Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Will she glimpse the calculated precision with which I move through life, or sense the restlessness that keeps me awake when my mind slows down?
Or will she just see what everyone else does?
Giovanni Bavga.
Gangster from the day he was born. Poor kid never had a chance.
Power wrapped in expensive fabric, danger disguised as civility.
She’ll see you naked, Giovanni, the voice whispers in my head. That’s how she’ll see you because that’s what this job offer’s about.
You want to put her on her knees, watch her eyes trace over your broad shoulders, follow the cut muscles of your abs, and then land where attention belongs. On your dick.
You know that’s why you’re doing this.
You want her.
Not the blonde choking on Ricky’s cock. Not the redhead humping his leg. Not the brunette getting Dom’s ten-inch punishment.
Her.
I start the shower, thinking, thinking, thinking…
And by the time the steam is swirling up near the ceiling, I’ve got a plan.
It’s the perfect set up for a green-eyed girl with a chip on her shoulder.
It even came with a hint. Dropped innocently, but still. Looking back, she’ll see it.
Then she’ll know.
I jerk off thinking about her face when it hits her.
Leaning one hand flat against the marble tiled wall while the other one pumps my cock.
I come to the fantasy of her eyes locked on mine.
Daring me to play with her.
4
I’m staring at the Florida-shaped water stain on the ceiling, mentally renaming it “The Sunshine State of Existential Crisis.” It’s 4:30 a.m., and my brain has decided to host an unauthorized TED Talk titled “Every Bad Decision You’ve Ever Made: A Retrospective.”
Diane’s snoring has reached performance art levels. Like, seriously, is she auditioning for the role of “Human White Noise Machine” in some avant-garde sleep theater? The curtain between us might as well be tissue paper for all the acoustic privacy it provides. I hate her peaceful slumber with the burning intensity of a thousand suns—or at least with the intensity of someone who hasn’t slept in what feels like geological epochs.
My body’s vibrating with a low-grade electric hum that I’m choosing to diagnose as caffeine withdrawal rather than acknowledge it as the anxiety it actually is. Clever strategy, really. Can’t be having a panic attack if you haven’t had your morning coffee yet. That’s just science.
I don’t even realize I’ve slept until my alarm goes off at six-fifteen. Two hours of unconsciousness that my body snatched when my mind finally surrendered to exhaustion. The gentle vibration of my phone against the metal frame of my cot sounds like a whisper to me, but apparently registers as a sonic boom to Diane. Snore machine—who’s been happily sawing logs with the acoustic force of a chainsaw convention all night—has the audacity to hiss, “Have some consideration, would ya?” about the whisper-quiet buzz coming from my phone. The irony is so thick you could serve it for breakfast, which is exactly what I won’t be getting at this hour in the shelter’s dining hall.
My first-day outfit I’ve laid out is staring back at me from the chair—a silent judgment panel for my life choices. I tried it on three times last night, each iteration slightly less “woman who definitely doesn’t live in a homeless shelter.” The yellow cardigan is a particular act of defiance. Like, yes, I’m starting a job for a potential mob boss today, but I’ll be damned if I don’t bring a little sunshine to the criminal enterprise.
Three weeks until I’m officially homeless instead of just shelter-homeless. The distinction feels important in the way that choosing between drowning in ten feet of water versus one hundred feet feels important—technically different but practically identical in outcome.
My brain keeps whispering that today isn’t normal, will never be normal, that “normal” packed its bags and left town without leaving a forwarding address. But I’m holding it together with the emotional equivalent of dollar-store tape and pure spite.
Welcome to Monday, where the rules are made up and my dignity doesn’t matter.
The shelter is quiet when I head to the door at 7:20 a.m.—too quiet, like someone replaced the background music with a deleted scene from The Shining. The kind of silence that practically begs for an ominous wind chime or creepy child’s laughter.
Sister Margaret hunches over her desk like a gargoyle guarding the gates of bureaucratic purgatory. Her mug says “Blessed,” but her eyes say, “I’ve seen your type before.” She looks up from what I assume is her morning ritual of calculating exactly how many prayers it would take to save my soul (answer: infinity plus one).
“Good luck today, Emmaleen.”
Four words. Four horsemen of the apocalypse. Translation: Don’t blow this job like you’ve blown everything else. We’ve already mentally packed your things.
I force my face into what I hope resembles gratitude rather than constipation and nod. The countdown clock in my head ticks louder—twenty-one days.