Total pages in book: 188
Estimated words: 179812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 899(@200wpm)___ 719(@250wpm)___ 599(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 179812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 899(@200wpm)___ 719(@250wpm)___ 599(@300wpm)
Sighing, I pick it up and open it to retrieve the ringing cell phone. Immediately my body tightens up because I see the face I’ve been sleeping to lit up on the screen, smiling, along with another redhead. Must be her sister that she’s taking care of. I focus on the ringing phone and as soon as I see a guy’s name flashing through the screen, I tense. Jeremy. Who the fuck is Jeremy and why is he calling my girl so late at night?
I accept the call but before I can say anything, I hear a voice I haven’t heard in over a decade. A voice that used to strike fear into me when I was a kid, and anger when I grew up.
That same voice echoes in my ear right now as it says, “You fucking bitch, where the fuck have you been? You think you can ignore us? Ignore me? I won’t let you fuck up my life, you hear me? You’re not fucking up my life or I’ll fuck you up. I’ll fucking fuck you and your bitch mom up…”
I’d listen to his drunken rant more carefully if he wasn’t talking in circles, repeating the same thing over and over in different ways. Something he used to do when he lived with us, when he’d come home drunk and create a ruckus, throwing pots and pans, banging doors and windows.
But that’s not the point. The fucking point is why the fuck is my drunk, deadbeat, estranged for years father calling the girl I’ve been obsessed with since the moment I saw her a year ago?
Chapter Twelve
I have butterflies.
Big, brutal, vicious butterflies flapping their wings in my tummy and doing it so forcefully that I might actually fly away. Because tomorrow is here and tomorrow is when he said I was coming with him. So we can have sex. So I can have sex with the man I’ve been obsessed with for years. Who also happens to be my stepbrother.
I think I should tell him. I should tell him who I really am and how we’re connected.
But then if I do tell him and he changes his mind about things, and I know he will because I’m a stupid stinking liar who’s been lying to him and his siblings for years now, what will happen to his game? What will happen to his whole plan about moving on? Although to be fair, I don’t even know if his plan will work. I know he thinks it will, but what if I can’t make him move on? Or he has sex with me and realizes, meh, she isn’t all that after all. Because aren’t virgins bad at sex, or is that just a myth that I heard somewhere?
Suffice to say, I have thought about it a lot. I’ve overthought it and I’m really, really nervous. And getting more so because he’s late.
He’s never late. In fact, there have been a couple of times when he’s been early. Which always threw me, because my shift starts at 5PM and in order to make it on time, he’d have to leave his practice by 3:00. And if he’s early, then even earlier than 3:00, and don’t his coaches mind? Maybe I can ask him about that. He did agree to talk to me, and maybe this could be one of the topics we could cover. Among other things that I listed in my notebook.
Yes, I made a list of things I want to talk to him about.
But that isn’t going to matter if he doesn’t show up. But why wouldn’t he show up? He would. He wanted this. Then something occurs to me: what if he’s in trouble? Oh my God, what if he got in an accident? What if he’s lying in a ditch somewhere…
“So what’s your name?”
I hear the question from one of the guests at the table I’m serving drinks to and my runaway thoughts break. “Uh, Jupiter.”
It’s a group of three guys, all wearing dress shirts and ties, telling me they probably came here straight from work. Which is most of the guys here, blowing off steam after hours. One of them, however, is eyeing me with special interest.
While I’ve never liked being the center of anyone’s attention at this club, I absolutely hate it tonight. I’m back to wearing my normal attire, a lacy top with spaghetti straps that shows a sliver of my belly and my belly button ring—the silver hoop one that he likes—and a short skirt with my favorite heels. I have my hair in a high ponytail with my halo in place. And I hate how this stranger’s eyes slide over my body, lingering in places that don’t belong to him.
“That’s a pretty name,” he comments.
I throw him a small smile, hoping it doesn’t look too fake, and set down the last of the drinks. “Will that be all?”