Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 111676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
“Okay, so, again. Why did you do it, Jade?”
“Why do people like us ever steal anything, Wolf? Or maybe you’ve forgotten…” She waved a hand toward the house. “Living in your nice house, with your rich friend. A scholarship… Your drug business.”
Nice house? Sure, the place was better than any place I’d lived in, but it was still a shithole. Peeling wallpaper, leaning floors. She just assumed I no longer had financial problems because of what? Rogue? He didn’t pay my way. I earned it.
“Give me a fucking break.”
“Well, I could do with a break, but here I am playing maid to a bunch of slobs.” She threw her hands out to the sides, studying me. “Why did you even agree to this, Wolf? I know damn well that you don’t want me in your life any more than I want to be here.”
I hated how those words stung.
“You could have just let us pay you back.”
What did she think we were? The Bank of Hard Knocks? “That’s not how this crap works, Jade.” I dropped the notebook to the ground. “You steal from most drug dealers and they’ll put a bullet in your head. Woman or not.”
“Rogue isn’t Al Capone. That—” she pointed toward the house—“is Rogue’s petty way to get one up on Cassie.”
“If you didn’t want to deal with the petty bullshit, you should have been smarter and either not gotten involved or not gotten caught.”
Jade evidently didn’t appreciate that comment because her brow furrowed, and a heavy hand full of attitude landed on her hip. “Don’t patronize me! It’s pure luck that you aren’t in jail right now. Or maybe you never got caught because no one was willing to rat you out.” Now both hands were on her fuckable hips. “And here, you always preached about honor among thieves. The hypocrisy.”
That word got under my skin like a damned splinter, working its way deeper. That woman had no right to call me a hypocrite.
“Like you’re not the definition of a hypocrite.” Me threatening to rat her out was simple business. The way she’d dropped me? Oh, that was personal, and it had fucking broken me. All her having to be a “live-in servant” for a few weeks would hurt was her ego.
Her nostrils flared. “Says the guy who hated silver-spooned assholes but now sells out the friends he grew up with for one.”
“Friends?” I laughed.
She’d avoided me, point-blank just admitted she didn’t want to be in my life, abandoned me when I’d needed her the most, and she thought we were friends? “A friend would definitely think it’s okay to skip out on their friend’s dad’s funeral. Some fucking friend you are.”
Her expression blanked before she redirected her attention to Dog. Her not showing up for Dad’s funeral had been a hollow-point bullet straight to my heart. Sure, she’d cut me out by the time Dad passed, but I had loved that girl more than anything else in the world. She’d been my best friend, my rock. The only damn person I’d needed then. I was so sure she’d show up that I’d looked for her. But she didn’t even have the decency to send me a message. I’d never felt so disposable in my life.
“You’re right. We aren’t friends.” She tore at her thumb, refusing to look at me. “And it wasn’t my place to go to the funeral.”
I felt betrayed all over again. “What the fuck does that mean?”
Her jaw tensed. When she looked at me, there was a trace of hurt in her eyes. “It means, you didn’t need me, Wolf. You had Nora.”
Before I could offer a rebuttal, she turned and walked back to the house.
“What the fuck?” I mumbled.
Jade had dropped me months before I’d started dating Nora—to get over her. To convince myself that I wasn’t as worthless as Jade had made me feel. I never would have thought that Jade gave a shit about who I dated after her, but that comment…
I glanced at Dog, belly up on the lawn chair, then looked at the back door. “Seriously, what the fuck?”
Shaking my head, I brought the joint to my lips and took a hefty puff.
“I don’t need this shit,” I said before dropping my head back against the nylon. I really didn’t.
Seven
Jade
“Stupid Gucci shit,” Cassie mumbled, tossing Rogue’s expensive white shirt into the washer along with all the others.
As well as trash, apparently, he’d been hoarding his laundry. The fact that Rogue trusted Cassie with his clothes blew my mind, for very good reason. She took a bright-red thong from a Wal-E-Mart bag full of bright-red thongs and tossed it in the machine. The irony that she’d bought those with his money…
Her antics were at least distracting me from my earlier encounter with Wolf. I hadn’t expected anything from him except a cold shoulder. Certainly nothing that deep and definitely not that soon. The look on his face when he’d mentioned his dad’s funeral kept playing through my mind on repeat. It made no sense. I was the last person he should have wanted there, and the idea that he had, that maybe he’d needed me, cut deeper than I thought possible.