Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 121887 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121887 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
I turned back to him.
“I took him down,” I reminded him.
I marveled that his sun-bright smile didn’t melt the windshield. “You did that.”
“Javi—”
“Listen, baby,” he began, “I know you women aren’t backing off. All the men know that. We also don’t like it, and you know that. So you cannot be pissed I’m not gonna feed into your play.”
I flounced (yes, I could do this even seated) to face forward and crossed my arms on my chest.
It was at this juncture (and in this mood) I decided to tackle something else.
“I know we have a date tonight, but after pizza and our talk, you’re going to take me home.”
“The hell I am,” he replied.
I turned to him, telling the straight truth, since I knew he didn’t miss me attacking him last night, and he definitely didn’t miss us rolling around in his bed yesterday morning.
“Javi, it’s hardly going to work, this taking it slow thing, if we’re living together.”
“I don’t have any problem with you setting the scene.”
He actually didn’t, which stymied me, and therefore, I had no retort.
Which gave Javi the opening to lay down an ultimatum.
“Right, your choices are, you stay with me, or I stay with you. I don’t give a shit where we stay. But you are not going to be unprotected.”
“I take it whatever you got from Kevin, if you got anything, means that situation isn’t sorted.”
“It is not.” He enunciated each word irritably, giving me a hint at how he felt about the fact that they, too, came up with zilch from Kevin.
“You guys didn’t get anything out of your interrogation?” I asked to confirm.
“Oh, he sang.”
Hmm.
“It’s just this is his bud’s thing, and it’s oozing everywhere,” Javi went on.
“What’s his bud’s thing?”
Javi didn’t reply.
Ugh!
I changed tactics. “Where is Kevin now?”
“Someplace safe.”
He said no more.
Gah!
I tried again. “Since this is happening to me and my girls, don’t you think we have the right to know what’s going on?”
“Nothing more is going to happen to you or your girls.”
That would be good.
Still, we could help. Many hands make light work and all that jazz. Not to mention, we had an uncannily dab hand with this stuff. Sure, most of it was dumb luck, but still.
On that thought, I wondered how I was going to get away from him to go to our Angels meeting, then have beer and wings, then hang with Titus for a while.
“We done talking about that?” Javi asked.
“For now,” I told him.
“We sleeping at yours or mine?” Javi asked.
I hadn’t stepped foot in my place in two days. I needed to get my mail. I needed to see how my mushroom looked with my décor (though, I already knew it’d be fab, I still wanted to see it in all its pink and white glory). I needed to make sure nothing in my fridge was spoiling.
But Javi had a bigger bed, his sheets were better, and I didn’t have any bagels.
What was I thinking?
“With Cody back on board, I’m sure I’ll be safe,” I remarked.
“With me sleeping right next to you, yeah, you’re right.”
He was annoying me, and I didn’t want to be annoyed.
I wanted to eat pizza, get our heavy discussion behind us, and then I’d recommence the discussion of sleeping in different places like any newly dating couple should do (if I was in that couple).
So I pulled out my phone and asked, “What kind of pizza do you like? I’ll order it so we don’t have to wait too long for it to show.”
“I already ordered it and scheduled a time for it to deliver, which is about ten minutes from now.”
How thoughtful!
Since I had my phone out, I disseminated the minimal information I had to the Angels text group, saying, Javi isn’t giving much, but he did say Kev talked, and whatever this is, it’s all about Trev.
As I was hitting go on that, my phone rang.
When I saw who was calling, my heart sank.
It was my mom.
Oh no.
In all that was going on, I forgot to reply to her text.
I worried my lip, trying to dredge up the courage to let the call go to voicemail.
“Who’s that?” Javi asked.
“My mom,” I told him.
“Ignore it.”
“That’s hard, Javi,” I admitted.
“You got a life. You’re with your man. You’re gonna be eating pizza with him in ten minutes. She can wait and talk to you when you’re ready.”
“She doesn’t know I have a man,” I pointed out.
And…
Was Javi my man?
Things in favor of this idea: he was sweet, protective, a great kisser, knew how to cure a hangover, we’d slept together three nights in a row, I was showering in his shower, and he was taking me to and from work.
Things that negated this idea: we hadn’t yet had an official date, or at least one that wasn’t weird, we hadn’t had sex, and, well…that was kind of it.