Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 75193 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75193 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
She had mom hips and big breasts, but she made it work.
“That’s true,” I said reluctantly. “Well, partially. He’s missing three fingers, and his hand is pretty scarred from the amputations.”
Alison moved up until she could see what Peek was doing on my hand, then smiled.
“That’s cute,” she said.
It wasn’t really cute. In fact, it was downright disturbing, and I’d never been able to figure out exactly why he’d gotten a picture of a skull on his hand.
He’d done it, however, and now I was stuck getting it permanently tattooed on my body.
Fucking fabulous.
“Alright,” another brother, Griffin, said as he came into the room. “I got you a new phone that doesn’t link back to you. Brand new number that’ll always show up as ‘private’ anytime you want to make a call. Have you been memorizing the numbers?”
I gave Griffin a look that said millions.
Griffin snorted and handed me the phone, and I took it with my free hand.
“Thanks,” I muttered, looking at the phone. “This one’s nicer than mine. Do you think it holds a good charge?”
“It’s solar powered. So as long as they put you in a room with a window, it should charge without a plug,” Griffin explained, gesturing for me to turn the phone over.
I did and saw the small panels on the backside, knowing they were the world’s smallest solar panels without even verifying it.
“Fuckin’ A that’s cool,” I muttered to no one in particular.
“Yep,” Griffin confirmed. “It’s a brand new product, too. One that hasn’t even been released yet.”
“Then how did you get it?” Alison asked, blissfully unaware of the shit Griffin was willing to do to for the ones he love.
Griffin looked at her for a short moment, his eyes going far away just for the slightest of seconds, and I knew the thought he’d just had was a terrible one.
A few years ago, Griffin’s son had died by way of a drive-by shooting, and he’d struggled to move past it since it’d happened.
His old lady, though, was largely responsible for getting him to where he was today.
“Alison, darlin’,” Peek said. “Why don’t you go get Ridley a water, he looks a little rough.”
I shot Peek a look.
If I looked ‘rough’ it was because I was fucking scared of needles.
And I still had two more tattoos to go in the next four days before I went to prison.
A place where I never in my life thought I would ever have to be.
Alison turned to study me, and mother hen came out to play.
“Oh, you poor thing,” she said, leaving the room without another word.
I turned to Peek and raised my brows at him.
“You’re such a shithead,” I said. “You know she’d do anything for me.”
“Exactly the way a good woman should be,” he said without an apology. “But don’t feel special. She’d do it for all of us.”
I smiled.
“Yeah, she would,” I agreed. “She likes me best, though.”
“She does not,” Casten countered as he came into the room next, a stack of papers tucked under his arm. “I’m her favorite.”
“That would be me, dumbass,” Mig said, following directly behind Casten.
I snorted.
“Y’all fight like brothers now,” Peek said, the Irish lilt to his voice getting a little more pronounced as his concentration became more focused on what he was doing to my hand. “And you’re annoying the ever loving fuck out of me.”
Except ‘fuck’ came out more like ‘fook,’ causing Mig to make fun of him, which made Peek stop what he was doing and glare at Mig.
Mig shrugged unrepentantly.
“What?” he asked once the silence went on for a long while. “I can’t help that no one understood what you said.”
“Shut up,” Peek ordered, then got back to torturing me.
“Here are copies of your last will and testament,” Casten said, skirting around the chair Mig had sat in, handing them to me.
I put the phone down on my lap and picked up the papers, the words on the top hitting me hard.
The last I’d done my last will and testament was when Aerie, my wife, had been alive.
We’d done it before our trip to Cancun, and had never thought about it again.
Now I was doing another one up, just in case.
Everything that I had to my name was being left to Emily and my sister.
A text message popped up on the phone in my lap, and I brought it up to my face to read the message almost on instinct.
I wasn’t one of the best of texters in the world.
In fact, I kind of sucked at it.
My fingers were too big, and more times than not I mangled the word, even with Autocorrect on.
It was a simple, three-word text message, but it made something weird happen to my heart.
Unknown (7:33 PM): Love/miss you.
I didn’t reply, but my heart started to pound so hard in my chest that I was worried someone might be able to see.