Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 83040 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83040 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
I didn’t get her name.
But next time, I will.
5 - Brose
Olive flops down on the couch behind me, sighing loudly. My fingers pause on the keyboard, my eyes look straight ahead at the screen in front of me, and I start counting.
I have a rule. It’s hard, and fast, and one of many, actually.
Rules keep things simple. Keeps this little kingdom I’m ruling all very black and white. And this particular rule is that Olive gets to interrupt me when I’m busy with one sigh of frustration or boredom, and no more.
This was her one.
It’s been four days and she and I are practically living here at the Mule Pit. It’s been nothing but long days of waiting and, for her, at least, equally long nights of frustration.
Another rule I have is that if she is with another man, I take a break. I’m not going to compete with someone inside Olive’s mind. And while she obviously didn’t get far with Ean Shephard, she was wiggling in my lap just a few minutes prior to wiggling in his.
Then he left her hanging.
If Shephard is playing a game here, he won that day. Because she can’t get over that part. He walked out on her and she was giving him some good moves. So he’s up there, inside her head, and when it comes to who I am to this woman, it’s number one or it’s number none as far as I’m concerned.
It’s twenty seconds now and that one sigh was all Olive gave up.
“You’re bored?” I ask.
“Aren’t you?”
“You’re thinking about him?”
She scoffs. “Aren’t you?”
I swivel in my chair so I can look at her. She’s wearing another one of those Roaring Twenties dresses. Not something she had, because she left Disciple when she was a girl. This dress is something she got from a thrift store. Apparently, you can find these dresses all over the surrounding counties and Olive has a whole closet filled with them now.
This one is long, straight, shapeless, and light yellow. I get the costume part of these clothes they wear at the Revival, but I don’t find any of it particularly attractive. Especially the hair.
Except for Olive’s hair, that is. Hers is dark blonde, shoulder length, and wavy, so it always looks the part, but that’s how her hair always is. She doesn’t need to do anything to make it blend in with the dresses, and I suddenly wonder if it’s genetic.
Which is stupid. But then again, there it is. Sitting right in front of me. Perfect, effortless, nineteen twenties style.
She’s waiting for my answer.
“No. I haven’t been thinking about him at all.” This makes her sneer, but she doesn’t say anything. She knows there’s more to my answer and there is. “I’ve been thinking about you and him.”
Olive presses her lips together and nods a little bit. She’s slumped back into the couch cushions, one leg thrown over the armrest, looking very sexy. That’s not the look she’s going for though—she’s trying for ‘moody’—so it’s all that much more alluring because of her lack of effort. “I figured as much since you haven’t fucked me in days.” All these words come out with an attitude. “You think I don’t know, but I do, Brose. I’ve been with you every day and every night for two years. I know you.”
I’m amused, so I tip my chin up and challenge her. “And what is it that you think you know about me, Olive?”
“Your rules. Just because you never made a handbook doesn’t mean I can’t read them.”
I’m surprised that she actually used the word ‘rules,’ but also intrigued as to what she thinks these rules are. “Go on.”
“Go on, what? That’s it. You have… lines, or something. Things I’m not supposed to do, except you don’t tell me I’m not supposed to do them. Or actually, you do tell me to do them, and then you punish me for it.”
“What do you think you did that you feel I’m punishing you?”
“I climbed into that guy’s lap. I was going to fuck him. And even though you agreed, you’re mad about it so you haven’t touched me in days. It’s your way of teaching me a lesson.”
“And what lesson have you learned?”
“That what you say, and what you do, and what you think are oftentimes… very different things.”
“I didn’t agree, by the way. It was your idea to fuck him and you placated me with that bait about watching.”
Her eyes squint down a little, like she’s thinking back. But this is actually how it went down, so all those frown lines forming across her forehead even out pretty quick. “So which part are you mad about? The fact that I wanted to fuck him or that you didn’t get a show?”
“You tell me. You’re the instant psychologist.”
She smiles at me, but it’s a sardonic one. Then she scoots her body just a little bit to the right without taking that one leg off the armrest. Just enough to make sure I have a good view as she slips her hand down her stomach and pulls up her dress to reveal the fact that she’s not wearing underwear.