Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
“I have to clean up at my house before Maddy comes over tonight. I’m going to attempt to bake pink blondies, which are apparently the new online craze, according to her. I have no fucking clue what they are, but the recipe I found seemed easy enough.”
“Fuck yeah,” Kace said. “I’ve seen so many vids about those things. A lot of my viewers said I should do a Cooking with Kace with those suckers.”
“Your Cooking with Kace videos are so fun,” Charlie said.
I pulled out my wallet and plopped down some cash. “It was good hanging out with you guys. And Kace, thanks for coming around for a kickoff meeting and coming here with us. You’re too kind.”
I got the fuck out of there before Kace sucked me back in. In another ten minutes I was out the door, headed back home. Kace stayed to hang with the guys at the brewery, and I was sure he’d find a hot hookup and forget all about our weird little exchanges soon enough.
“Activate Dad Mode, motherfucker,” I said under my breath as I walked into my kitchen and saw the pink blondie ingredients I’d gotten last night. Maddie would be dropped off soon, and I had a little time to start the baking process
Finally, something I could make sense of.
6
KACE
I knew something wasn’t right from the moment I punched in the code to my front gate. My TV crew had gone home after I left the bar, and my personal chef Benny had tonight off. At this time of night, none of my staff should have been at my house.
The gate had been fucked with. The big stones of the front pathway had some purple liquid splattered all over them, like someone had spilled a drink.
My heart rate kicked into high gear when I saw that the front door was wide open. Strangely, there was also something being played over the speakers inside, and it sounded like a recording of one of my football games from last year with the Ferals.
Weird. Really fucking weird.
“Shit,” I muttered under my breath, taking a step back and heading out toward the front gates again. I pulled out my phone, dialing Vivienne.
“What’s up, Kace?” she answered.
“Hey, Viv. We didn’t have any appointments for tonight at my house at all? I’m not crazy, right?”
“None, for once,” she said. “Is everything all right?”
I heard a crash from inside the house, like glass being shattered.
“Jesus,” I said. “Um, not exactly. I think someone is inside my house.”
“A burglar?” Vivienne said quickly. “Get off the phone with me and call the police, Kace.”
“Unless burglars like to watch my football games really loudly while they do it, I don’t think I’m being robbed.”
“Shit,” she said. “What the fuck?”
I started a video chat with her, nodding as the screen started streaming. “I’m going to see who it is while you’re on video with me. It might be a crazy fan, you know?”
“This is why I told you that you need on-site security, at all times,” Vivienne chided me. “The cameras just aren’t good enough, and half of your house is glass which is so easy to break—”
“I know, I know,” I said, walking back down the path toward my front doors. “I get it, Viv. Let me see who this is.”
Every muscle in my body tensed as I made my way through the front door. I knew I was big, and theoretically one of the strongest people in the country, but that wouldn’t mean shit if someone had a weapon or was otherwise off their rocker.
“Ho—ly shit,” I muttered under my breath as I entered the house and rounded a corner into my main living room.
The walls had all been spray painted. It smelled sour and foul in the living room.
Fucker. Asshole. You piece of shit. All sorts of ugly, graffitied insults across my glass, the white walls, and even the fireplace. The TV was on, playing an old rerun of one of my games as I thought, but the whole front of the TV screen was spraypainted and covered in raw eggs.
Anger and confusion flared inside me as I followed the trail to where it inevitably was leading: straight into my bedroom.
“Fuck,” I said again, charging ahead. “What the hell is going on here?”
When I entered the bedroom I saw a skinny guy with a paint can in his hand, in the process of spray painting the first wall in my bedroom.
His head whipped around when he saw me, and I could see that his eyes were bloodshot, like he’d been crying, or awake for three days, or both.
“Fuck you,” he said immediately.
“Get out of my house.”
“Fuck you for ruining any chance I thought I had with Daniel. You fucking piece of shit, he—”
The pieces finally started to come together in my head.