Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 108862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 544(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 544(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
A rubber pancake and a mound of fake eggs.
Free breakfast in a hotel out in the middle of nowhere really teaches you fast beggars can’t be choosers.
The desk clerk said when I arrived last night that I looked sort of rough. Then he giddily decided to cheer me up by informing me that “the Chase Holt” stayed at this very hotel just a month or so ago and autographed a package of Oreos that the clerk to this day still hadn’t eaten. “Chase who?” I grunted back, then snatched my keycard off the counter and headed for the elevators.
I wasn’t in the best mood.
Still didn’t give me the right to bite his head off.
And why’d I act like an asshole pretending I didn’t know who Chase Holt is? Wyatt’s always playing him on the radio in his car.
Maybe I just didn’t want to think of Wyatt.
It’s too soon. I’ve already made my peace.
I’m not good for him.
And while I know his whole hang-up was with people making decisions for him, I think this is one I can make that’s definitely in his favor: me leaving. His life was fine without me in it in the first place. All I did was make everything more complicated.
Even if I think Bellamy fucking off was a goddamned favor.
Not that I meant for the asshole to drop Wyatt just like that.
But if Wyatt was gonna cling on to him forever, too afraid to find out whether he can stand up on his own without that bastard, wasn’t it better I helped take away his crutch to prove to him he’s capable of standing on his own?
I’ve felt dead inside since leaving that Tumbleweeds bar.
I thought last night would never end.
It took everything in me to walk home, make that phone call, get a driver, and put my ass and the backpack I’d just stuffed into that vehicle. It was a man with salt and pepper at his temples who glanced at me over his shoulder and asked, “Rough night?” I kept my eyes on the seat in front of me and said, “Just drive, please.”
Drive, he did. Making small talk, he didn’t.
And I was fucking grateful for that.
Also, I may or may not have had a potted orchid in my lap.
Like hell I was gonna entrust it to whoever the fuck was about to move in.
I settled on some dusty hotel just out of town. Paid the driver. Then sat on the curb outside, orchid next to me, staring at a car rental place and a diner across the street, both closed at this hour, while some light overhead buzzed and blinked.
And if packing a bag and calling a driver wasn’t hard enough, I gathered what little strength I had to take out my phone and give my tía a call, too, the only person on the planet I felt like I could talk to. Strangely, I didn’t even plan to ask for help. Didn’t want to burden anyone else. Just needed to hear a familiar voice and sort a few things out.
Then I realized my phone was dead.
Someone at the desk inside let me use the landline. Luckily, I knew my tía’s number by heart.
Hearing her voice was the instant medicine I needed.
The undeserved sweetness and sugar that just a simple, “Hey, sweetheart, how are you?” fed my soul, turning me into a stupid little happy kid again with no worries in the world. “Are you on your way back to your own place now? At this hour? You could’ve left in the morning or even the next day, y’know.”
I don’t know why, but I decided to tell her a little more.
More than I was planning to.
“Well, if I’d known your landlord was an evil gremlin and you didn’t have a place to go back to …” She sighed in the sweet, sad way she always does. “You should’ve said something.”
“I’ll be fine,” I assured her. “I just need help getting my dad’s car towed. And maybe the number to that contact you, uh … said you had in …” My head was so fuzzy. Could barely think. “… had in Houston. Can see if something pans out with them, or maybe—”
“Which hotel are you at again?”
“I said I’m fine, Tía. Really. I just …” I shut my eyes.
I guess she wasn’t buying it.
And maybe I was asking for help. Maybe I needed it. I wasn’t myself. I had no strength left. I was a walking shell.
“Stay put ‘til morning,” she told me before hanging up.
Couldn’t sleep five damned minutes last night. I even brought my dad’s book, tried to read that first chapter again, set it aside on the table next to the yellowed hotel bible when I gave up, and laid my body down sideways on the bed, staring at the ceiling.