Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 89145 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89145 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
What the fuck?
“I told you—I wasn’t being sarcastic.” I reached the car and opened the passenger’s side, where I grabbed my smokes and my lighter.
I really wished he didn’t age like a fine motherfucking wine. He was gonna give his best years to someone else, and I hated it. He’d always been hotter than the sun, but the closer he got to fifty cranked things up even more. I mean, he had five years to go before he got there, but he was already too hot to look at. I’d always been drawn to men who were solid and bordering on stocky. Just like, real solid frames, broad chests, chest hair, shoulders on the wider side, thighs and legs that didn’t break like twigs, and balancing on that razor-thin line where muscles were still visible but so were the few extra pounds because they loved food. Those were my men.
West was the very definition.
I took a drag from my smoke, and West frowned and walked closer.
He glanced at the stone path, which made me smirk a little, because sometimes I could still read his mind. It wasn’t natural for him to walk out here barefoot.
“What’re you saying, then?” he asked.
I was gonna blurt it out, wasn’t I?
Fuck my life.
I blew smoke out of my nose and cursed under my breath, because now I had to think. My default defensive mode involved shrugging and being dismissive, and if I acted that way now, my apology would be worth fuck-all.
He deserved better than that.
“My mom came over today,” I said. “Apparently, you’ve been running your mouth to her about my cousin.”
Excellent start. Really, ten points.
He stiffened as if on cue, and he folded his arms over his chest. “I was curious. Sue me. It won’t happen again.”
I already knew that last part. He’d care less and less until his whole world was filled with memories of his new partner.
Just like that, I needed ice cream and a good cry.
My throat felt thick and everything.
Damn him.
“I was pissy at first,” I admitted. “But then I had an epiphany on the way over here, which I didn’t fuckin’ ask for.” I was still irritated, to be honest. I smoked my cigarette and shook my head. “Anyway. I, uh…I think, in the end, you were right about pretty much everything. I did change. I had good intentions, but I definitely fucked up.”
It was tragic how quickly he went from on edge to confused. As if the concept of me saying I was sorry was bizarre to him.
That was on me.
I hadn’t always been so defensive. I guessed…when all the lies piled up, I’d started walking around with my guard up.
“I have one memory from when I was, like, three,” I said. “Ma introduced me to Dad. And it stuck. Like, I always knew he’d entered our lives later. He wasn’t my biological father, but he became my dad.” I swallowed and flicked away some ashes. West’s confused expression leveled up. “Ma never wanted to talk about what’d happened before Dad came in, and when she finally told me the kid-rated version of the truth when I was older, she said it was our secret. I mean, Dad knew. She told him too. But I was to keep this to myself. Which…” I blew out a breath, wanting to word myself correctly. In short, I wanted to say a lot in few words. He had better things to do with his Friday. “In a way, it was easy, because I didn’t know who my biological father was yet. I just knew that Dad was now Dad, and whoever Ma had been with before was out of our lives.”
“I don’t understand.” West took a step closer, his worry wrinkles appearing across his forehead. “Phil is your stepdad?”
I made a face. No, he was my dad. “Technically.” I cleared my throat. “When I was ten or eleven, I found out who it was. Who my biological dad was—and it was only because I overheard my folks talking. Cuz—well, one thing I should mention is that Ma always wanted me to avoid certain people. We went to the same church as most of the higher-ups in the Sons of Munster, and this was back when they had a tighter grip on our society.”
Mafia then couldn’t be compared to mafia today. Racketeering and extortion had been replaced by hacking big corporate and buying politicians. Not to say the old-school shit didn’t linger in some places, but it just wasn’t the same—and Finn wanted the big money. Compared to tax evasion, buying off politicians, and running drug routes, much of that older shit resulted in pocket change.
Granted, drugs had been a moneymaker for decades.
I digress.
“Long story short, my biological father was a Son,” I said. “Or is a Son. I don’t know. I’m not planning on getting to know him.”