Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 103033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
General eventually trailed over to me, and he pressed himself up against my leg and circled it.
“Little daddy will be home in an hour, and big Daddy in about three,” I told…a fucking cat. Great, I was talking to a cat.
Before I logged on to Facebook, I checked my phone for messages. It was the first time Gael was borrowing my truck, and she could be cranky to drive sometimes. She had…quirks. But I’d warned him, and the drive into town this morning had gone off without a hitch.
“All right, let’s see where you are, motherfucker.” I went to Caleb’s profile, and, like clockwork, he’d just posted his lunch photo.
Enjoy your shitty salad.
I clicked on the photo and saved it, then opened it in another software to check the metadata. Time stamp, same device as always, location. I hummed and took another swig of my coffee. So far, so good. He was in California—unless, and this was highly unlikely, he had someone else taking fresh photos and posting them for him. I mean, it was possible, but it didn’t fit his profile one bit. He was a pain in the ass, not a master criminal.
I did have an ace up my sleeve for occasional double-checks. I had access to his credit card activity, and—
My phone rang, the display lighting up with Gael’s goofy grin, and it got me every goddamn time. I smiled and answered the call.
“Hey, baby.”
“Hi! I’m just about to wrap up at work,” he said, a little out of breath. “It’s been so busy today! But I wanted to call and ask if there’s anything you want me to buy on the way?”
I glanced over at the kitchen island, where I had everything prepped for dinner. “Nope, we’re all good. I just need you and Dean here.”
“Then I’ll be on my way in five minutes! See you soon, Sir!”
“Soon, querido.” I ended the call and released a breath.
They’d already become the fixture that turned my house into a home. Nowadays, I was working my way through contracts and tasks in order to just be done, to be able to shift my attention to the future—whether that future was later in the afternoon when I saw Gael and Dean again, or it was further down the road. Dreams, plans, changes to the backyard, vacations, what our living situation might look like one day.
For twenty years, work had kept me going. Work had been everything. Starting when I got my first beat as a rookie cop to when I made detective. It took all my energy, all my focus, and it distracted me from fading visions and diminishing hope. I couldn’t fucking go back to that—not even an ounce of it. Because if I’d learned one thing since I’d managed to drag Gael and Dean into my fold, it was that my life looked a whole lot brighter when I had those two to share it with. And whenever I was home alone, like right now, I was just waiting. I functioned on autopilot to finish our renovations, and I worked like I was supposed to, but I had an impatient guy sitting in the back of my head checking his watch and counting down the minutes till the door opened.
I needed music. It was too quiet here.
“Alexa, play the playlist Not Approved by Dean on Spotify,” I said.
She obeyed like Dean didn’t.
He could bitch and moan when he got here. He put up with my Latin pop and rock but drew the line at what he referred to as bro country. He called it nonsense—or worse, boybands missing their bandmembers and wailing about it.
Even Dean had his flaws.
To make time go faster, I checked the online forum on my phone and got a quick chuckle when I saw Nora had changed our dynamic. She’d listed herself as my Owner on her profile. Fucking wonderful. That only meant one thing: the brat wanted attention.
I shot her a DM.
I’ll keep listing myself as your brat tamer on my page, even though I’m clearly doing a shit-poor job at it. How you doing, honey?
She’d been recruited from another community, just like I had. We’d become reluctant friends last year at an event—and reluctant wasn’t the right word. We just didn’t have much in common, nor did we move in the same circles, until now. She’d tended to stick to her lesbian group of friends or a kink community called Old Town, and I’d…had work. And yet, we’d met by accident at a party, and we’d ended up talking all night. I’d sort of become her older brother over months of texting and occasional coffee meetups, and she’d turned into my mother. She was a good kid. We didn’t talk often, but she texted every now and then to make sure I ate and slept.