Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Max’s phone started to ring, making her reach for it.
“Your worried roommate?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said, picking up. “I’m fine, Megs. I will be home in a few, I promise. Keep the door locked. I’ll text when I get there.”
“Guess we should go get you those ice pops before your roommate calls the cops, claiming I abducted you.”
Max finished her drink. I dropped cash on the table. Then we both headed out to find Venezio had found a spot half a block down.
There was a bodega between us and him, so we dipped in, going right to the freezer section. “This place has a milkshake machine,” I told her. “Want one? Chocolate?”
“Vanilla,” she corrected, perusing the ice pop options. “I don’t like chocolate.”
“Really?” I asked. “I’m pretty sure my sisters would chew through my arm if it was in the way of a chocolate bar.” But I went and got her the vanilla shake.
“Wait, no,” she said when she put two boxes of pops on the counter next to the shake and the bottle of throat spray I’d found, and I passed the guy behind the counter some cash from the clip I’d had Venezio bring me from my place.
I felt oddly naked without my wallet. The cash. The cards. My I.D. But I had more than enough cash stashed around this city to keep things going.
“Don’t listen to her,” I said to the owner, someone I knew paid the Family protection money. “I’m paying.”
“No, I am,” Max said, but the cashier wasn’t listening as he bagged her boxes, then handed me a receipt. “I stole over half a million dollars from you. Why are you paying for my ice pops?” She looked at me as I held the door open for her, her eyes rolling. “Oh, God. This is some old-fashioned ‘I’m the man, so I pay for everything’ thing, isn’t it?”
“Yep. Sorry, sugar. That’s just the way it works.”
“Sugar?” she asked, shaking her head at me. “Trust me, Miko, there’s nothing sweet about me.”
She ducked into the backseat of the car as she said that, leaving me to close the door for her.
I was sure she was wrong about that.
There was definitely something I’d bet good money on being real sweet about her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Max
“Finally,” Megs said the next morning when I finally peeled my aching self out of bed, forced myself to shower and dress, then made my way out into the common space. “I was worried you’d out-sleep Nicole.”
“Everything is fine, Megs,” I told her, but I kept my back to her as I started to make a pot of coffee, so the lying didn’t feel as big of a betrayal.
“You stole some guy’s wallet, then within the same day, he shows up at our doorstep,” Megs said. “And I’m really supposed to believe he had nothing to do with your attack?”
“He didn’t attack me. And he didn’t have someone else attack me,” I told her, this time turning because it was the truth. Sure, I may have been attacked because of him, in a roundabout way, but he had nothing to do with ordering it.
“Well, I don’t believe it,” Megs said, lifting her chin and crossing her arms.
Megs was too sweet to pull the move off, but I forced myself not to smile. She was worried. I needed to ease her concerns. The last thing I needed was her doing something stupid like trying to follow me around.
“Look, the truth is, the guy who broke in stole Miko’s wallet,” I told her. I could let her in on that truth without revealing anything about the diamonds. “That’s why Miko was here. To get it back. But then he found me like this,” I said, gesturing toward my face. “And he was surprisingly good about it.”
“Oh,” Megs said, loosening up. “Okay. Well, that’s good, I guess. Why are you dressed? You’re not going out, are you?”
“I just had plans with Lil,” I told her. Another half-truth to feel guilty about. But it was all to protect her.
Our years together had been full of protective lies.
No, I didn’t nearly get raped when that guy caught me alone in the shelter right before you walked in.
No, the man who’d hired me to walk his dog hadn’t tried to ‘get more for his money.’
No, that dude I chased down the alley after he stole your sleeping bag hadn’t offered to give it back if I went down on him. And, no, I hadn’t found a random piece of glass and sliced him across the throat to get the fucking thing back so you didn’t freeze that night.
There were dozens, or hundreds, of lies like that between us that she didn’t know about.
It was okay with me that I had to be twice as hard just so she got the chance to know some softness.