Total pages in book: 33
Estimated words: 31254 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 156(@200wpm)___ 125(@250wpm)___ 104(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 31254 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 156(@200wpm)___ 125(@250wpm)___ 104(@300wpm)
“Brooks, what did you do?”
“Do?”
“Did you tell people about us? That we’re getting married?”
“I made an announcement.” He smiles, like he’s proud. It’s kind of adorable, but I have a bigger issue here.
“Oh, Brooks, what have you done?” I groan.
“Do people know? Are they saying we can’t get married because I’m a chef and you’re a food critic?”
“I wish they were saying that instead of what they are saying.”
“What are they saying?” He tries to peek at my phone.
“They’re calling me a cheater and a slut and so on. But don’t you worry. You’re a man, so everyone’s saying I fooled you into our affair.”
“Why would they say such things?” He takes my phone from my hand, scrolling through.
“Don’t comment!” I snatch the phone back.
“There is some Felipe claiming to be your boyfriend. I was going to set him straight.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“I know,” Brooks says with so much certainty. “How could he be when we’re married?” I don’t even bother to correct him. There’s no use.
“He’s my ex-boyfriend.”
“I don’t like it.”
I would laugh at his remark, but my anxiety is rising by the second.
“He was kind of a boyfriend. I don’t know. He would tag along to places I went. Felipe has a following on social media too. He’s into the wine world or whatever.” I wave my hand, not wanting to talk about wine because I’ve heard enough about it to last me a lifetime.
“He’s in the past, so why is everyone mad then?” His eyes drop to my phone. I pull it closer. I don’t need him commenting everywhere, especially from my account.
“Because I’ve been telling him for months to let everyone know we’re not together, so the internet still thinks we are.”
“I’ll tell them.”
“It’s not going to be that easy. I have no clue how Felipe will take this. You see, he slept with my best friend. So he is the cheater, if what we ever were was boyfriend and girlfriend, but he pushed hard on his social media to make it appear that way. I didn’t post him on mine.”
“He cheated on”—Brooks's eyes drop to my bare legs—“you?”
“Yes, on me.” In fairness, I told him I was a virgin and was keeping it that way. I wasn’t interested in sex. I was wondering if I might be asexual. Brooks shot that theory to hell and back, twice now.
“I don’t understand this. Why would he cheat on you?”
It makes it hard to be mad at Brooks when he's saying sweet things, and I don't even think he's doing it on purpose.
“It doesn’t matter. He’s going to lean into me having cheated on him to get more social media attention. So if I call him out about sleeping with my friend, he’ll say I made it up. Or this could be his way back in with me.”
“Back in?” Brooks's eyes narrow.
“He’s been wanting to get back together. Keeps showing up here.”
“Is that so?” His expression hardens.
“Brooks.”
“You’ll be my wife. You’re having my baby.” Brooks stands. “We’re leaving.”
“Fine,” I agree. There is no place better to hide than Brooks's mini mansion in the sky.
Chapter Twelve
BROOKS
“Felipe must die,” I say to the boys before the first hand is even dealt. I would have skipped poker night, but Slater almost pushed me out of the apartment, saying she wanted to talk to her mom and have some alone time. I didn’t like that, but I also didn’t want to make her more upset after the day she’d had.
“I know of a pig farm in Lakeside,” offers Graham.
“Brooks doesn’t need a pig farm. He can chop him and cook him at The Plate.” Kaden, the starting quarterback for the Mavericks, makes up and down motions with his hands as if he’s slicing and dicing some imaginary vegetables.
“Don’t use a knife. It’s too easy to trace back to you. Use like…”—Graham’s eyes stray to the dealer, Dylan, our former lawyer and current knitting guru—“a knitting needle.”
Dylan isn’t a fan of this idea. “So I can be the suspect? Why not a hammer or why are we even using these sorts of tools? Isn’t a gun the best and quickest?”
“Poison is the easiest.” Graham turns to me. “Can’t you reverse engineer a duck into some kind of toxic poison?”
“Right. A natural death would be the most undetectable, so get some super-duper salmonella.” Kaden nods in agreement.
I look from one of my friends to the other. “I meant metaphorically.”
There’s a small bit of silence before Dylan shuffles the cards again. “I knew that.”
“We were just joking,” Graham adds.
“Not me,” says Kaden with a wide grin. “I’m all in for hiding the body, too.” He swings his now healed arm. “I’m a super soldier now with my repaired rotator cuff.”
“Since our body disposal business is on hold, what are your plans?” Dylan asks.
“I’ve got a guy who was able to get the birthday video taken down,” Graham offers. He does have social media experience of the negative kind. He’d given his nephew a car for his birthday. The problem was that the car was six figures and the nephew only one. From what Graham explained, everyone had something to say about that.