Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
“He left it to me when he passed away.”
“Oh, I see. It’s really quite something to inherit. He was clearly a loaded old baked potato.”
Aspen is completely unapologetic for that, and my lips nearly twitch. I admire brutal honesty. She’s like Jace that way. He always told the truth, but he peppered it with humor whenever he could.
We might as well sit down here. I gesture at the two couches, and Aspen takes one. She plops down, grunts, and rearranges herself. I can tell she didn’t expect the couch to be so hard. I made the same mistake the first time I sat down. It was like falling onto a pile of bricks. Eighteen months later, my tailbone still feels bruised from that monstrosity.
She arranges her legs, one over the other. Her jeans are fancy and bleached out. They have patterns all over them, and the hems go from tight to flared out. Bell bottoms, I guess, but I don’t think they’re from the right era. They’re too modern. Boho, I suppose. Her top is adorable. It’s a short-sleeved T-shirt with a giant strawberry on it. Her purse is faux leather, the strap crossing over her torso, but I don’t let it draw my eyes there. Her hair, which sweeps down nearly to her waist, is a honeyed, sandy mess. With her matching sandy brows, flecks of ginger freckles dancing over her nose and cheeks, her full pink lips, baby blues, and altogether natural worshipper of great open skies earthiness about her, she looks like she’s always lived in California.
She looks young. That’s what she looks like.
Even though she’s dressed quite plainly for all intents and purposes, and her look is like a bohemian princess with zero cares in the world, I can see the dark shadows in the flash of her eyes as they sweep around the room. They finally land on the huge windows facing the street.
“If you don’t like the place, why don’t you just sell it and move somewhere else?”
She’s blunt. I do appreciate that. “I can’t. It was in the will that I can’t sell it for five years after inheriting it.” I have other money, so I could technically buy something else and rent out this one or let it stand empty. Maybe let it go to pot and show it the same amount of love my grandpa showed me for all I care.
“Hmm, that’s interesting. What other asshole clauses did he put in there?”
I sit down on the other couch. It’s equally as hard, so I perch with care. “I don’t know. Lots. He had investments, corporations, some of this, some of that…he put stipulations on all of it. It has been a lot of lawyer meetings.”
“Being rich sounds like a pain in the ass. You should just take it all and donate it.”
I’ve donated rather large chunks of whatever money I have been able to get my hands on because I feel the exact same thing. I refuse to laugh. I refuse to admit she’s right. I refuse to acknowledge just how much wealth I was left with. Honestly? It’s overwhelming. I find it a little bit obscene, and I’m half embarrassed by it. I’m not the kind of man who was ever cut out to live this way.
“Jace never was able to tell me much of anything about you.” Aspen loops a strand of hair around her finger. She plays with it for a few seconds before she lets her hand drop. She looks at me directly. “So? Who are you? I need it in the bullet form cheat study notes style.”
Maybe if I give her this, it will be good enough. She’ll decide this isn’t for her, that I’m not for her, and she’ll go back to wherever she can be happy. “I wasn’t much of anyone. I’m still not much of anyone. I like to be left alone, for the most part.” It’s not like I had a choice for most of my life. “You know what I did for a living. The same thing your brother did. I stopped a year and a half ago. My grandpa pulled strings and influenced some pretty high-up people to get me back here. He was sick, dying. He wanted me to be here for that last little bit.” One final punishment from a prick who never loved me, but I was his last bit of flesh and blood, and I guess that meant more to him than anything as he was getting ready to shuck off the old mortal coil. “So, I suppose I’m retired now.” Was that by choice? Fuck no. Do I miss being out there in the field every single day? Well, not every single day, and not every job. But some of it. Just some days. I’m always going to be that way. There is about four percent of me that is never going to be used to being domesticated.