Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 83718 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83718 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
I flinch. “Ouch.”
Brayden scowls at his brother. “You don’t actually let her believe that shit, do you?”
“Let her? As if I can control what she thinks?” Jake shakes his head. “Don’t give me that look, Brayden. I tell my wife how beautiful she is every day, but apparently my opinion doesn’t count.” His huff expresses just how disgusted he is by that.
I bite back a laugh, and a super-awkward snort slips out. “Boys are so cute and clueless.”
“Everything going okay with her otherwise, though? The baby’s good?” Brayden asks.
Jake beams. “Regardless of what Ava seems to think about the way her body is changing, everything is going beautifully.”
“Molly, there you are!”
Jake, Brayden, and I all turn to see the front door swing closed behind my landlord, Tom Eckles. He makes a beeline to my table, tracking snow in with every step.
“I was hoping I’d catch you here,” Tom says. He drags a hand through his snow-speckled dark hair.
“I’d better get back to the bar,” Jake says with a curt nod to Tom. I can tell by the change in his expression that he doesn’t like my landlord. Join the club.
My gaze locks on Brayden in hopes that he might hear my silent plea not to leave me alone. It must work, because Brayden takes a seat in the booth across from me. “Hey, Tom,” I say, wariness making my voice thin. “What’s going on?”
Tom seemed like a nice enough guy when he coached the girls’ volleyball team in high school. And he seemed like a nice enough guy when he agreed to rent me his late grandmother’s tiny two-bedroom cottage on the west side of town. I wish I could say he seemed like a nice guy last week when he made a pass at me and I declined, but nice guys don’t grab your ass and then call you an uppity bitch when you tell them to back off.
“Hey, Brayden,” Tom says. “I just needed to talk to Molly for a minute.”
Brayden lifts his chin, showing no sign of moving from his spot, thank God. “Hey, Tom. Talk away.”
Tom pulls off his leather jacket and slings it over his arm as he shifts his attention back to me. “Hey, I’m sorry to do this to you, but I’m gonna need you and Noah out by the end of the week.”
I blink at him, sure that I’ve heard him wrong. He didn’t just say—
“You’re evicting her with a week’s notice?” Brayden says.
Tom makes a face. “Not an eviction, exactly. I just need her to move. I wouldn’t if I didn’t have to. But my niece is moving back to town next Monday, and she needs a place to stay.”
“But you said . . .” He gave me a deal on renting his grandmother’s house and said Noah and I could stay there as long as we wanted. He even acted like he was doing me a big favor by not “locking me into a contract,” made me believe I wouldn’t need one anyway because “any day now” his siblings were going to come around to selling the house to me.
“Sonofabitch,” Brayden mutters. “Where are they supposed to go?”
Tom lifts his palms, but I see the way he instinctively backs away from Brayden. “My niece is pregnant, and my sister wants to see her settled before Christmas. The dad’s not around, and we’re just trying to help a young girl out.” He shifts his gaze to me. “You understand, I’m sure.”
I understand because I’m a single mom, or . . . ? “I need more than a week.”
There’s something cruel in his gaze as it tracks over me slowly before coming back up to meet mine. I see the residual anger in his eyes. Uppity bitch. “I wish things could have worked out differently.”
He wishes I would have let him grope me when he tried to turn an awkward hug I didn’t want into an investigation of my ass. He wishes I’d spread my legs for him. He felt so entitled to what I didn’t give that now he’s fucking me over to punish me for it.
“I hope I can count on you to leave the place as nice as it was when you moved in,” he says.
I wrap my fingers around my glass and take a long swallow of beer to keep myself from chucking the contents in his face. He knows how much I’ve done to that house in the three short months I’ve been there. He knows I’ve used my free time to tear down old wallpaper and paint, to pull up the ratty old carpet and reveal the original hardwood floors waiting beneath. He’d dropped hints that it would all be in my favor in the end, and that it was only a matter of time before his siblings felt emotionally ready to let go of their grandmother’s home. Any work I put into it would be well worth it when his brothers and sisters finally agreed to sell to me.