Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 121755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
“It really doesn’t sound like these people are playing with a full deck,” Joey noted.
“Agreed, so that makes them unpredictable because you can’t predict stupid,” Raye replied, for the first time sounding a little squiffy about this job. “It’ll make me feel better to get Titus’s take on it. So, unless anyone else has anything to say, it’s time to roll to the man cave.”
No one had anything to say, which was why we headed out to the cars.
While we did, in the middle of finding Shanti to see how she was feeling about a return to the man cave after her crash and burn with Titus, I noticed Harlow seemed distracted.
“You okay?” I asked her.
She looked at me and announced, “Javi has decided to have a sit down with his father.”
At this news, every Angel stopped dead.
“No shit?’ Jessie asked.
Harlow nodded and turned to Raye. “I’m sorry, Raye. He’s going to do this on Sunday, and even though I knew it was probably coming, and I know my man has it together, still, I’m worried about him.”
“Of course,” Raye replied.
And yeah.
Of course.
To say Javi’s dad was absentee was an insult to absentee dads, and the results of him checking out of Javi’s life were catastrophic, so we all got why Harlow would be worried about him.
“Humans are tribal,” Gemma said, reaching to take Harlow’s hand. “We crave family. Connection. I mean, even Duane, who seems totally down and out, like he’s given up, but that Amy woman offered him a connection, and he grabbed at it.”
“Yeah, and look what happened to him,” Harlow replied.
Gemma scrunched her face.
Jessie bellied up to her bestie (that meant Harlow). “What happened to him was the people he really connected with, us, Jinx, Persia, Skyla, all the rest, found out someone was fucking with him, and here we are.” She threw out her arms. “I wouldn’t give Javi’s dad a chance. But that’s me. Javi is Javi because he would. You don’t know what’s going to come of it. It might be nothing. It might be awful. But it might be something really good for Javi. Whatever’s gonna happen, he’ll be strong enough to handle it, and so will you.”
Harlow’s lips were trembling. “Thanks, Jess.”
“But if you need to bow out of this tomorrow because your head is with Javi, we’ll get it,” Luna put in.
Harlow turned to her. “Thanks, Loon.”
“You good?” Raye asked.
Harlow nodded.
“We ready to roll?” Raye asked.
In answer to that, we separated to get in the cars.
Shanti was driving ours, and quickly, before Joey and Gemma got in, I scrambled in and asked her, “You okay with going to the man cave?”
She turned and looked at me with a bemused expression. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because the…you know,” I reminded her as Joey and Gemma climbed in.
Shanti seemed confused another beat (however, I didn’t know if she was actually confused, or faking confused) before she said, “Oh yeah. Right. I’m over that. I gave it a shot. He wasn’t into it. No other direction to go but onward.”
This was true.
Still.
“Everything cool?” Joey asked from the back.
“Everything is awesome,” Shanti said cheerfully and started up the Sportage.
And I guessed I had to believe Shanti wasn’t fibbing, because that was when we rolled.
Titus sat in his big chair (throne?) on his dais under the kickass portrait of himself, while the Angels lounged in the tan, buttery leather couches, or on barstools, or in Jessie’s case, worked behind the fully appointed wet bar to keep us supplied with cocktails.
See how awesome the man cave was? And I didn’t even get into the wine racks or the golden Camaro.
And we knew how welcome we were because Titus had set out bowls of snack mix. The good kind with those crispy bread pieces that were spiced to perfection.
He so liked us.
Since it was the first time Gem and Joey had been there, it took a while for us to deal with their awe at their surroundings (again, such was the man cave), and their bigger awe at meeting Titus (such was all that was Titus), but we finally settled in.
Titus was reading the brief.
He was also frowning.
Which took the edge off the happy vibe of snack mix and cocktails in the man cave.
Then again, I was already on edge because Titus was all about copping looks at Shanti, and Shanti was all about pretending she hadn’t felt the sting after Titus turned her down.
But she was so good at this, even I wondered if I’d hallucinated her throwing herself on my couch in despair after that went down.
This of course made Titus cop more looks, and it made Shanti act more like everything was a-okay, nothing to see here.
Which tuned me into the fact that she was fake, fake, faking it.
So yeah.
That was why I was on edge.