Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 68735 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68735 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
“One day, I’ll have that.” Malone sighed. “I’ll get on this. I’ll have Lottie’s lawyer come out and check everything out tomorrow. Gunner said he’d have her room and everything finished by then.”
We hung up, and I sighed.
“I like Malone,” Eedie said. “She’s so badass.”
Yes, she was.
“I think she’s bad ass, too,” I admitted. “I just wish I didn’t have to talk to her that much.”
Twelve
Get naked. Just kidding. This is a half bath. Don’t make it weird.
—Bathroom sign
CREOLE
Red-eye flights were the absolute worst.
Red-eye flights to Hawaii always seemed extra awful because of the time difference between Dallas and Hawaii.
In Dallas, we’d left at nine in the evening.
In Hawaii, we’d landed at eleven p.m.
And nothing was ever open.
It sucked, because I had eighteen hours to kill in Hawaii before I had to get on another flight and do it all over again.
It sucked even more when we got to our hotel for the day and realized that the fire alarm had gone off and there would be no checking in to the hotel today.
It sucked even more that every single hotel I called within walking distance was booked full.
“So now what?” one of the flight attendants asked.
“I have room for three,” Jessica, the most senior flight attendant other than me, said, looking at the other three flight attendants that she was closest to, leaving me all by my lonesome.
I knew without asking which three she’d be taking with her.
I smiled and said, “Y’all go on ahead. Get a good night’s sleep.”
They didn’t waste time waiting around.
Meanwhile, I sat on the concrete curb across from the hotel that we’d have been staying at and wondered what in the hell I should do.
My phone pinged, and I looked down at it, a frown marring my face.
Audric:
Are you in Hawaii?
I frowned before texting back.
Me:
Yes.
Audric texted back quickly.
Audric:
Can I call you?
Instead of texting back, I called him.
“What’s up?” I asked the instant he answered.
“My dad called, and he said that the neighbors texted him telling him that we had a shit ton of packages on our porch. I don’t know what they are, or where they came from, but my dad doesn’t trust the neighbors enough to let them take them inside. If you’re there, and you have nothing to do, would you run over there and see what the packages are?”
I looked at my watch. “Well, you’re in luck, because my hotel’s on fire and I have nothing better to do.”
“What?” he bellowed.
“I wasn’t in it when it caught fire,” I admitted. “We were just trying to check into it after our flight landed and found it like that.”
“We have a truck we use when we’re on the island,” he said. “It’s parked at a long-term parking near the airport if you can find a way to it,” he offered.
“Nice,” I breathed. “I wasn’t sure that I would be able to get to the house without spending three hundred bucks on an Uber.”
“Let me know when you get there and I’ll give you the code to get into the truck.”
I called him back fifteen minutes later when I got to the long-term parking.
“Code to get into the truck is 34433,” he said. “Keyless entry is on the side of the door.”
I coded myself into the truck, then shook my head. “Are you seriously still using your old school ID number?”
He chuckled. “How’d you remember that?”
“Because I used to charge my lunches on it when I was out of money.” I snorted. “You said I could.”
“I know.” He paused. “How’s your dad doing?”
I ran my hand along my neck as I got in, throwing my bag in the back seat.
“Crushed,” I admitted. “He works a lot, to try to keep his mind off of it, but he’s lost without my mom.”
I’d bet he was. I remembered them being two peas in a pod in high school.
“Can’t be easy losing your grandson and your wife that fast,” he said. “You always want to make sure you don’t outlive your spouse, so you don’t have to live without them. And you definitely shouldn’t outlive your own kid, let alone your grandkid.”
My stomach somersaulted in my belly.
Instead of answering, I started the truck up and backed out of the lot.
“What’s the address?” I asked.
He gave it to me, and I input it into the GPS and smiled. “Nice, it only takes thirty minutes when you’re not in the middle of rush hour.”
“Took me two and a half hours to get there the last time I was in town,” he admitted. “Tourists fuckin’ suck.”
I snorted.
“I’m a tourist,” I pointed out. “Plus, if it wasn’t for tourists, I wouldn’t have this cushy job flying to paradise twice a week.”
“True,” he said. “You’re more than welcome to stay there. Just make sure you cover the furniture back up when you leave.”