Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“Christ. Was this last night?”
“Yeah. Hence everyone sleeping in a little later than usual.”
“Is Vas still here?”
“Talking about me?” Vas asked, stepping into the doorway.
Yeah.
He’d been in a fight, alright.
His eye was black and blue and so swollen it was almost closed. He had a fat lip, a nose that wasn’t as straight as it had been when I’d left, and busted-open knuckles.
“You clean all that shit out before you went to bed?” I asked, gesturing between the injuries.
“Spike cleaned him up,” Croft said.
“Did anyone tell Fallon about this yet?”
“That was on today’s agenda,” Croft said.
I turned to Vas. “You gotta do it.”
“I’m not even a pros—”
“No, you’re not. All the more reason you need to be a man, go see Fallon, and tell him what went down at the club. You let me or Croft do the talking for you, and Fallon’s not gonna look at you the same. Get dressed and get over there before he hears it through the grapevine.”
Vas gave me a nod and turned to walk away.
“Vas?”
“Yeah?” he asked, turning back.
“You alright?”
“Yeah, I’m alright.”
“Good.” I waited for him to disappear before turning back to Croft. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“We had it handled.” He shrugged. “I figured you were… busy.”
“Never so busy that I don’t want an update on shit like that.”
“Want some help cleaning? Or are you working through some shit?”
There was no lying to him.
“Working through some shit.”
“Then I’ll put on the coffee.” It wasn’t until he finished the task that I felt his gaze on me again. “Wanna talk about it?”
“Not really, no.”
“Are you in some sort of trouble?”
“No.”
“A danger to yourself?”
To that, I snorted. “No.”
“Then I won’t bug you. But get your energy out here. It’s gonna be hot as the devil’s balls today. Don’t go running.”
“Got it.”
Luckily, the place was dirty enough to keep me distracted for hours.
And when I made my way outside, I found that the cement around the pool was covered in blood, so I got my ass to work on that, then pool maintenance, and, finally, back to my laundry.
By the time the place was shining, Vas was back after his talk with Fallon, declaring that instead of being pissed, he was now officially a prospect. Not long after that, it was clear that the grapevine was doing its thing, because our old man flew in to check on Vas. And not far behind him, our mom.
It all should have been enough to distract me.
But my mind kept wandering back to a little duplex.
And the woman inside it who had started to mean more to me than she should have so quickly.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Carmen
Things worked at warp speed in daytime television.
Within four days of her audition, Sofia needed to fly out to California for table reads and rehearsal.
While she was there, obviously, her plan in her free time was to lock down a place to live with, of course, Hammy. She became depressed immediately after Sofia didn’t come home the first night. There was no way I could have Hamster stay with me when she missed Sofia so much.
As for me, well, I got a taste of what it would be like if she was gone.
It was… quiet.
I didn’t realize how much liveliness Sofia brought into the house, how much her chatter filled the air—talking to me, talking to Hammy, singing to herself.
I filled the free time I used to spend with her by carefully packing up and labeling everything I knew she would want to bring with her: clothes, toiletries, some favorite books, blankets, and sentimental items.
She wanted me to keep most of the other things around for when she came back. But I knew deep down in my bones that she wasn’t going to be coming back. She was a woman meant for California. For never-ending summers, fellow actors, and people who would appreciate her sunshine.
I knew it.
She probably knew it too.
She just didn’t want to admit it to me yet.
Knowing Sof, she was feeling guilty enough about a temporary relocation. She wouldn’t let herself consider a permanent one. Not until she was there and settled, at least.
As for me, well, I was sad.
About my sister leaving, sure. And Hammy. But it was more than that. It was the lack of a hyperfocus to distract myself from the bottomless well of grief inside me. And, yes, it was also the loss of Rune.
That last one was so absurd that I did everything in my power to tamp them down whenever those thoughts surfaced. Because how the hell could I feel the loss of someone I’d only spent a few days around? How was it possible that I was suddenly thinking about him more than my best friend? More than my sister? More than my mom? And all the losses that linked me to them?
I tried to convince myself it was simply the sexual attraction, that while we got to explore a little, we hadn’t gotten a chance to have sex and work through the lingering attraction between us. Hormones and biology made for a much more compelling case than any kind of actual connection.