Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 91423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“It’s his journey,” I remind my brother. “He’ll get there when he gets there. Losing Teddy is enough to make anybody lose their mind.”
“Is it?” Aiden’s eyes flash at me. “You seem to be handling it well enough.”
“I always seem to handle everything well,” I remind him.
He gives me a flat smile. “I still want to know where you were.”
“Why? Would it make you feel less anxious to keep tabs on me? Do you need my location?”
He gives me a cool look. “Sometimes I worry more about you than I do Ted… I mean Luke.”
“You are more than a caretaker for us, Aiden,” I remind him. “You don’t have to fall back into old patterns because Teddy died. And you don’t have to worry about what an independent man in his thirties is doing. My life is well in hand.”
“Falling back into old patterns. That’s what we are all doing, isn’t it? Luke got high after years of sobriety. I am clucking around after the two of you like a mother hen, and you,” he says, giving me a knowing look. “What do you do when stress and misery come to your door?”
“I haven’t done… that,” I tell him.
“Good. Because if bodies are going to start dropping, I want them to be the right ones.”
Aiden quite literally knows where the bodies are buried, and we are not speaking in metaphor. Everybody has a bad habit, a quirk. Some people shop too much, others turn to substances. When I need an outlet, I kill people. Deserving ones. Over the years it’s become more of a skilled job than a passionate hobby. We’re all mellowing with age.
“I’ll go see Luke,” I tell Aiden.
“I don’t want you to see him. I want you to watch him. I am worried that whoever came for Theodore will be able to get to Luke in this state. He needs to be fucking clean. This is not the time for us to fall apart.”
Aiden’s right. If we are under siege, it’s a very slow one, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. In the world our family inhabits, some people move over time with devastating precision. An accident here, an unfortunate killing there. Entire bloodlines can be ended that way.
“Leo?”
“Yeah?”
Aiden looks at me with a blank expression that I know heralds danger. “Did you continue to follow that young woman, Ella? Find out anything more about her?”
Does he fucking know? No. He’s doing that thing he does where he makes an almost supernaturally accurate guess and then the other person confesses to a tumult of things Aiden never had any fucking clue about.
“She’s just a girl,” I say. “Red herring. She likes to walk in cemeteries. It’s a goth girl thing.”
“Ah,” he nods. “Good. Then the burial was private, as we wished.”
“Yes,” I say. “I’m going to go get some things and then I’ll go babysit Luke.”
“Thank you, Leo,” Aiden says. “You always do the right thing.”
That makes me laugh, genuinely. “Fuck off, Aiden,” I say, on my way to go get everything sorted.
CHAPTER 5
Ella
The man in the night doesn’t come back. I wait for him, sleepless, for several evenings until I eventually pass out.
Like every other man, he got what he wanted and bounced, I guess. I know it’s absolutely crazy to feel hurt that the guy who broke into my apartment to fuck me didn’t catch feelings in the process, but being rational isn’t always the easiest when the sex is that fucking good.
I can still hear his voice, and feel his hands on my body. When I am trying to focus on other things, it rings in my ear. Sometimes, I get the sense I am being watched, but when I look around there is either nobody there at all, or a crowd that I can’t pick anybody out of.
A week goes by and I start to relax, I guess. A lot of things have gone wrong lately. There’s been sadness and darkness, and it’s starting to become swallowed up by the force of normality.
It’s a Thursday. Early evening. It’s been a very long day. My boss is an asshole, I’m late for a rare evening spin class, and I’m pretty sure my rent didn’t go out of my account because the payment bounced. My head has been all over the show lately. I can’t concentrate on anything.
I keep telling myself that I am going to get over it soon. I loved him, or thought I did, but the internet tells me I barely knew him, and real love is about time and effort. A dozen reels appearing on my social media feeds tell me what I was experiencing was limerence. Maybe it was.
Sometimes telling myself I didn’t properly know him and couldn’t have loved him makes me feel better. Other times I know it doesn’t matter what anybody says about how long it takes to fall in love because I know how I felt when I was with him, and I know how it feels to face the fact I am never going to be with him again.