Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 40859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 204(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 136(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 204(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 136(@300wpm)
“Tell Kitty, bring some girlie shit. She’s about her size. She needs some clothes. Let Kitty come too. Until we can get her cousin to her, maybe she needs some company.”
I hear him click his tongue. “You claimed her, you want club pussy around already?”
“Might not be the best idea I’ve ever had, but she needs to learn this life and fast. Kitty will be gentle with her.”
“You’re serious?”
I pause for a moment, think about the woman inside my house. The way she twists me up inside. The way week after week, she handles flowers for my daughter’s grave with care not even knowing what it’s for or about. My chest gets tight and I realize I haven’t felt this since the day I put Dominiks in the ground. Care for a female. It’s been missing since my daughter died.
Pain is love and love is pain.
“Soon as they get here, I’ll roll out.”
I end the call and stretch knowing Creed will take care of getting Kitty on board.
Moving back to the couch, I straighten up the pillows I had shifted around to rest last night and fold the blanket to drape on the back. The couch wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as I expected it to be for being some plastic whicker style thing. Granted, I didn’t sleep.
It isn’t safe for her to be on me and a nightmare come. A conversation to be had at a different time.
She emerges in another one of my shirts and a pair of my boxers rolled up but still sort of falling off her. She carries two mugs of coffee, handing one to me.
I take a sip letting the dark brew hit my belly. “Thank you.”
“Don’t know how you like it. Can get you cream and sugar if you want?”
I shake my head taking another swallow. “Black is fine. Drank mud in the Navy, this is much better.”
She studies me. I can read the look on her face, she wants to ask me something. “What’s on your mind, buttercup?”
“Jennings, why don’t you go inside.”
“Ain’t my home anymore. Hasn’t been for a long damn time. I don’t need to be in there wound up in something that never will be again.”
She nods, “Maybe being in it can bring some healing.”
“Baby, some wounds never heal. Losing a child, I hope you never feel that shit. It changed me. The man that lived in that house is as much a ghost as the mother and daughter in the pictures.”
“Is it hard to talk about them?”
I shrug, “yes and no. I’ll never not go a day without thinking of my daughter. What would she be into, what would she look like? Thinking of Dominiks means remembering Ayla. The single decision she made took them both away from me. Then I have to remember my part in all of this. Bringing her here from another country and leaving the way I did for work. It wasn’t fair. None of it.”
“Thank you for being open with me.”
I lock my eyes to hers, “told you, buttercup. I may not be a good man, but I’m an honest one. You ask and I will answer to the best of my abilities.”
“I have my clothing in the dryer. Once they finish, I’ll be heading out. Benny doesn’t know my car, I can drive to Giulia. I can give you money for the electricity while I’ve been here, or free flowers on Monday’s for a while.”
“Dismissing me already?” I ask pulling her to me.
“No, but you have your life, I have my mess. I appreciate your help.”
“Buttercup, please. I haven’t slept, I got a lot going on. Don’t go down this road.”
“What road is that,” she challenges.
“The one where your head tells you this isn’t real, it won’t work, or whatever else it is you women think to get away from a man who would move mountains to have you.”
She opens her mouth to speak then closes it.
“Look, Michele. You got a lot on you from your past. You don’t want to share, that’s fine. I got plenty of demons too. Won’t hide that shit from you. Me and the Kings are gonna keep you safe regardless. You’ve been in my house, a place no one goes. You have seen the life I had before it all blew up.”
“Yes which is how I know I’m not good enough for a man like you.”
I throw the mug of coffee off my front porch into the grass, grabbing hers and doing the same before taking her face in my hands and kissing her senseless.
“Stop that shit,” I say against her lips. “I have been married. I know love, passion, all that shit. I know how much it can destroy me and yet, I want to see what that is with you. Been fuckin’ dead inside since the moment the dirt covered Dominiks casket, until you screamed. Something inside me awoke, angel or demon, I don’t fuckin’ know, but I fuckin’ want this with you and only you. I’ll move mountains to be alive again, you bet your ass I will.”