Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“You could come here,” I say without thinking. “After…uh…” There’s no backtracking now since the invitation is already out. “Everleigh could take the jet and pick you up for a few days. You’d be jetted back. Private. Everything would be sanitary, too, since I know your treatments probably knock your immune system down. The house here is quiet, and it’s just us. We won’t go anywhere either, so we won’t track anything back, and I’ll have the whole place cleaned from top to—”
“Okay!” Heather yells. “But you don’t have to go all crazy clean on the house. I want to try and live a normal life, even while doing treatments. I could come after the next one is over, even though I feel barfy, but I usually feel better by the next day. That would give us enough time before I have to be back.”
“Heather, I—”
“No, Ev, I want to meet him. I want to thank him in person for making this possible. We basically owe him my life, and he’s been good to you. Besides, he’s willing to dance with us, so he can’t be that bad. And the Hans guy sounds interesting. Do you think if I paid him, he’d spank me?”
“Fuck, Heather!”
“Okay, I’m being bad now. I’m kidding. Sorry. Sorry, Ev. Sorry, Darius. Mom and I will be there. Thank you for the invite.”
“You had better leave now while the going is still good,” Everleigh advises me, making shooing motions. “Before my sister says anything more inappropriate or scams more free trips out of you.”
“It’s fine.” It is. It actually is. If it were anyone else other than Everleigh and her family, it would bother me. I wouldn’t have given anyone else a million dollars, I wouldn’t have given them the use of my own jet, and I definitely wouldn’t have opened my house for them.
It’s a bit of a jolt to realize Everleigh doesn’t just make me want to be different. She is making me different. She’s making me feel things I haven’t ever felt before. She’s challenged me, helped me, and brought laughter, sunshine, and dancing to this house, and I’m pretty sure it’s never had any of those before. This house is quite a gloomy place. It was likely built that way to appeal to broody motherfuckers like me. I swear, that was the selling point.
“What’s that about spanking?” Hans appears out of nowhere right as I’m cresting the stairs. His arm shoots out to block me before I can topple down the whole curving flight of them, ass over my face.
“I knew you had to be somewhere, listening in.”
“Yeah,” he says and nods. “I wouldn’t have missed that for the world.”
I called it. I knew it. I’m not fuming, but I’m also not laughing, as that would just be wrong. I want to, though, but instead, I just roll my eyes. “Your job isn’t to spy.”
“Had to make sure she wasn’t going to go all death metal on your ass,” he protests, but I can tell he just wanted to watch me make a fool of myself. To see if I was going to.
“Did you record that? Because if you recorded that, I promise you I will—”
“No, boss, I would never do that,” he says in such a way that it is absolutely unquestionable that he, beyond a doubt, did indeed do exactly that. He shakes his head, pretending to be all innocent. I know I’m going to find out later what exactly he got on video from whatever hiding spot he was at. God, the guy is like a ninja ghost. How someone his size can just disappear is beyond me.
I wonder how and when he’s going to use that video against me. I bet it will be for pizza. I’m just waiting for it.
Chapter nine
Darius
Everleigh, her mom, Heather, and Hans all burst through the front door, and before anyone can say anything, there’s a low whine and then a not-so-low whine before all hell erupts into screeching and growling and hisses coming from the cage in Heather’s hand—the cage which she has to set down on the ground because it’s rocking and swaying violently. The yowling continues as soon as it’s on the floor.
Everleigh was with her family for a few days before they flew back in the jet. And when she was gone, the house was empty and quiet. Exactly how it used to be. But somehow, it didn’t feel right. It felt upside down and echoey. I threw myself into work, but I still missed her. Hans told me about his latest romance, but I still missed her. I tossed and turned at night, and I missed her then, too. She called to give me updates on her few days in Philly. I didn’t know we were at that point yet, some invisible line designating phases we’ve crossed over to, and one of them is phone calls, but it was a delight. I missed her as soon as I hung up.