Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 105665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
In that moment, he didn’t look like a rock star. Ian Cooper resembled a young man Jersey met on the streets. He left an abusive situation—a boy too young, like Jersey, to be on his own. But unlike Jersey, he didn’t have what it took to survive in a world where right and wrong didn’t exist. He chose right over necessary. And Jersey mourned over his dead, badly beaten body behind a dumpster before anyone found him.
So many people had come and gone from Jersey’s twenty-four-year-old life.
That boy flirted with her, curling his bottom lip between his teeth like Ian. Grinning to his eyes like Ian.
No. The man before her didn’t kill anyone. Killers didn’t find joy in the simplicity of someone showing up. Jersey knew this … she was a killer, and she didn’t know joy. She knew how to breathe in and breathe out and live life looking over her shoulder, one hand curled into a fist, the other clenching a knife.
“So … your friend. How long have you known him?”
She shrugged. “Not quite two months. Why?”
“Just curious. He seemed angry with me last night and protective of you.”
“Yeah, well you wouldn’t stop staring at him.”
“Sorry.” Ian frowned. “It … he was just unexpected.”
“Like a rock star in a rundown Newark neighborhood?”
He smirked. “Fair point.” Pulling his left hand out from his pocket, he looked at his watch. “We have an hour before Max drags us to the car by our ears so we’re not late for our flight.”
Jersey glanced around, making a complete circle in place.
“You’re lost.” He chuckled.
She chewed the inside of her cheek, trying to gain her bearings. “I’m so lost.”
“This way.” He nodded to her left. “Are you a runner, or were you just here putting on a pull-up clinic?”
Her eyes narrowed.
“It’s a compliment. It means you’re better than everyone at something. You were schooling that guy.” Ian took off jogging, and Jersey caught up. “Shredding his ego, slowly ripping apart his manhood.” He grinned.
She glanced over at him for a few seconds before returning her attention to the paved path before them. A grin crawled up her face. Jersey liked his compliment—very much.
“Have you always been a runner?” he asked as they approached the crosswalk at the end of the park entrance.
“Yes.” She slowed to a stop as they waited for the light to change. “When I was much younger, I lived in a foster home, and the husband wasn’t very nice. He liked knocking his wife around as well as me and the three other foster kids that lived there at the time. The oldest girl tried to watch out for us, took the brunt of the abuse.”
The walk light illuminated and they took off jogging again.
“I was the youngest, and I hadn’t been there as long as everyone else. So when Mr. Fisher decided to do … um … really bad things to me, G beat him over the head with a baseball bat. Then she told me to be brave and run fast.” Jersey grunted a painful laugh. “So, yeah … I’m a runner. I’ve been running ever since that day.”
Ian remained quiet for several blocks. Jersey thought maybe she shared too much. Stories of sexual abuse to children weren’t the best conversation starters.
“G?” He tossed her a quick glance as they slowed to a walk a few yards from the entrance to the hotel.
“Yes.” She shrugged. “I never knew her name. Everyone called her G. And she didn’t ask us to call her anything different than that because she didn’t really talk much, but neither did I.” Her brows drew inward. “I don’t know what happened to G. Mr. Fisher ended up in the hospital, and I heard rumors that he died. So maybe G ended up in juvie or prison if she was tried as an adult.”
Ian’s concentrated expression mirrored Jersey’s when she glanced up at him as they stopped just inside of the hotel lobby. Whispers and giggles surrounded them as a few women abandoned their rolling suitcases on their way out of the hotel to stop and take photos of Ian—not so discreetly trying to capture a distant selfie with him.
Jersey let their shameless photo op pull her attention away from Ian and away from her ugly past.
“Can I get a picture?” A teenaged girl sidled up to Ian as her parents gave him an apologetic smile.
Ian rested his arm on the girl’s shoulder and posed without hesitation. She was one of them … one of the people who would show up so he could sing, and he clearly felt grateful for her.
After several pictures, he rested his hand on Jersey’s back and guided her to the elevators. Her spine stiffened, unsure what to do with him touching her. The girl with a past of sexual abuse didn’t like people touching her, except Chris. She came to find comfort in his touch, maybe because it wasn’t sexual. But what made her most uncomfortable about Ian’s hand on her back was how it made her feel those flutters in her stomach again.