Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68400 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68400 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
I never felt dry.
And swear to Christ, I didn’t miss having a wet taint while I was on the inside. Because, holy Mother of God, was it humid as fuck today. Mid-May, even at now six in the morning, was still hot and humid enough that I felt like I was breathing through a straw.
I’d have to get my taint deodorant out soon to prevent chafing when I ran—and yes, I had separate deodorants. One for my taint and one for my pits. It wouldn’t do to switch the two.
I also knew what it was like to be walking around with a chafed taint after running twenty miles the day before. Let’s just say it was very uncomfortable, and I only needed to learn my lesson once to never do it again.
Tex barked, and I looked up to see a woman walking.
My brow rose, because she was all in black, and I hadn’t even seen her until she was practically on top of me.
“Oh, hello,” she chirped. “Nice to see you. How are you?”
I blinked at the woman’s welcomeness.
It was even weirder that she would say ‘hi’ to a man in the dark with nothing to protect her.
“Good. How’s it going?” I asked as she stopped.
“Are you new to the neighborhood?” she asked curiously.
My lips quirked. “I am. Sort of. I was renting my place out but just moved back home.”
“Ahh,” she said. “That explains it. I thought I knew everyone in the neighborhood.” She pointed. “That’s my house right there. I’m Dory. It’s nice to meet you. And you have a very fat dog.”
I had to chuckle as she waved a quick goodbye and left just as fast as she’d arrived.
Tex, who’d taken the break to breathe loudly at my feet, groaned when I started him back up again.
“Listen, Tex,” I said to my old dog. “She was right. You have some good years left in you if we get some of this weight off of you. I missed the first eight years of your life. I certainly don’t want to cut that life short when I missed so much.”
It really did fuck me up that I’d missed so much with him.
I’d been training him since six months old to do the things that I’d always wanted a dog to do—it took me a year to convince Amber that Lolo and I needed the dog—when I’d been put in prison.
It sucked balls that I missed all those things I trained him to do.
We paused when I saw the lights at Dan’s house were on.
When she opened the door and stepped outside, gesturing me toward her with a cup of coffee in each hand, I grinned.
“How did you know I was near?” I questioned.
She pointed at the dog. “Tex. The escape artist. I have an AirTag on him. He likes to go visit the old lady down the street whenever he wants to, then he likes to go by the old man’s place on the way back. And sometimes, it’s just nice to know where he is, you know?”
I snorted. “If you wanted to track me, sis, all you had to do was ask.”
She rolled her eyes, then sobered as she handed me the coffee before taking a seat on her top porch step.
I unclipped the dog from the leash and then took up a seat beside her.
“I didn’t want to track you,” she said. “I swear. You’ll go outside one day thinking that he’ll be there, and then you’ll be finding him down the street.”
I shrugged. “I don’t care if you want to track me, FYI. I’m already wondering if I need to have an altogether live version of my whereabouts at all times.”
Not only did I fully expect the pedophile sheriff to start harassing me any second, but I needed to know why the hell I was out so early in the first place.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“I want to know why I’m out,” I said to my sister.
My sister looked up at me sharply. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…” I blew out a breath, leaned back in my seat, and said, “I got out about a year and a half early. But on top of that, I had friends that got out early, too. Ones that still had years left to serve. And I want to know why.”
She frowned. “I know the DA. He comes into the restaurant all the time.”
My sister owned a restaurant, DJ’s, about an hour away. It was so popular that people from all over the world traveled to it to eat. It wasn’t a restaurant that would get a Michelin Star. It was just a great place, on the water, where you could listen to the waves crash, and vibe to good music in a fantastic atmosphere.
I’d helped Danyetta get it started a couple of years after she’d graduated high school. It’d been her dream to cook and own a restaurant. So I’d helped her, even though I’d have rather her do something a whole lot less stressful than that.