Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 74971 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74971 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
“I know,” I said, feeling Coach’s gaze on my profile as we sat at the bar in town, holding lukewarm beer, trying to unfreeze our limbs from a long day out in the cold.
He didn’t have to say it.
If he wasn’t in the town, and he wasn’t at the campgrounds, that only left the houses and cabins. None of which we could casually approach like we could people in town or in the camps. And the people out there might not be as friendly as those we’d come across already.
“Hey,” a voice called, making both of us turn to find the guy who’d been working at the gas station looking at us. “These are the guys looking for Murphy,” he said, eyes hazy, face flushed, clearly a few more rounds into the night than we were. And it was early. But I guess there wasn’t much else to do around here, especially in the cold season. His arm was thrown around an equally drunk-looking guy’s shoulder as he led him over toward my side.
“That’s us,” I agreed, nodding.
“This is my buddy, Dick,” he said, and just barely seemed to manage to hold back a snicker at the older guy’s expense. “And guess what?” he asked.
“What?” I asked.
“He knows Murphy!” the gas attendant, Jake, I think his name was, said. Faces and names were starting to blur already.
“Oh yeah?” I asked, trying not to sound too eager.
“Yeah, he does septic,” Jake supplied.
“Ain’t glamorous work,” Dick started.
“But someone’s gotta do it,” Coach piped in.
“That they do. Always shit to deal with,” Jake added, chuckling at his own… I guess we could call it a ‘joke.’
“Anyway, someone bought one of the cabins way out a bit,” Jake went on, and I was silently thankful for alcohol and the way it loosened up lips.
“Yeah, and the last owner had been using the old outhouse still,” Dick said, shrugging it off as if that was common, not straight out of a fucking nineteenth-century novel. “But the new owner wanted some septic. So I went out there to install it.”
“And you met Murphy?” I asked, trying to move this conversation along.
“Yeah,” Dick said, giving me a sly smile I didn’t quite understand. “I met her, alright,” he said, and I felt like the wind had gotten kicked out of me.
Her?
He’d met her?
Murphy was a woman?
I mean, this wasn’t the eighties or nineties or even early aughts. It wasn’t exactly rare for women to be gang leaders and kingpins and explosive experts.
Hell, I’d met women who ran all sorts of empires.
And Murphy, well, there were female Murphys, even if they were rarer than male ones.
“Woulda done more than just meet her, if you know what I mean,” Dick added with an exaggerated eyebrow wiggle.
I knew what he meant.
And I liked a good time with a woman more than most men. That said, I also knew that women didn’t appreciate repairmen there to do a job getting all creepy with them.
I didn’t know how old Murphy was, but Dick had to be in his late fifties, and looked every single day of it.
“Yeah, she’s easy to look at,” I said.
“Hey,” Jake said, looking momentarily sober. “Didn’t you say Murphy was a guy?”
“Must be mistaken,” I said, shaking my head.
“Easy to look at,” Dick scoffed. “Hottest thing I’ve seen in a long, long time,” Dick clarified.
“Is her cabin hard to get to?” I asked, ignoring the shit about her looks. I could practically hear Slash in my head when he found out the person we were looking for was a chick.
I swear to all that is holy, Sway, don’t you dare fuck that woman.
“Hard as fuck to get my truck there,” Dick said, grimacing at the memory. “I’m used to that, though,” he added, puffing out his chest a bit. “But it’s tucked away. Think she’s got twenty acres or so to herself. Next to old Burt’s property,” he went on, and I mentally logged that away, figuring I could look into a local “Burt” and where his property was located. “Can’t miss the thing. Painted an ugly as fuck green,” he added.
I plied the two of them with another couple rounds, but the more booze Dick got in his system, the more he wanted to talk about the ways he wanted to fuck Murphy, and therefore, the less useful he got.
I paid our tab and headed outside with Coach who let out a deep breath.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I feel like I need a shower after that,” I added.
I was nobody’s prude.
It wasn’t even rare that someone walked in on me fucking one of the club girls in the common space.
But that shit was always consensual.
I didn’t give my attention to women who clearly didn’t want it.
And guys like Dick, yeah, they often were the sorts who didn’t think twice about taking what they wanted. Or, at the very least, fantasized about doing it. Like he’d been doing for one of his clients.