Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
And I do mean slid.
The ground was getting icy, and the bus was already having issues holding traction.
That couldn’t mean good things for later.
The transport took much longer than it should have, and I didn’t once complain.
Why would I when Val’s sweet-smelling body was sitting in the chair next to me—there were a lot of people who’d rolled out of the building that we’d nicely waited for—forcing us into much closer proximity than we’d planned.
When the bus slid to a stop in the lot holding our vehicles, I helped Rose to her car—which her husband had slid snow chains on—and waited for her to get into her car before turning and looking for Val.
When I spotted her, I found her getting into the truck with her brother.
Her brother spotted me, nodded, and left without a backward glance.
I didn’t once think about my jacket until I got to my own car and found it neatly folded up on the hood.
I sighed and took it, trying not to be upset about how she’d returned it when once upon a time I wouldn’t be able to pry that out of her cold, dead hands.
Opening my car, I started it up and waited for the heater to kick into gear.
Once it was blowing as hot as it was going to blow until I started moving for it to work better, I put it in drive and headed out of the lot.
Last year, when I’d gotten the BMW X3, I’d thought for sure I wouldn’t need to worry about inclement weather. Hell, I’d even tried to convince my grandfather to make a purchase much like my own. Yet, as I slipped and slid my way home, I realized that the old Ford of my grandfather’s was much better suited for icy conditions.
My BMW was great and all, but it would be no match for the huge trucks that were sliding their way around the Texas streets. Streets, might I add, that should’ve been deserted and weren’t.
Seriously, people were fuckin’ nuts in Texas.
CHAPTER 8
I’m a multitasker. I can listen, ignore, and forget all at once.
-t-shirt
FELIX
The last thing I wanted to do was admit defeat, but it was looking like it was going to happen.
I looked at my grandfather, who was trying to put on a brave face, but was failing.
It was cold in the house we shared.
Very cold.
And the goddamn generator I’d purchased to run our whole home during situations exactly like this—learned the hard way through a Texas summer with rolling blackouts to keep the power grid alive—still sat in its box under my carport because the electrician I’d hired to hook it up had bailed on me no less than five times.
To say I was upset would be an understatement.
We’d lost power three hours ago, and though my house was considered one of the ‘newer’ ones on the block, it still didn’t stand a chance against the weird as fuck weather we had going on.
I mean, what were the odds that Texas would experience negative degree temps twice in my lifetime?
The icing on the cake was when I’d tried to light the fire and the smoke had started billowing into the house instead of up and out the chimney.
“Let’s go ride around,” I suggested, hoping it would be enough to get my Pops warmed up. “I know we’re not supposed to be traveling, but anything is better than sitting here in the stupid freezing cold.”
“Waffle House,” Pops suggested.
I’d heard that Waffle Houses were open.
But my guess, they’d probably be packed, with people exactly like me who had no power, and hadn’t had it for days due to this shit.
“Sure, we can give it a try,” I said as I started gathering blankets, food for Gee, my mixed breed dog, and my phone chargers.
Getting Gee and Pops to the truck proved a lot harder than making the decision to leave.
Gee was old, didn’t do well when it was hot, let alone freezing cold, and wanted to turn around and go back inside before we’d even made it two steps out the door.
I’d had to pick him up and walk him to Pops’s truck before going back for my grandfather.
My grandfather tried to leave on his own as well and had ended up needing to take a prolonged sit on the front steps leading into the house because that’s where he’d ended up when he’d fallen.
Luckily, it’d been a controlled fall.
But now his damn pants were wet, and we needed to get him changed.
By the time we got him back out to the truck—which was surprisingly very warm—another thirty minutes had passed.
The drive to the nearest Waffle House took me another thirty, and when we arrived, there were so many people inside that the parking lot was overflowing to the other two surrounding lots.
The tiny establishment was so packed full that there was standing room only, leaving us with no other choice but to look elsewhere.