Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 74577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Because if I couldn’t keep this house rental, I honestly had no freaking idea what I was going to be able to do.
CHAPTER THREE
Atlas
This was not good.
For multiple reasons.
Topping that list, though, was because Kingston was going to be fucking crushed that I hadn’t called him. From the hospital in Switzerland. On the way to the airport. When I got to the States again. And, of course, when I got home.
We lost our mom early, and Kingston had stepped into the parental role immediately, taking care of all four of us when he was hardly an adult himself.
He always wanted to know what we were up to, if we were alright, when he was going to see us next.
The rest of my siblings made that easy by all settling down in Navesink Bank, putting down roots, getting jobs, getting married, having kids.
I’d been the one who refused to stay in one place long enough for roots to dig down.
I was sure each strand of gray that had started to streak his dark hair was because of me and my inability, or unwillingness, to always tell him what I was up to, where I was, if I was alright.
It was bad enough that I was back in town without having contacted any of them for, hell, three months.
But when he showed up and saw me in this condition?
I was hoping that I could suffer through the worst of this alone and get myself somewhat mobile again before they even knew I was back in town.
It wasn’t that I didn’t love my family. I did. I just wasn’t great at letting people take care of me. Since, well, that just wasn’t the kind of life I’d been living.
So, yeah, I was inwardly bracing for King’s arrival.
While also having to wrap my head around this new development.
Namely, the woman standing about five feet away from me, still holding a frying pan, and watching me with worried eyes.
She was pretty as fuck.
I noticed that probably even before I’d seen the frying pan, while her dog was still licking my face.
She was average height and weight, but a little more top-heavy, wearing an all-black outfit covered in dog hair. Her shiny dark brown hair was clipped back, but a couple of strands had fallen loose around her square face that was dominated by these deep set, sultry-ass dark brown eyes with a fuckton of lashes around them. Those were the kind of eyes they used to call ‘bedroom eyes.’
As she seemed to get lost in her own thoughts, she gnawed on her pillowy lower lip which made a dimple dig into her cheek.
I couldn’t help but wonder if she only had the one, or if she’d been lucky enough to get a set. And what they might look like while smiling.
Christ.
What was wrong with me?
There was no reason to be eye-fucking the woman who looked like I’d just kicked her dog.
That dog, however, seemed completely oblivious to the tension in the silent room as he walked over to his bed big enough for a full-grown man, turned around, then curled up with his head resting on a massive dog bone shaped stuffed toy.
The woman, AJ, she’d called herself, and I didn’t say anything as we both waited for Kingston to show up.
It wasn’t a long wait, though.
Kingston’s SUV came peeling up the driveway and the car door slammed just a second after the engine cut.
There was a pause as he fished out his keys, then opened the front door, since AJ seemed frozen in her spot, the frying pan still lifted.
“AJ, I owe you—“ he started, striding in, but then getting a look at me. “Atlas,” he exhaled, his face falling. “What the fuck?” he added, moving toward me. “What happened to you?”
“It’s no big deal,” I rushed to insist, even as pain seemed to ping off of every nerve ending just sitting there.
“No big deal?” he repeated, jaw getting tight. “It looks like you fell off of a cliff.”
“You’re close. Down a mountain,” I corrected, shooting him a smirk, wanting to lighten the mood.
“A mountain?” he repeated. “Right. You were skiing. What happened?”
“Other skiers,” I said, shaking my head. “We crashed. I kept crashing and crashing until… I blacked out,” I admitted.
“You blacked out?” he asked, his keen gaze moving over me.
“Woke up to my bone sticking out of my leg,” I admitted.
“Oh, God,” AJ groaned, making us both glance over, finding her looking a little green. Her free hand was even pressed to her mouth.
“Concussion, compound fracture, couple broken fingers, bruised ribs, and strained rotator cuff,” I told him. “I was lucky,” I added.
“Lucky,” King scoffed.
“People die on that slope every year,” I said, shrugging off danger the way I always had.
If anyone understood me, it was Kingston.
The big brother who had plucked me off of the ground when I’d built a makeshift ramp in the street, then flown over it on my bike, only to crash. And crash hard.