Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 106948 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106948 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
“Leo has plenty of room, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind you staying.”
Before Joy could respond, the front door banged open and a bleary-eyed Kayla wearing the same sparkling green dress I’d seen in her selfie from earlier tonight, stumbled in, laughing with her arms draped around some not-hot older guy and two of his friends.
I shrank back into the couch as I got a better look at them when they came deeper into the apartment, the scary vibes the guys gave off made the hair on my arms stand up in a harsh prickle of instinctive fear. Joy must have felt the same way because she pressed up against my side, exchanging a worried glance with me.
I gazed at the kitchen table across the room where I’d left my purse with my phone in it.
They were all laughing, loud, like wasted loud, and that laughter died off when they spotted us.
Kayla hung off the older man, her eyes overly bright as she seemed to struggle to focus on us before smiling. “Girls! I didn’t think you’d be home. This is Manny, Ray, and Doug. Guys, these are my girls I told you about!”
“Kayla,” Joy said in a tight voice. “Can we speak with you, alone, please?”
Snorting with laughter, Kayla mocked Joy, “No, you can’t speak to me alone. You’re always such a party pooper. Come on, live a little!”
We didn’t say anything and I studied the men with Kayla. The older guy, Manny, was busy groping my friend’s ass, but the two burly guys behind him, probably in their thirties, stared at Joy and myself like we were two pieces of meat on display in a butcher’s case. The one on the left, Ray, had dark brown hair that brushed his ears and mean little eyes. The one on the right, Doug, had light brown hair cut short and a cold gaze that made me even more uncomfortable.
“What, cat got yer tongue,” Manny said with a wide, super-white smile. “Don’t be shy. Any friend of Kayla’s is a friend of mine. You girls party?”
I shook my head mutely while Joy said, “No, no thank you.”
“No thank you,” Doug said with a not-so-nice smile. “What, you one of those straight-edge girls? You don’t like to have fun?”
“What about you?” Ray asked while taking a step closer to me, the gold necklaces draped around his thick neck glinting in the lamp light. “You look like the kind of girl that wants to have fun.”
Kayla, oblivious to the drama, giggled as Manny tapped out a line of what I was assuming was cocaine onto the back of his hand before holding it up for Kayla to sniff off.
She took a big snort, closed her eyes and sighed, then shouted, “Party!”
I felt like I was going to puke, and that feeling heightened when Manny squinted his eyes and looked at me. “Who’re you?”
“Nobody,” I whispered.
“Hey!” Kayla squawked as Manny abruptly pushed her towards Doug, who caught her with a leering grin.
Approaching the couch, Manny’s nostril’s flared as he stood before us and smiled wide enough that I could see one of his molars had been replaced with a gold tooth. “Pretty little thing, aren’t you? Normally I like my girls blonde, but I think I got a taste for something exotic tonight. You be nice to me, I be nice to you, right?”
Joy clenched my hand harder and scooted down the couch, away from Manny, pulling me with her. “Wish we could, but we have to run, you guys have fun. We have to get going. Meeting up with our boyfriends. They’re waiting right now.”
Kayla snorted. “Oh please, you don’t have a boyfriend. Just stay and hang out, stop being such a bitch. I swear you’re so fucking uptight.”
I gritted my teeth when Manny sat down next to me, throwing a meaty arm around my shoulders and pulling me to him, the musky scent of his BO grossing me out. “Nah, I think you girls are gonna stay right here with us.”
For the first time, Kayla looked slightly alarmed as she stared at Manny trying to draw me closer to his side while I resisted. Jealousy, along with worry, flared in her gaze, not that I gave a fuck at this moment. With her creepy ass…whatever he was leaning into me, I was fresh out of fucks to give for her emotional state. The stink of his heavily applied cologne hit me and I wanted to push him off, but I had a feeling if I slapped him, he’d be the kind of man to beat a woman to a bloody pulp. While he was thick around the belly, he was also big, and I didn’t doubt he could break me with one hit.
The pungent odor of some kind of heavy alcohol and cigarettes washed over my face as he leaned closer, the smell of him invading my senses. “You ever try coke?”