Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 74573 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74573 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
She shivered. “I don’t want to tell him.”
I turned onto the road that would be the deciding factor between her place and mine, and was relieved when she didn’t tell me to turn around and drop her off at her place.
Instead, we drove the rest of the way in silence.
Though, it was periodically broken by her having to answer a phone call and confirm that yes, her mother was in fact dead.
By the last one, she’d insisted that she wouldn’t be answering the phone anymore unless it was her brother.
Which I then pointed out that if she didn’t answer, they’d just call her father.
Which caused her to sigh and reluctantly agree to continue answering.
“Okay,” she muttered as she looked at my old house. “Are you sure you want me to stay here?”
I laughed and bailed out of the car, walking around to open up her side.
“It’ll be fine,” I assured her. Which brought me to my next question. “Are you going to be able to be in Jubilee’s wedding tomorrow?”
She practically deflated right there in front of me.
“Yes,” she answered morosely. “I’ll put on my happy face, and be my happy no-nonsense self just for her.”
I patted her on the leg, then extended a hand to help her out.
When she was steady on her feet, I led her, arm around her shoulder, to my front door.
The move was quite a bit different than how we’d entered earlier in the night.
Without having to be asked, she walked to the couch, flopped down on it, and covered herself back up as if she’d only been gone long enough to go to the bathroom.
This time when I went to bed, I didn’t slam the door closed.
I also didn’t sleep another wink, because I spent the rest of the night listening to her cry.
Chapter 10
The worst part about online shopping is having to get up to get your card.
-Castiel to Turner
Castiel
That morning, when the night gave way to the light, both Turner and I gave up the pretense of sleep.
I got up and started moving around, unable to pretend to sleep anymore and act like I didn’t hear her crying.
I took a shower, trimmed my beard so that it was back down to Bear Bottom Police Department regulation neat, and went in search of my jeans that I’d washed the night before with a towel around my hips.
I found her sitting on the couch, the television on, and drinking a cup of coffee.
“You don’t have any milk,” she told me.
I grinned. “Lactose intolerant.”
Her eyebrows went up.
“You can’t have ice cream?” she questioned, sounding sad.
I shrugged. “I can have it…if I want to have stomach cramps for hours.”
She frowned. “It might be worth it.”
Chuckling, I walked over to the area of the cabin where the washer and dryer were located behind a hanging sheet and pushed the sheet to the side as I bent down to open the dryer. When I came back up, the towel had come loose, and I had to make a grab for it, or I’d have shown off my ass.
When I caught it, had my jeans secured under my arm, and was sure that I wasn’t going to flash her my business, I turned around.
Turner was facing the television, her cheeks flaming.
I grinned and walked back to my bedroom, thinking that I maybe should’ve put on some pants and a t-shirt before I went out there. But, saying that, I hated t-shirts. Despised them, really.
I’d always had a sensory motor problem when it came to my clothes.
One, they had to be soft. Two, there had to be no tags, anywhere. The first thing I did when I got a new pair of pants or a t-shirt of any kind was to cut out every single tag in sight.
Three, all of my clothes had to fit me correctly. My jeans had to hit the perfect spot right at my hip bones or I wouldn’t wear them. And don’t even get me started on my socks.
T-shirts were just a necessary evil for me, as was my police uniform that I had to force myself to put on every time I went in to work. It was literally the bane of my existence.
That was why I nearly always wore a wife beater underneath my club colors. The only time I didn’t wear the wife beater was when it was too cold outside to tolerate and I had to change to a wife beater and a flannel shirt.
Which was what I was planning on wearing to the wedding since it was supposed to drop thirty degrees over the next seven hours.
But, for now, I didn’t need to put a shirt on, so I didn’t. I’d had enough of being uncomfortable in my own house to last a lifetime, so I didn’t spare a single thought for the woman in the outer room as I walked out in boots and my jeans only.