Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 67468 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67468 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
As if my mom knew that Alice wasn’t going anywhere.
I smiled when Alice shot me a roll of her eyes as she left.
That smile fell away as I turned back to Wake.
“I need a favor,” I said. “From your guard friends.”
Wake’s eyebrows went up.
“What’s that?” he asked, his understanding already there in his eyes for me to read.
“I want to make that miserable fuck’s life as horrible as I possibly can for the rest of his days,” I murmured. “And I need your guard friends to do it.”
“Dutch’s brother is where he’s at right now,” Wake said with a smirk slowly lifting up the corner of his mouth. “Why wait?”
Why wait indeed.
After making sure that my girl and my mom were set for a few hours, I went to the county jail where Dutch’s brother, Tomas, was manning it.
“Can’t believe I’m doing this for you.” Tomas shook his head as he opened the back door. “Just, whatever you do, remember that I have to keep this job.”
I had no clue what that meant since there seemed to be some sort of underlying, hidden meaning there meant only for Wake.
Ignoring the two of them, I headed deep into the county jail, going to the same damn room I’d been held eight freakin’ years ago when I’d thought I lost the last person I loved in this world.
“Why did you do it?” I asked the figure lying on the bed.
Oberon sat up stiffly in his orange jumpsuit.
“Why’d I do what?” he feigned ignorance.
“Why’d you take what you did from me?” I asked. “And why did you allow your son to do the same?”
“I did nothing that wasn’t wanted,” Oberon lied.
I snorted.
“You stole years off of my life, and my mother’s life,” I said. “And you taught your son how to do the same. He almost took that same thing from Alice and me all over again, just because you two fuckheads are too greedy and think rules and laws don’t apply to y’all.”
Oberon stayed stubbornly silent.
“I hope that one day,” I said, “when you’re getting forced to do something you don’t want to do while in prison, that you remember this moment right here when I say, ‘I told you so.’”
Oberon started cursing as the door closed behind me.
I jerked my chin up at Tomas, then headed back home.
When I got there, everyone was gone, even my mom.
“Where’d my mom go?” I asked as I made my way toward the woman that was quickly becoming my reason for breathing.
“She had a meeting with her divorce lawyer.” Alice’s eyes sparkled. “Apparently, while he was at it, he filed some falsified paperwork with the county and used a friendly judge to do it. That judge is now on leave, but according to your mom’s lawyer, she’s still technically married in the eyes of the law. Which, she decided, was great for her. She’s going to take him to the cleaners and says that she can’t wait to demolish that house on the island, and make it into an even bigger and better house for ‘her impending grandchildren.’”
My eyes lit with amusement as I said, “You have something you want to tell me?”
We hadn’t exactly discussed birth control, or children, for that matter. Hell, we hadn’t even discussed our future.
But I hadn’t needed to. We were both on the same page. We wanted each other. We wanted kids. And it didn’t matter when or how.
Also, she was it for me, and I was it for her.
We didn’t need fancy words or promises. There was just an all-knowing in my soul that told me that we would be together for the rest of our forever.
I bent down and pulled her into my arms, then walked backward until we were on the bench.
“You know,” I said as I plopped down with her on my lap. “I could get used to this.”
She threaded her hands around my shoulders and buried her nose into my neck, neither one of us moving to do anything more than just that.
Me holding on to her, because I needed the reassurance that she was there and okay.
“I’m okay,” she said, echoing my thoughts.
“I know,” I rasped.
We lay like that for a long time. The last rays of the sun disappeared and soon, we were sleeping.
When we woke up hours later, stiff and sore, as well as slightly hypothermic, we did nothing but go inside, fall into bed, and hold onto each other for what was left of the night.
The next morning, when we woke up, we made love.
It was soft. Sweet. And when we were done, I didn’t ask her a question.
I told her what we were going to do.
“We’re going to go get married,” I said. “In Vegas.”
She snickered. “Your mom will do plane rides?”
I shrugged. “I guess so.”
“What about my dad? And brother?” she asked. “Karen? Your club?”