Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 69847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Geez, these men were competitive.
“I guess we’ll just have to settle with you protecting our asses, and not racing them.” Titus grinned as he pushed Banner with his toe. “And he did it shoeless, too.”
He had.
Slone was wiggling his toes in the grass, grinning manically.
“Whatever,” he held out his hand, and Slone lifted him to his feet with very little effort. “You’re still a little bitch, though.”
“Maybe,” I heard Slone reply.
“They’re still just as much children now as they were in high school,” Perry murmured as she went back to the bed and picked the baby up before curling Jett into her arms. “Come to the kitchen tomorrow when you wake up. I get up super-duper early with this one most days, and there’s no doubt in my mind that I’ll be awake.”
After promising her I would, I closed the door behind her, then finally picked up my phone that’d been blowing up.
Keene’s number was the last one to pop up showing he’d called.
I pressed redial and placed it to my ear.
It took Keene three rings to answer. “I’m sorry.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sure you are.”
“I really am. I didn’t know that she was sending you to your death. I thought you agreed,” he promised.
I snorted. “I agreed to go down something that was sure as hell going to make me go all limp and possibly drown? Yeah, I’m sure that’s it.”
There was a muffled ‘fuck’ on the other end of the line.
“I promise that it won’t happen again.” I didn’t reply to that, and instead Keene asked, “So where are you going this month?”
I believed him. At least, he wouldn’t allow any of that to happen again if he was present.
He was used to me taking off to random beaches by myself.
But this time I wasn’t going to a beach.
I’m not sure when I decided to take them up on their offer, but when I hit my room and saw them running their race barefoot, I’d already known it would be a fun month with him.
“I’m going to see when I get to the airport in the morning,” I shamelessly lied.
I wasn’t too sure why I’d decided to not tell my brother exactly where I was going and with who. Maybe it was because I was wanting to keep him a secret. Or, possibly, it was because I knew my brother would freak if I just decided to head out with a stranger.
Whatever the reason, I didn’t tell him, and I was okay with that after what he’d done to me earlier in the day—or hadn’t done. IE protect me.
He mumbled another few words under his breath, then blew it out in frustration.
“She’s scared, you know.”
I blinked. “What?”
What the heck was he talking about? Who was scared?
“Hades,” he answered. “She just wants you to be normal because you’re her best friend. And she’s traumatized from having to watch you fall like you did and almost die. This disease is her worst nightmare. And not because of what it does to her, but because of what it does to you. She can’t function in this world without you, and it’s already tried to take you away from her once. So today was more like her ignoring everything about you that she can, and force you into doing something normal that she feels you should be doing.”
I sighed. “That doesn’t change the fact that she still did it, and that it really hurt.”
“No,” he agreed readily. “But it does change how you might view her actions, doesn’t it?”
Kind of.
Hades came off as shy and bookish at first—though she was those things—but she was also a complete and utter asshole once you got to know her and she got comfortable around you.
But I wasn’t about to admit that.
She’d been a rebel for the last few years, daring me to come along with her on her ride to hell. But I just wasn’t adventurous like her.
I also wasn’t sure why the heck she’d gone off the deep end, but his words might explain it somewhat.
“She needs a boyfriend to focus all her craziness on,” I muttered darkly.
“Yeah, that would be nice for all of y’all to have boyfriends—hopefully like Coffey and not like that psycho that Crimson dated last year—and I no longer have to figure out a way to protect all of you,” he grumbled.
That ‘psycho’ that Crimson dated last year was kind of a psycho.
Like, really, he was the worst.
The only saving grace we had in her departure from him was that we didn’t stay in one place too long. The guy would have totally been stalking her if he had a way to leave and follow us everywhere.
That was one good thing about having a traveling circus.
“Did you know they’re saying you’re married to Slone?” he asked, changing the topic.
“Uh, yeah.” I paused. “I heard something about that as we were leaving the water park after y’all almost allowed me to drown.”