Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 58736 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 294(@200wpm)___ 235(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58736 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 294(@200wpm)___ 235(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
“You’re Rylee, right?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“He told me I wasn’t good enough for him. That we weren’t.” She rubs her belly. “He said you were meant to have his babies, no one else.”
“I’m not sure what you want me to say,” I reply, my eyebrows drawn together.
She shakes her head as if trying to remove the vision from her mind. “I’m sorry, that’s all I wanted to say. I didn’t know about you when we hooked up. He told me he was single. And when I found out he wasn’t, I left. Until…” She looks down at her belly, rubbing it again. “Well… until I found out about the baby. And I knew if he lied to me before, about you, well… he would say this baby wasn’t his when I know it is. So I had a DNA test done so he couldn’t deny it.”
“Umm… okay.” I don’t know why she feels the need to tell me all this.
“Look… I know this is weird. But I want you to know that I didn’t know about you.” Tears start to slip from her eyes, falling down her cheeks and dropping onto the front of her dress.
“How old are you?”
She swipes them away, obviously angry she’s letting it all get to her. “Eighteen,” she replies.
Gosh.
Oh my God, she’s closer to my brother’s age than Anderson’s.
“Just don’t—” I cut myself off because I can't tell her what to do. I can’t say that one day he might hurt her as well. It’s simply not my place to do that. So instead, I say, “Good luck, and no hard feelings.” I step around her and give her the best smile I can muster.
Fuck.
Anderson is a real fucking dick.
Chapter 18
August
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on with you two?” Paige asks while I hand her a glass of milk.
“Eat.” She does as I say but continues to stare at me. “Nothing is going on.”
“Funny how your answers are the same.”
I shake my head.
“I’m sorry, you know. It’s hard. I’m a girl, August, surrounded by men. Did you know when I got my first period, Dad had to google what to do?” She shivers. “I wanted a mother to help me. I needed a mother, so I could ask all the questions. Instead, I had to resort to a search on the internet.”
“She isn’t a mother, and you should know that.”
“Yeah, but she’s the only one I’ve got.”
I guess it’s different for us. I didn’t need her back then like Paige needs her now. I won’t understand because I’m not a girl, but I’ll try to help her if I can.
“You don’t need her, Paige. I’m sure you have other girls you can talk to. What about Beckham’s mother?”
She coughs and shakes her head. “No, Mrs. Harley is not someone you go to for advice. Rylee, on the other hand…” She smiles up at me. “I’d go to Rylee.”
“Hmm…”
“Rylee is good. I like her. Don’t you?”
“Hmm…” I turn around and start clearing the mess.
“You can’t ignore everything I ask about her, August.”
“I’ll stop ignoring you if you promise never to go to that house again.”
“Josh seems nice,” she says defensively.
I turn fast with cloth in hand.
“No. No, he is not. Stay far away from him, Paige. Do you understand me?”
“Okay, okay!”
“Tell me you will. If you see him, you’ll walk the other way. Promise me.”
She rolls her eyes, but I’m not joking. “Paige,” I bark her name, making her eyes snap up to mine.
“Yes, okay, I get it.”
“Good.”
Rylee messages me twice the following week, warning me she is coming over.
Friend.
That’s how she ends the messages.
Friend.
My dick twitches at the thought of seeing her. Fuck! What I wouldn’t give to throw her over my couch and have her all over again.
What a sweet life that would be.
On Thursday, she rocks up, carrying two bags. Holding the door open for her, she barges in, holding up the bags.
“I ordered us some pizza and dessert. Because people who don’t have dessert after a meal are considered evil, just so you know.” She struts along, her heels clicking on my wooden floors as she goes, dressed in a knee-length skirt and a white blouse. I can see the outline of her bra through it at the top. It’s obviously her work outfit.
“What if I was cooking?”
“Were you?” she bites back. When I don’t answer, she starts pulling the food out of the takeout bags. “Thought so. Now… say thank you, and sit down and have a meal with me.”
“You’re bossy. Is it because you want sex?” I ask, fighting the smirk on my lips.
She pauses her hand and shakes her head infinitesimally. “Why, yes, I do. And you refuse to help with that situation, so here I am,” she says sweetly and puckers her lips. “Being friends.”
“We would never work. Ever,” I tell her, reaching for the pizza she’s pulled out. She slides the box to me and opens up the other, smaller box, which is full of little cakes.