Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 73192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
The moment was lost, but not forgotten.
This was the first step of many.
The last four years wasn’t going to be erased in one day or one conversation, but what would be erased was the distance we kept from each other, and I only had Reagan to blame.
Smart, kind, pain in the ass girl that she was.
Rome leaned back in his seat and placed his hand on the boy’s calf, his large palm engulfing the thin bones of his son’s leg.
“Tell me about your girl,” he said, eyes never lifting from his son’s sleeping form. “And, please God, please let me hear that there’s at least one girl in this godforsaken world who isn’t a total bitch.”
I snorted as did Liner, who took the seat he’d previously been occupying.
“Alana and Henley aren’t bitches and you know it.” I shot him a look. “But Reagan? I don’t even know how to explain her. She’s everything I never knew I needed…and she’s such a pain in the ass that I don’t know how to handle her.”
Rome’s lips twitched. “You need a girl like that to shake your shit up.”
She did indeed do that—shake my shit up.
“Before we were dating, she planted a flower garden…in my yard.” I gave Rome a look. “You know how much flowers annoy me.”
Rome burst out laughing.
“What’s so bad about flowers?” Liner questioned, sounding lost.
Rome wiped at his eyes. “Tyler’s mom used to have a flower garden. Every day he had to go pull the weeds for fifteen minutes. He absolutely hated it…and this girl just gave him one of his own so he gets to do it all over again.”
“It gets better,” I muttered. “She found this dog…”
Rome threw his head back and laughed, big, heavy guffaws. “Oh, God. Did you tell her that you’re allergic?”
I shook my head.
“You’re allergic to dogs?” Liner asked. “And you let her keep it, didn’t you?”
I shrugged. “I’m not severely allergic, their hair makes me itch. Luckily, he stays off of my recliner…and yes, he is living with me. She lives in a one-bedroom rental cabin on the lake just down the road from me. That’s why she planted the flower garden at my place and also why I’m currently housing a dog that makes me itch the moment that he touches me.”
The front door banged open and then slammed shut, causing Rome to release a weary sigh.
“This isn’t my day to be here,” Rome murmured, watching Tara stomp through the house and make her way through the living room to a long hallway that was just beyond it. Moments later, she disappeared into a side room. “Normally she makes plans with her friends. Me being here today means that she didn’t get to make plans and has nothing to do in this ‘godforsaken town.’”
My lips twitched. “Well, that just breaks my heart.”
Rome snorted.
“Rome did you a favor, man.” Liner stepped around the elephant that was still in the room. “He may not have done it on purpose or anything, but my God. Just living next to her for the last six months has given me a lesson in restraint. She’s the biggest bitch I ever met and treats Rome like absolute shit.”
I looked over at Liner. “You live next door?”
He gestured to the house that was directly to the side. “That one over there.”
I nodded.
I’d thought it odd that he would park on the part of the driveway that was allocated for the other house as we’d pulled in, but I hadn’t given it a second thought after I’d walked through the door.
“If I’d have known the way she was, I wouldn’t have told Rome about this place coming up for sale,” Liner muttered. “When she’s not taking up most of the driveway with her flashy assed car and her trashcans, she’s making my life hell.”
The two houses shared one large driveway and I could see Tara being a bitch and doing whatever she could to piss the man off.
It was obvious that the two of them got along like oil and water.
But, then again, Tara got along with everybody like oil and water, apparently.
Rome gave the boy laying on the couch one more loving caress on his bald little head and then stood.
“If I don’t leave, she’s going to get all bitchy and call her lawyer,” Rome murmured, looking at his kid. “And since I made a promise when he got sick not to put him through all the crap that Tara doesn’t give a shit if she puts him through, I gotta be the bigger person and leave.”
I winced.
There was so much that I hadn’t known and I felt like utter shit that I didn’t see past the lies and betrayal to what was really going on beneath the surface.
“We’re leaving, Tara.”
Rome’s call down the hall had Liner and me standing, heading toward the front door.