Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
If I hadn’t been two seconds from bursting into flames when I’d seen him standing in that bedroom, I would have laughed at how neat and meticulously styled his hair had been. It was a far cry from the shaggy mop he’d worn when we were younger.
It looked good on him. All of it.
Then again, it was Ramsey. He could have been wearing the prison scrubs—as Nora called them—and I wouldn’t have cared.
The door to his parole officer’s building swung open, drawing my attention from my phone. Ramsey came jogging down the steps, a folder in his hand and his eyes aimed at the ground.
Butterflies swarmed in my stomach, and it didn’t matter one bit that he hadn’t looked at me or spoken to me again since our argument in the bedroom. He was there. That was all I needed.
“Hey, how’d it go?” I asked when he opened the door on the new black Toyota 4Runner.
The SUV had been a recent splurge, one I didn’t need considering my old Camry was sitting in the garage. I’d paid cash for it a few weeks earlier and it drove like a freaking dream. I didn’t plan to be driving it long though. As soon as Ramsey was allowed to get his driver’s license, it would be his. Nora had rolled her eyes when I’d asked her to drop me off at the dealership. I was usually the more frugal of the two of us, choosing to squirrel away money in investment accounts rather than spending them on frivolous purchases. But Ramsey coming home was exactly what I’d been saving for.
I worked my ass off as a travel agent. I’d started when I was eighteen. It had been slow at first. Planning vacations for the people of Clovert usually consisted of a two-night stay at the closest budget hotel that had an indoor pool so the grandkids could swim in January. I had my eyes on bigger adventures though. Things like seeing the giant tortoises in the Galapagos Islands, driving classic cars in Havana, and getting lost inside Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar. They were extravagant vacations I hadn’t been sure I would ever be able to afford, but I planned them all anyway.
It wasn’t until I started a website called Travel For Me that things really took off. It wasn’t the normal travel agent gig where people would come to me and I’d put a vacation together around their specifications. No, these were trips I’d made around my specifications, and people would come and purchase them like a floor plan on a home. There were different packages and price ranges. Add-on or bonus itineraries. But for the most part, I was selling my dreams to strangers, all the while banking the money so I could one day share that dream with Ramsey.
When I’d first started the website, I’d set a countdown for sixteen years in the top right-hand corner. Not a single one of my thousands of customers knew what it meant. A ton had asked. I lied to some. Played dumb with others. But I’d never told anyone the truth. Anyone who truly knew me assumed it was a countdown to when Ramsey was scheduled for release. An homage of sorts. It was more than that though. So much more.
That countdown was a reminder of how long I had to save every single penny I would need for both of us to retire and travel the world the way we’d discussed so many times growing up. I lived on around ten percent of what I actually made each month. Taxes and insurance took a solid forty percent of the rest. But that remaining fifty percent that I deposited into an investment account each month was how I fell asleep with a smile every night. Pinching pennies and living cheap was a small price to pay for that kind of security.
Ramsey slid into the black leather passenger seat. “I need to find a job.”
“Nora told you I was going to add you to my payroll, right? Did they give you the paperwork? I can fill it out now if you want and you can run it back in there. Get it ticked off your to-do list.”
His gaze never flickered my way as he buckled his seat belt. “A real job.”
“Uh, it is a real job. I have boxes you can move. Filing that needs to be done. I’m not sure you have the cheerful demeanor needed to deal with my good customers yet, but I have a few assholes I’d really enjoy listening to you cuss out.”
He opened his folder, took out a piece of paper, and passed it my way. He gave no explanation as he stared out the windshield.
“What’s this?”
He. Said. Nothing.
Ohhh-kay. It appeared as though I was on my own to figure out what the hell he wanted.