Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 93575 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 468(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93575 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 468(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
I felt his sadness and wanted to make him smile.
“I wanted to get another tattoo, but I was never brave enough after what happened to the first one.”
He looked surprised. “You have a tattoo?”
“I did.”
“What? Where?”
I tapped the crease of my thigh. “Here.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. It was a little mouse. So cute. I loved it. It was there one night, gone the next day.” I paused. “I think my pussy ate it.”
He blinked, then he began to laugh. He gathered me in his arms. “Fuck, Mila, you make me happy.”
“Good.”
He pressed a kiss to my head. “Go to sleep.”
“You don’t want to look for the mouse?”
He drifted his fingers over my center, his voice teasing. “I dunno. This thing safe? I mean if it devoured a mouse, what’s it going to do to my cock?”
“It only likes wild game. Not chicken.”
He rolled us, hovering over me, laughing, kissing, and talking all at the same time. “Then I’m gonna let your pussy choke my chicken. Hard. He’ll fight and survive.”
It was my turn to laugh. Until he made me scream.
Twice.
The next morning, I eyed Nick with worry. “You barely slept again, and you’ve already been for a run? How are you not exhausted?”
“I’m good,” he replied. “Raring to go.”
I bit my lip. “Um, did you take your meds last night?”
He frowned. “Damn. I forgot. With the whole game hunt we had going on, it slipped my mind. Thanks for reminding me.”
He reached over me into his toiletry bag, pulling out a bottle. He shook out two pills and swallowed them with a gulp of water from the tap. He picked up his toothbrush and stretched over to grab the toothpaste. He knocked the bottle and it fell, the pills spilling out onto the floor and the bottle rolling under the cabinet.
“Dammit,” he muttered.
“I’ll get them,” I offered, bending and scooping up the pills. I set them in a pile on the counter and located the bottle. I stood, noticing another bottle in his bag. I pulled it out. I read the label to make sure it was the same prescription and held it up. “Do you want me to combine these?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said with a shrug. “Knock yourself out. I just take from whichever bottle I grab.”
I poured the last few pills from the one bottle into my hand then noticed a slight difference between the ones I was holding and the pile on the counter. I picked up one of the pills on the counter and studied it, comparing the two. Both were the same shape, but one was a slightly dissimilar color and a touch smaller. One contained a logo and had a number stamped on it; the other pill had a logo, but it was slightly altered. I double-checked the label to make sure they were the same drug, then I glanced at Nick. “These pills look different,” I said.
“How so?” he asked.
I showed him the variations. He frowned.
“MJ picked them up for me. I never noticed the difference.” He scratched his head. “Could they be generic?”
“The label would indicate that.”
“I have no idea,” he said. “Does it really matter?”
The niggling thought from yesterday returned. “I think it does,” I said slowly. “How many of these new pills have you taken?”
“I don’t know.”
I looked at the pills in my hand, eight total. Three of them were different from the others. I had no idea how to ask Nick what I wanted to ask him without him getting upset.
“Um, does MJ have access to your meds?”
“If she was in my trailer, yes. But she wasn’t around…” He trailed off.
“What?”
“I thought I saw her one day, but she never came to see me. Maybe she was in my trailer. But why?”
I swallowed. “The running,” I whispered. “Your excess energy. Everyone commented on how chatty you were the other day. Sammy mentioned it last night too. And you’re so…” I stopped speaking.
He looked at the meds, then at me. “Happy. I’m overly happy. You think she did something to my meds? Why the hell would MJ do that?”
“To push you into an episode. I think—” I swallowed “—I think it’s starting.”
He stared at me. Then at the pills. He didn’t deny my accusation. “To push you away,” he said slowly. “To make me fail.”
“To keep you close. Dependent on her.”
“Jesus,” he muttered, grabbing the back of his neck. “Not even MJ would stoop to that, Mila. There has to be another explanation. They’re just different-looking pills.”
“We need to find out.”
“How?”
“I have an idea.”
“Then tell me.”
My pharmacist, Ash, smiled at me across the desk. I had introduced him to Nick, and he took us to his small office in the back of the drugstore. I had known him since I was a kid—my entire family knew and trusted him.
I showed him the pills and explained my worry. “Can you tell what kind of pill it is?”