Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 123672 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 495(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123672 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 495(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
“Are you sure you really want to know all of this?” I ask him as we slowly trail along the river’s edge, making our way back toward our apartment complex after leaving one of the most delicious Italian restaurants I’ve ever been to. “It’s really not that interesting.”
“I meant what I said, Kyah,” he grumbles, his hand tightening in mine. “I want to know everything there is to know about you. So quit stalling and give me what I want.”
I laugh. “You mean the way you’ve been giving me what I want for the past two weeks?” I tease. “Oh wait . . . you haven’t.”
“Don’t make me throw you in the fucking river, Mace,” he warns. “Because I’m going to be really fucking pissed when I have to jump in to get you.”
My eyes widen at the thought of being tossed into that river. I’m a great swimmer, but the East River isn’t exactly a kiddy pool. It’s more like the kind of river the local mafia would use as a dumping ground.
When I don’t respond fast enough, Alex dives for my waist, pretending to follow through with his threat. I squeal, darting away from him, but he quickly pulls me right back in, his arm falling back over my shoulder. “Okay, okay,” I laugh, trying to figure out where to start. “I’ve always been a Brooklyn girl. Born and raised—”
“Siblings?” he questions.
I scoff. “Who knows,” I tell him. “I never met my father, and judging by the way my mom would talk about him, he was a man-whore who took off the second the pregnancy test came back positive.”
“Shit. What about your mom?”
“She, umm . . . I don’t really know how to sum up my mother,” I admit. “I have mixed feelings about her. There were a lot of good times before the bad ones came along. She was a good mom for the most part, you know, when it mattered the most. We didn’t have much. Most of the time she struggled to put food on the table, but in those early years when I was just a kid, she did what she could to give me a good life.”
“But?” he prompts.
I shrug my shoulders. “I suppose she got exhausted from always trying to pretend that everything was going to be okay. I got older and could see through her act. After that, I think she just kinda gave up. She stopped smiling,” I tell him, letting out a heavy breath. “Then she stopped asking me how school was and stopped caring who I was hanging out with until eventually, she just stopped coming home altogether.”
“Fuck. How old were you then?”
“Seventeen,” I tell him, trying to keep the hurt out of my tone. “But it’s fine. I remember when Mom stopped paying the rent. I came home to find the eviction notice stuck to the door. It’s the first time it really hit me that my mother didn’t give a shit about me anymore, but Nat’s family had pretty much taken me in at that point.”
Alex leads me away from the East River and across the road as we get closer to our building. “So, how’d you end up at High Voltage Ink?”
A fond smile stretches across my face as I recall the day so perfectly. “Nat and I had been getting into a little bit of trouble, and her parents were at their breaking point. They told me it was time to go. I was walking the streets, terrified that I was about to spend my first night on the street when I walked past High Voltage Ink. It was a stormy night and it was the only storefront that offered a little bit of shelter from the rain, and before my ass could even hit the front stoop, Big Jim was hauling me inside,” I tell him, pausing a moment as the memories come flooding back.
“Viper had only recently been promoted to Vice President of the Grim Reapers and was just starting to really experiment with ink. Big Jim had been working on him when he dragged me in there looking like a drowned rat,” I say, a stupid smile resting on my lips. “Crew had been there that day too, though despite what he always said, it took him a little while to warm up to me, and as Big Jim worked on Viper, he gave me something to eat and demanded to know why the hell someone as young as me was wandering the streets so late at night. The rest is history. He gave me a job, and I’ve just recently learned that Viper is the reason I have my apartment. They looked after me. Big Jim, Viper, and Crew, they’re my family. At least . . . Crew was.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, pulling me in closer as we near our building. “Losing family is never easy.”