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)
Even if I found myself fantasizing more about being curled up with him watching movies than I did about us actually hooking up. I even found myself occasionally imagining him doing random little life tasks: scrubbing the baseboards, taking out the trash, ordering dinner so I didn’t even have to think about what I wanted.
“I don’t know what to say,” Sofia said, teary-eyed on the porch after we’d already said goodbye no fewer than three times.
She had a trunk and passenger seat full of her belongings and a blanket and pillow paradise on the backseat for Hamster.
She’d only come home for one night. With the shooting schedule, and refusing to put Hammy in the cargo hold on a plane, it meant that she was going to need to road trip it. And it was a forty-something hour drive to the other coast. That put her on the road, on the low end, for seven days. If she decided to stop at some attractions, maybe ten. She started shooting in twelve.
It left her just enough time to move into her new place, get it somewhat set up, and work out a plan to have someone walk Hamster while she was shooting.
It meant I got next to no time with her.
We’d spent that precious time we had together mostly talking about how amazing the area she found an apartment in was, how one of her neighbors was going to be her costar.
“I do,” I told her. “I want you to be extraordinarily, can’t-believe-your-luck, can’t-even-sleep-you’re-so-excited-about-life happy.”
“I want that for you, too. And I will be back here for all the bridal party and all the other festivities.”
“Sof, that’s not—”
“Oh, please. I saw you two together. It’s inevitable. And I’m so happy you found the one person you will let take care of you. Okay. I’ve gotta get going. I love you more than anything,” she said, throwing her arms around me.
“Check in every single time you stop.”
“I will. I promise.”
“Drive safe. And you be a good girl,” I told Hammy, giving her head a last pet.
Then I stood there—watching, waving—until the car was out of sight.
Then I walked inside, upstairs, dropped onto my bed, and sobbed as the loneliness overtook me, acutely aware of how alone I was, how alone I would continue to be, how empty my life suddenly felt.
Eventually, not for the first time, I cried myself to sleep.
—
It was the creak that woke me up.
I was intimately acquainted with this house and its quirks: the way you had to jiggle the handle on the downstairs toilet, how the upstairs shower made a strange screaming sound when you first turned it on, the windows that whistled… and the steps that creaked.
I shot up in bed, my heart flying into my throat.
For a second, something like hope swelled.
Like maybe Sofia got a few hours away, decided she didn’t want this new life after all, turned around, and drove back to me.
But no.
No.
I’d gotten my text updates as I’d been grieving. Each gas station stop, places she stopped to eat and walk Hammy, most of them with pictures.
Even if she had turned around, she wouldn’t have made it back the same night.
That wasn’t her on the steps.
But it was someone.
The windows had been alarmed, and doors had been locked. Rune had gotten through the locks before, though, while reminding me that they shouldn’t be so trusted.
Could it have been him?
Did he come back?
If it was, why wouldn’t he just knock?
No.
It wasn’t Rune.
The other thing about knowing my house so well was that I knew my bed. My secondhand metal bed. With its rusty supports and loose headboard. It sounded like the damn thing was about to fall apart when I simply turned over in my sleep.
If someone was in my house, just getting off my bed to try to get to my gun was going to alert them that I was awake.
Another step groaned under someone’s weight.
My stomach flipped.
A cold sweat broke out over my skin.
Was this related to the drive-by?
If it was, why would they come for me?
No.
No, it was most likely not related to that.
I remember hearing once, though, that if someone was in your house during the day, they were there for your stuff. If they were there at night, they were there for you.
Fuck the bed.
I needed my gun.
Sucking in a deep breath, I flew off my bed and across my room, grabbing the drawer of my dresser and yanking it open.
My hand was still fumbling around inside when my bedroom door burst inward, cracking against the wall.
A helpless cry escaped me as footsteps thundered into the small room.
I knew I needed to focus, but I felt helpless but to look over, to see who was in my home.
Two men.
Big.
Dressed all in black.
Bandanas over their faces.
All I could say was they had dark hair and dark eyes.