Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 69018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
He wants to play the banana peel blame game?
It’s so freaking on.
Chapter two
Thorn
My last name might be Thorn—sort of/chosen—but usually, it’s not apt. I’m the strong, solid, quiet type, not the hot-flaming asshole variety.
Then again, opening with that kind of abrupt assholery didn’t exactly guarantee me a receptive audience.
I know I should do better. I should try. Alas, my people skills are zero—and it doesn’t matter what scale that zero is on because zero is always zero—and my patience is particularly shot to all shit and gone after a world-famous feline nearly got lifted on my watch.
I’m the head of the place. Not this place, but the place. I’m the one at the top. My name is the one at risk. Not that anyone would recognize me because office persona gets a hell of a good disguise—we’re talking fake mustache and all—but it’s still my name nonetheless. I’ve worked too hard to see it all go up in a bag of flaming litterbox turds.
Ephemeral Blemberfell—and believe me, I have quite the experience with terrible names, so I’m not going to go there—stares at me like I’m something that got dropped under the couch and sat there brewing for weeks without the benefit of having any preservatives. A lab dish of disgusting hair, fungus, mold, and maybe even a few miscellaneous lost teeth.
I don’t mind in the least. I’m used to people disliking me. At least in the field. When I’m working nine to five, most wouldn’t dare.
“What exactly is your name?” she asks flatly. Her face can’t hide that she’s seething.
Right. Again, I shouldn’t have jumped straight to the banana peels comparisons. “Thorn Stone.”
Her brows cross, my brows cross. Hers lift. Mine lift. She stares me down, and I stare right back. “That sounds made up,” she huffs.
Says her, with her own wild name, but then, she has me there. It is made up. Damien Strokewood just doesn’t have the same…professional ring to it. I had to pick something with an ounce more sense when I started my own company and reinvented myself. No one is going to hire you to do a job if they think you’re too busy…stroking wood. Thorn Stone is a solid name, and it matches my current persona just fine.
“Well, Mr. Thorn Stone, what can I do for you? Other than make you into a banana milkshake, which I would really like to do, considering the convention is pretty much over, and everyone else is packing up. But here I am, stuck waiting for the cops or you or freaking someone to come and pump me for information.”
She fists her hands on her hips and I have to say, she’s not horrible looking. At all. That’s actually the nicest thought I’ve had about anyone for a very long time. I’m one of those few people who is never attracted to anyone based on sight. I’m more of a get-to-know-someone-first kind of person, but the majority of people usually make you wish you hadn’t, so my get-to-know-someone-first basis is quite…nonexistent.
Ephemeral matches her name. She’s tiny. Spritely. Like, as in a sprite—the woodsy little fairy being. But her hair screams galaxy night. It’s jet black with pink, purple, and blue stripes, most of which are concentrated in the slash of bangs that hang flat across her forehead, framing a pair of striking green eyes with insanely long, thick lashes. She’s not wearing a woodsy outfit to match her spritely name either. Just a wild dress with cat zombies all over it, striped tights, and ridiculous platform shoes.
I have no idea how her clothes haven’t spontaneously gone into combustion mode from the amount of friction they’re generating by clashing so badly. More importantly, I have no clue how this tiny little lady ran across the entire arena in those huge platform shoes, chasing down that prick who stole her cat. I would be hard-pressed to take a single step in those monstrosities.
“I’d like to offer you my services for free.”
Her eyes widen. She looks me up and down, and her lips part. I suddenly realized how that just came out.
“Not those services.” Christ. “My security services. I’m in charge of the company working this event and a lot more besides.” I run a big place, and I run it right—the tightest of ships. I’m the owner, and I provide services to many of the most elite people in the country. And I’ve expanded over the years, amalgamating with a few companies and growing toward the lovely point of going international. There’s actually a big soupy pot of security business on the stove right now in the form of a very important merger.
I can’t have this cockup of a catnab blackening my reputation, especially when I took charge of this event at the request of one of my clients.
This tiny little slip of a woman with her wild hair and bright clothes rolls her eyes right in my face. “Thanks, but I’m good.” She looks like she’d rather lick a puddle of melted ice cream out of the dirt—ants and dust and grime and all.