Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87367 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 437(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87367 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 437(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
I’d just gotten home and was passing by Dwain’s room, when he said, “Are you fucking whistling?”
I stepped back and peeked through the door. His and Lee’s double beds were still in there, just as they’d been when we were kids. Lee had his earphones in, head turned toward the wall. Dwain lay across his covers in his tighty-whities, making it impossible not to notice his cock stretching out across the top of his thigh. He looked up from the book he was reading.
“It doesn’t look like Nietzsche is stimulating you very much tonight,” I remarked, and he furrowed his brow, like any slighted little bro would.
“I get a hard-on the more I read about Perspectivism,” he said as facetiously as he could manage. “Now what the fuck were you whistling about?”
His expression was all suspicion, as if he could read on my face, I’ve been doing very naughty things with that Mitchell boy. And wanted to do a lot more. I said, “Are you the whistling police all of a sudden?”
“Can’t you just answer my question?”
“Can’t you mind your own business?”
He rolled his eyes, clearly not in the mood to go back and forth with me. “Whatever. I don’t give a shit.” He glanced at Lee, as if making sure he couldn’t hear us over his music, then slipped out of bed and headed toward me.
It was hard not to notice how his dick shifted in his briefs. “Are you getting harder walking over here?” I asked, raising my arms defensively.
“Oh, probably. You know, I wear these because they fit me just right, you know?” He winked.
“Just keep it at arm’s length,” I teased. I had no desire for him to ruin my own arousal from everything that had happened over at Cohen’s.
He shook his head and frowned. “Look, I saw Big Daddy in his office earlier, and he looked… You know how he’s getting, and he’s not gonna talk to me or Lee about anything. You mind checking on him?”
Ugh. I liked Dwain more when he was acting like an ignorant blockhead, but seeing his worry about Big Daddy reminded me that, at the end of the day, he was the O’Ralleys’ ignorant blockhead, with a much softer side than the hard exterior he too often presented.
I agreed to check on Big Daddy and headed back downstairs to his office. I knocked gently on the door and heard him call out, “Come in.” When I opened the door, I saw him sitting at his desk, a stack of envelopes and papers in front of him. I could see by his red face and watery eyes why Dwain had asked me to come down.
“Hanging in there, Big Daddy?” I headed to the chair in front of his desk and took a seat.
“Don’t figure it matters much how I hang in if I can’t hold this place together.” He rested his hand on a paper on the table, sighing. “It’s nothing, Brodes. Just same as usual. A lot of bills coming in all at once. I had to call the bank and get another line of credit today.”
He leaned back and pressed his thumb and forefinger against his forehead, massaging like he was trying to soothe a migraine.
“It’ll be okay, Big Daddy. We’ll sort it out. We’ve been through hard times before, and we can get through them again.” It was the kind of thing I said without believing it myself. Not entirely. More a hope than anything else.
He took a long breath. “Yeah…you know, we’ve had some good runs, but the O’Ralley brand just isn’t what it used to be. Distribution has gotten harder and harder as the competition has increased even more, as if it hasn’t always been hard enough in our line of work.”
He was really not going to be happy once he discovered that I was actually working with future competition, but I also realized our financial problems were more than that.
“And then PR has become something else to me. All these kids have their Instagrams and TikToks and twatters…”
“Twitter…it’s Twitter,” I said quickly.
“Whatever it is, I don’t get any of it. And the further behind I get, well, the more I feel like the horse that falls behind in a race. A whole legacy failing under my leadership.”
“Hey.” I reached across the desk and rested my hand on his arm. “That’s not gonna happen. Just about time to show everyone the dark horse the O’Ralley family really is, right?”
He smirked, but I could tell a little encouragement wasn’t going to break his mood.
I noticed his gaze drift and settle on the adjacent wall. I looked to his and Big Momma’s wedding photo, set on a shelf. Big Momma’s familiar bright smile gazed back, the kind that had the power to put hope into the most hopeless of souls.