Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
“Yeah?” I asked as I stood.
“Just ‘cause Ariah isn’t a princess doesn’t mean you get to fuck her.”
“Killjoy,” I mumbled, but only because that was what he expected me to say.
I couldn’t exactly tell him that I didn’t want to fuck anyone at the moment but a certain surly bartender with freckles and a good arm.
Because that shit would have sounded crazy. Especially coming from me.
It wasn’t an experience I could wrap my head around.
Clearly, I just needed to fuck the pretty bartender out of my system.
It would be like a forced restart.
Everything would work right again after that was over.
Or so I thought.
Until I ran into her in the unlikeliest of places.
The grocery store.
Seemingly getting harassed by some dude in a suit.
And for some reason, she wasn’t threatening to rearrange his face.
So, it sounded like a job for me…
CHAPTER THREE
Theo
“Come on, you beautiful, majestic, pain in my fucking ass,” I grumbled, gripping my peeling steering wheel as I slammed my head back on a rest that had some of its innards poking out.
Out the windshield, the almost startlingly white peacock glared at me as he shook his tail around, trying to get the attention of the completely oblivious peahen that was busy pecking at the lawn that cost a small fortune to maintain each month.
I knew.
I’d seen the bills.
Maybe it was worth all that water and fertilizer and the dude who showed up in the middle of the night with weird cleat shoes and walked the entire fucking lawn to aerate it and shit.
I hadn’t grown up with yards, and I hadn’t lived anywhere where it was safe to put my bare feet on public lawns.
So did I frequently slip out of my shoes and walk on the over-watered, over-fertilized, over-aerated grass every chance I got? Yes, yes, I sure did.
“She’s giving you all the signs that she’s not interested, dude,” I called out the window as he continued to undulate his tail feathers as if his lady friend had even spared him a glance. “You’re putting out all the red flags, my friend,” I added. “You know, maybe she’s holding out for one of those blue and green dudes. Oh, shit,” I said as he started toward my car. “I didn’t mean it. I’m sure if you keep sexually harassing her, she will fall madly in love with you. That’s totally what we all want. Come on, don’t make me do the horn thing,” I pleaded.
I didn’t have time for this shit.
If I did, would I gladly set the car in park and watch his unreciprocated mating ritual? Yes, yes, I would.
I mean, I came from places where the only real “wildlife” you got to encounter was rats the size of small dogs and pigeons perched on buildings, just waiting for a chance to shit on you.
So, yes, I wanted to sit my tired ass in my car and stare at some pretty, wildly expensive, peacocks for an hour or ten.
But that wasn’t a luxury I had.
I had a list of shit on the notepad on my passenger side seat that I needed to get done before I got changed for my shift at the bar again.
“Scotty, listen, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Fiona is probably dogging herself out to the swan in the lake, okay? I hear he’s in a rock band and has a cool van. It’s a harsh truth, but we’ve all been cheated on. Time to move on. There’s that duck down by the lake who seems lonely lately. Sure, she’s a little plain, but everyone is compared to Fiona. Thank God,” I said when he finally moved off the winding driveway, saving me from creating ridiculous scenarios in my head when I had about five hours of work to accomplish in under two.
Not being familiar with the town made me go the wrong way three times when trying to remember how to get to the dry cleaner’s. Then the damn feed store to get the shit that was fed to Scotty, Fiona, the swans, and the ducks.
Fancy, rich people pets.
Who ate better than I did, I swear.
Since I’d had nothing but ramen and peanut butter wraps for several weeks, that wasn’t hard to accomplish.
What can I say, moving across country was expensive as fuck. Especially because I’d needed to buy a car. There’d never been any good reason to have one in any of the cities I’d lived in. Not when public transportation was cheaper than car payments, insurance, and repairs.
Sure, it was a real piece of shit car—the only kind I could afford—but it hadn’t been cheap either.
It had eaten through a huge chunk of my savings. The rest went to gas and hotel rooms along the way.
The money at the bar was good, but it was going to take a while until I felt like I was not broke as fuck still.