Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84075 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84075 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
The sun keeps rising. The world keeps spinning. Everyone outside our apartment acts as though nothing’s changed.
But I feel like the earth split open and swallowed me, and I’m still falling, falling, falling, and I doubt I’ll ever stop.
Days pass. Carmine invites me out one night and I figure I should show my face so they don’t think I’ve died. I meet him and his wife, Brice, at the Oak, and we sit at the bar with drinks at our elbows. They’re talking about baby names and cribs and diapers and shit like that while I sip my whiskey and think about Kat and the gorgeous way she swallowed my cum an hour ago—
“Ford, you look like you’re having just the best time possible,” Brice says, grinning at me. “Care to offer some thoughts on what color we should paint the nursery?”
“Gray,” I say.
Carmine laughs. “You love gray, don’t you?”
“Simple. Neutral. What’s not to love?”
“I was thinking more like a light blue,” Brice says gently and sighs. “All right, I get it, you don’t love the baby talk.”
“No, it’s fine, I get that you two are at that point in your lives. Don’t let me stand in the way.”
“Maybe we could, you know, talk about other stuff for once,” Carmine suggests and his eyebrows raise. “Like Ford’s fiancée?”
“Wonderful topic suggestion, Carmine,” Brice says with a happy nod. “How are things at home?”
I take a moment to consider that.
I can’t exactly tell them that I’ve been having some of the filthiest, most satisfying sex of my life for the past week—we’re close but I’m not that close with anyone. But it’s also a deeper question than I realized.
The sex is great. The sex is amazing.
But what about everything else?
“We’re decorating,” I say finally as the silence gets to the point of going on too long.
“Decorating,” Carmine echoes and gives Brice a look. “Do you hear what I hear?”
“I hear a man deeply in denial about his feelings,” Brice says with a nod.
“I am not—”
“Deeply,” Carmine agrees.
I wave a hand at my friends. “It’s business. She needs me to take care of her mother when her shitty family inevitably kicks her out, that’s all.”
“But what are you getting out of this situation, Ford?” Carmine leans closer to me, head cocked to the side, not smiling now.
I don’t return this gaze.
I told Evander the truth because Evander lives in Chicago and doesn’t touch my social world. He’s a neutral third party—and I knew he wouldn’t judge me.
Carmine’s different.
He’s a gangster like Evander with a very flexible idea of morality, but he’s been different ever since he met Brice. Family matters more to him now and I know it’ll piss him off if I tell him the truth, or maybe that’s just me projecting my own feelings, but either way I can’t bring myself to say it.
“I have my reasons,” I mumble, and both Brice and Carmine stare at me like I’ve gone insane. “Private fucking reasons.”
“Since when did you have private anything?” Carmine asks, looking honestly stunned. “Ford Arc is… private? I’m talking to the guy that proudly brags about how many women he’s slept with, right?”
“Last I heard, he was well over—” Brice starts but I cut her off.
“Things are complicated, all right? Grandpop’s health isn’t perfect.”
They both go silent. They know what Grandpop means to me—he’s the head of my family, the man I look up to, practically my real father.
Even if Grandpop’s asking me to do something to Kat that doesn’t sit well, I still love him.
I still look up to him.
And the thought of losing him—
Well, I can’t go there right now.
I clear my throat and sit up straight.
“Kat and I are good, all right? Shit’s complicated but we’re figuring it out.”
“Here’s to shit being complicated then,” Carmine says as a toast.
I drink, feeling a sour pit in my belly. I hate this, hate hiding things from my friends, hate knowing what I’m going to be forced to do to Kat even though I’ve been actively avoiding it. Grandpop’s pressure campaign hasn’t eased up at all and if I don’t deliver something soon, he’s going to give up on me entirely.
And I don’t know where that’ll leave me.
“Well, hello there, Ford,” a voice says and I turn.
My cousin Riley’s standing with his wife, Janice, a willowy blonde woman that looks like she’s going to fall over any second. I turn to them and stand and shake Riley’s hand, and something feels wrong in my gut. It’s the way Riley’s looking at me with that smug grin—like he knows something.
“Riley, Janice,” I say. “Funny running into you two.”
“We’ve been coming to the Oak a lot more these last couple of weeks,” Riley says and beams at me. “I figured, with everything going on, I should start to put myself out there again, you know? Make society contacts and all that.”