Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 101155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
But we’d already established I wasn’t nice.
I shrugged my coat off and closed my hand around his upper arm enough to pull him forward. Then I settled the heavy parka around his slim shoulders. He looked at me in surprise.
“Relax,” I said. “Just don’t want you turning into a popsicle while we do this.”
“Do what?” he asked. “Unless you’re thinking about trying a rainbow flag on for size, we’re done here. And if that’s what you want, you’re kind of shooting yourself in the foot by bundling me up in layers.” He leaned forward just a bit and said, “I’ll let you in on a little secret, straight boy. We gay guys might have a few less clothes that need to come off for the deed, but there’s still a couple of important ones that you gotta figure out how to work.” He glanced down at my pants briefly, and I was supremely glad it was too dark for him to see the bulge there. “Then again, opposable thumbs that can handle a button and zipper are kind of necessary.”
I felt a smile threatening to tug at the edge of my mouth, but I managed to quell it. As interesting as it was to spar with Isaac, I had more important things that needed dealing with. “So, Blaze, why the stage name? You an actor?”
“Yeah, Meryl Streep asked to borrow my Oscar so she could polish it up for me real nice.”
“Do you even understand the concept of giving a straight answer?” I asked with a sigh.
“I don’t understand the concept of straight, so…”
What had been somewhat amusing a moment ago was turning irritating, so I used my body to force Isaac back against the car. His only choice was to either hold himself still or actually end up falling into the back seat.
“Stop testing me,” I said coolly.
He had the sense not to respond this time, though I could see the comeback was right on his lips.
His still-too-fucking-plump lips.
“Who are you?” I asked. “What’s got you running halfway across the country in the dead of winter in a car that you’d be lucky to get five more minutes out of? And with a kid, no less. Do you have any idea what could happen to you if you got stuck in a ditch somewhere on one of the remote roads out here? What could happen to Newt?”
“Hey!” Isaac suddenly exploded as he shoved me hard. “Don’t you say shit about that! I take good care of Newt. I make sure he gets everything he needs, even if—”
“Even if what?” I asked when he suddenly snapped his mouth shut.
But he remained stubbornly silent and then turned his face away from me. The fire was once again gone and that pissed me off to no end.
“Are we finished here?” he asked.
No.
“Yeah,” I said after a moment and stepped back. “We’re finished.”
Duffel bag in hand, Isaac shoved past me, not bothering to close the car door. My coat looked huge on him as he hurried back to the house, his shoulders stiff and his spine straight.
Just a little too straight.
Like he was trying too hard to prove how unaffected he was.
I waited until he was inside and then closed the back door. I opened the driver’s side door and reached in to pop the car’s hood. It took just minutes to remove the sparkplugs I wanted. I quickly dropped the hood and then walked toward the house. The kitchen was empty when I entered, but I saw my coat lying on the floor, like it had been shrugged off and forgotten.
It was undoubtedly Isaac’s way of sending me a message. I went to the refrigerator and stashed the sparkplugs in the butter dish, knowing Dallas would eventually find them. Hopefully he’d understand the significance of it. Since our alcoholic parents had had a penchant for driving drunk, as Dallas and I had gotten older, we’d come up with a plan to remove the sparkplugs from our parents’ cars whenever they started losing themselves in the first bottle of alcohol. We’d store the sparkplugs in the butter dish in the fridge and return them to the vehicles the next morning when we knew our parents were sober enough to drive. It’d been our way of protecting both them and innocent people from their alcohol-induced stupidity.
Since there weren’t any concerns with Isaac being a drunk, my hope was finding the sparkplugs would at least cause Dallas to question why they were in the refrigerator in the first place. He wouldn’t necessarily keep Isaac and Newt around simply because I thought that was what needed to happen, but maybe he’d pause long enough to see what I saw.
I closed the fridge and reached down to scoop up my jacket when I heard footsteps on the stairwell. I hated the little flurry of excitement in my belly at the thought of sparring with Isaac again, but it was Nolan who turned the corner and entered the kitchen a moment later. He jumped when he saw me, and I saw him glance at my chest.