Total pages in book: 198
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
I snorted and regretted that shit too. “It’s okay. I can do it myself. I should do it myself. And I don’t want to ask him; he already got one bat out for me in the middle of the night. I can handle it.”
“Even though you fell off a ladder?”
I nodded and gestured to my face. “Yeah, I’m not going to let them win. This isn’t going to be in vain.”
Clara nodded solemnly. “I’ll look for that attractant. I bet if you look in the paper, you can find someone to go and find where the bats are coming in from if you change your mind.”
The problem was that it wasn’t my house, but . . . “I’ll look,” I said, even though I wouldn’t. Not unless I absolutely had to.
I wanted to think I was a big girl, but when I kept glancing up at the ceiling even though it was only about six o’clock, I wanted to cry.
I hated being paranoid. Scared. But no matter how much I told myself that a bat was just a sweet little sky puppy . . .
I wasn’t buying it. And it wasn’t like I had anywhere else to go to get out of there. I hadn’t made enough friends yet.
I got along with most people I met, and most folks were really pretty friendly back, especially my customers at the store. Even the grumpiest people, I could usually win over with time. Back when I’d been with Kaden, I’d met a lot of people, but after a while, everyone wanted something from him, and it had made it impossible to know who wanted to be my friend for me and who wanted it for him.
And that was with them not knowing we were together. We had guarded that secretly tightly. Using NDAs—nondisclosure agreements that pretty much guaranteed that if anyone spoke about our relationship, the Joneses would sue the shit out of them. Not being able to be open with people had just become second nature.
And that was why people like Yuki and even Nori didn’t have that many friends either.
Because you never knew what someone really thought about you unless they told you that you had spinach between your teeth and looked dumb.
I picked up my phone and thought about calling my aunt or uncle, and that was when I heard the garage door open, and a moment later, the buzz of an amp come on from downstairs.
Setting my phone back down, I headed toward the top of the staircase and listened as someone, who I could only assume was Amos, strummed a chord and then another. He adjusted the volume and did it all over again.
Planting my butt on the top step, I curled my fingers around my knees and listened as he tuned his guitar and, after a few minutes, started playing a few blues licks.
And that’s when I heard his quiet, soft voice start singing, so low in volume I leaned forward and had to strain.
His voice didn’t raise in volume, and I was pretty sure he was singing so low so that I wouldn’t hear him, but I could. I had good ears. I’d protected my hearing over the years by wearing top-of-the-line ear protection. I’d left my set of three-thousand-dollar in-ears when I’d left the home I’d shared with Kaden, but I still had a great set of headphones and Hearos that maybe I’d use again someday. To go see Yuki.
Creeping quietly down a few more steps, I stopped and strained some more.
Then I shifted down a couple more steps.
And a couple more.
Before I knew it, I was standing right outside the door that separated the apartment from the actual garage. As quietly as possible, I opened the door that led outside and closed it behind me the same way, moving like a snail.
I stopped.
Because sitting on the top step of his deck was Mr. Rhodes. In dark jeans and a light blue T-shirt, he had his elbows were propped on his knees. He was listening too.
I hadn’t seen him in more than passing since the day we’d gone to see the waterfalls.
He’d spotted me first, I guess.
I put my finger over my mouth to let him know I knew to be quiet and slowly started to sink on top of the mat right outside the door. I didn’t want to bother him or intrude.
But his blank face slowly got replaced by a frown.
He gestured to me to come over, even as his frown got deeper by the second.
Standing back up, I tiptoed across the gravel as quietly as possible, relieved when Amos started playing louder, his singing drifting away, wrapping around the notes coming from his guitar.
But the closer I got to Mr. Rhodes, the graver his expression became. The elbows he had resting on his knees slid up his thighs until he was sitting up straight, those pretty gray eyes of his wide, his expression stricken.