Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 123155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
“Eli made Pad Thai,” Lu called out from her seat at the island.
“Grabbed some groceries when I knew we were headed here,” Eli said as we made our way toward him. “I fuckin’ love this kitchen.”
“CeeCee,” my mom interrupted from the kitchen table, where she was pulling the baby out of her car seat. “She’s soaked and going to be pissed in about three seconds.”
“I’ll grab some food while you get her,” Mark told me, squeezing my hand before letting it go. “Gimme two seconds and I’ll take you up to a room so you can get her changed and shit.”
A wail split the air and I hurried across the room.
“Hey,” I cooed, taking the baby from my mom. “Are you wet?” I grimaced as I realized that she’d wet through her diaper and it was seeping from her clothes to mine.
“Here,” my mom said as she moved things from one bag to another. “I grabbed some diapers and wipes and some clothes for her.”
“I’ll take it,” Mark said, grabbing the bag from her while he held a plate of noodles in the opposite hand. “Come on, baby.”
He walked away and my mom elbowed me. “Baby, huh?”
“Shut it,” I hissed.
“Didn’t know you were baby again.”
“Seriously, Mom,” I snapped. I wasn’t even sure how I felt about the endearment.
She snickered as I followed Mark out of the room and up the stairs.
“This place was a foreclosure,” he explained. “And thankfully, the previous owners weren’t assholes and didn’t trash the place before they left.” He opened a door, and strode inside. “They even left behind some furniture.”
“Is that a fucking canopy bed?” I asked in disbelief.
“Without the canopy,” he confirmed.
The entire room was pink, and the light fixture was an actual chandelier.
“Well,” I said, looking around. “I feel like a princess.”
Baby girl screamed while I changed her, no surprise there, but as soon as she started nursing, the room was quiet again. The bed dipped a little as Mark sat down facing me.
“Have a bite,” he said, offering up a forkful of noodles.
“You don’t have to feed me—” My last word was cut off as he pushed the fork so close to my face that I had no option but to take a bite.
“I know,” he said while I chewed. “But you must be fucking starving.”
“Actually,” I said while he took a bite, “I’m more tired than anything. I feel like I’m getting a cold or something.”
“Yeah.” He fed me another bite. “You felt warm earlier. Maybe you’re coming down with something.”
“I hope not,” I muttered around my food. “That’s the last thing I need.”
The baby took that moment to stretch out her legs, and the moment one made contact with the breast she wasn’t nursing on, I yelped.
“Shit,” I barked, blocking her foot.
“What’s wrong?” Mark asked, setting the plate on the bed.
“This boob hurts like hell.” I reached up and pressed on it. “It aches really bad, especially on the side.”
“Is that normal?”
“How the hell should I know?” I replied. I pressed it again, harder, and groaned. It reminded me of a toothache—it hurt to touch it, but the pressure also felt almost good.
“Hopefully, it stops,” he said, offering another bite. “I don’t like you hurting.”
He kept feeding me bites, one for him and one for me, back and forth until the food was gone. By that time, baby girl was finished nursing and snuggled up against my chest, wide awake.
“Want a tour of the house?” Mark asked, getting to his feet.
“Sure.” I followed him out of the room and listened while he told me about buying the house for a song and how they hadn’t had to do much to it because it was half furnished when they got it. He pointed to the rooms everyone was staying in, but didn’t open any doors if they were closed.
“Not much privacy with everyone livin’ on top of each other,” he explained. “Closin’ the doors gives everyone their own bit of space.”
I followed him downstairs and through the short hallway Wilson had disappeared into when we’d arrived.
“Hey,” Mark greeted as he strode into a huge room.
“I’m busy,” Wilson replied, his fingers flying over the keyboard in front of him.
“Whoa,” I breathed, looking around the room. “This is insane.”
“This is the only house we have with this much hardware,” Mark said, looking up at the wall of screens. Two of them were playing different news broadcasts, muted, with the captioning on. Another four had stuff that I couldn’t make any sense of. The last one showed what Wilson was working on because I could see the letters and numbers appearing on the screen, but I couldn’t make any sense of it, either. It looked like some kind of code.
“The news reported Cane Warren and his wife Lavinia were found deceased in their home this morning,” Wilson said, not looking up from his keyboard.