. Shaking my head, I pulled up an article due before I left for Europe. I’d just typed out bullet point number five of why a person should visit Rio de Janeiro when I heard the creak of Margot undoubtedly rolling her chair to Blake’s side of the cubicle. She did it every day after lunch so they could discuss their newest book.
“I just got to that chapter in Bad,” Margot’s attempt at a whisper floated through the divider. “I would totally let that mafia lord fuck me with a gun.”
My fingers froze over my keyboard. Had she just said a gun?
A tap of keys came from Blake’s side, then stopped. “Just wait until he plays Russian Roulette with her…” A subtle sigh followed that statement. “While fucking her.”
I stared straight ahead at the calendar tacked to the fabric divider. Did the woman actually want to have a man stick a firearm in her pussy? Because if so, I was way out of my league. They continued to “whisper” explicit details about their newest book club read. Loaded firearms, blood play… When Blake whispered the word “pussy,” I gripped the edge of my desk, trying not to think about what other fetishes she may have.
I went back to editing my article on Five Tips to Enjoy Your Time in Brazil in the hopes the distraction would deflate the raging hard-on tenting my slacks. Two lines into the article, an email from BlakeBrentleyGoesOffTheBeatenPath@wanderlustmedia.com popped up on my screen. SUBJECT: All the sh!t I did for the project you stole.
I hadn’t stolen it. More like finagled it, but I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a little seed of guilt niggling at my conscience. Okay, maybe it was more than a little seed of guilt. I felt like a complete asshole.
I finished up my edits just before the recurring afternoon reminder went off on my phone. Call Grandma to take blood pressure medicine. And that was why I couldn’t feel too guilty for taking Blake’s assignment. Regardless of whether she went to Paris or to the Lunchbox Museum in Georgia, her paycheck would be the same. My going to Europe, though, meant the difference between possibly paying off my grandmother’s debt before the bank foreclosed on her house. And I owed Grandma everything because growing up, she’d given me everything.