Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 100628 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100628 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Throwing my bag over my shoulder, I hurried inside, worried something was wrong.
“Nice of you to show up,” Pop barked as I quietly let myself in the front door.
Looking back, I wish I would’ve said something, asked what was wrong, sat down with him at the table and figured out what his deal was, spent a little time with him—but I was too stunned to do any of that. Pop had never used that tone with me before, not once. He’d been angry before, sure, and he’d been frustrated, but he’d always kept his cool. Plus, I’d been coming and going as I pleased since I was seventeen years old. I always let Nana know if I wasn’t going to be home all night, but it had never been a problem if I came home late.
I stood frozen just inside the door, watching as he leaned his forehead on his fist. After a moment, he raised it again and threw back the whiskey sitting on the kitchen table in front of him.
“I’m sorry, Pop,” I said quietly. “I didn’t realize that—”
“Go to bed,” he ordered, not looking at me.
I flipped the lock on the door and hurried into my room, clenching my teeth against the tears that threatened. It probably shouldn’t have been a big deal, and wouldn’t have been for anyone else, but we were different. When I’d moved in with Nana and Pop, he’d known the kind of life I’d had with my mom and he’d deliberately made changes to make sure I felt safe. There were no men yelling at Nana and Pop’s, because he didn’t allow it. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t speak sharply to me or Bird or Nana. He didn’t slam around the house when he was angry. He never left after an argument with Nana, even if he was pissed. It was like the two of them had set out rules for themselves to make sure we felt secure and they’d stuck to them.
“Pop’s in a mood,” Bird whispered, sticking his head out of his bedroom door. “Steer clear.”
“Do you know what’s going on?” I whispered back, glancing over my shoulder.
“No idea,” he muttered with a shrug. “After dinner, he said that he had a headache, but that was it. He’s just been sitting at the table for like four hours.”
“What the fuck?”
“Nana went to bed at midnight,” Bird said, looking down the hallway. “And he didn’t go with her.”
That was strange, too. Sometimes Pop wasn’t home because he was doing shit for the club, which wasn’t often, but it wasn’t rare either—but if he was home, he always went to bed with Nana.
“Twilight Zone,” I said, making a face at Bird.
“Tell me about it,” he said with a huff. “You go to Rumi’s party after work?”
“How do you know about Rumi’s party?”
“I’m eleven, not four.” He rolled his eyes.
“Are you sure? I thought you were eight?”
“Fuck off.”
“Firebird!” I gasped theatrically, still whispering. “Do you kiss your nana with that mouth?”
“If the people you hang with are kissing their nanas, you need to find a different crowd,” he shot back, closing the door.
I grinned, feeling a little better as I went into my room. Bird had that effect. He’d driven me crazy when he was little, but now I liked his particular brand of crazy. If my mom had given us one thing, it had to have been intelligent dads because me and Bird had always been smart and I knew it hadn’t come from her. My book smarts had gotten me a scholarship to a private school that we would’ve never been able to afford, but Bird was even more advanced than I had been. He’d skipped a couple of grades and went to a charter school that catered to super smart kids.
As he’d grown, his wildness hadn’t gone away—he was still a complete daredevil—but he’d also developed a quick-as-shit sarcastic sense of humor that I loved. Sometimes I gave him shit just to see what would come out of his mouth after I’d pissed him off.
I put my bag down by the bed and gathered up the clothes that I’d thrown around the room in my haste to shower and get to work. I’d always kept things really organized, so my room was rarely a mess—but I barely had any space. I’d never say it out loud, but I was jealous of Rumi’s house. He was the only nineteen-year-old that I’d ever met who owned their own home, but there were extenuating circumstances. Rumi’s dad flipped houses and because of that, he had a good relationship with the realtors in the area that were trying to offload pieces of shit. Rumi’s place had been one of those pieces of shit and his dad Tommy had bought it for practically nothing. I didn’t know all the particulars, but I was pretty sure that Rum just paid his mortgage to Tommy every month and spent whatever extra he had fixing the place up.