Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 146548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 733(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 733(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
My pulse is beating out of my chest in his silence.
Farrow takes the strings from me, stepping closer. “That’s good because that couldn’t have been mine either.”
I lick my lips, a smile trying to pull my mouth. I nod stronger, and we’re looking at each other more deeply. His fingers are perilously close to my dick, and he knots the strings.
Any other time, I’d ache for those fingers to go lower. But right now, I cringe at the sensation in my collarbone. Like a knife is staking me on repeat.
“What’s your pain level?” Farrow asks.
“Zero,” I joke. “I feel absolutely amazing. Like I body-swapped with an angel.” I force a smile.
“You look like shit,” he tells me and puts a hand to my damp forehead. His other hand falls to my ass.
I make a face. “Pretty sure I look gorgeous, bangable, like hot shit.”
He rolls his eyes. “Okay, smartass. You sure you don’t want Vicodin or Oxy? Because ibuprofen isn’t cutting it.”
“I’m alright,” I say more seriously. “I can handle it.” With a family history of addiction, I don’t want to mess with any addictive painkillers. It’s a personal choice that my dad and my uncle have made before. Though, I’m weighing my sanity because this isn’t a cakewalk.
Farrow combs his hand through his hair again. “Truthfully, I hate seeing you in this much pain. You understand that’s why you’re sweating?”
I nod a couple times. “But it’s also hot in the attic.”
Farrow reluctantly pulls away from me. Just to reach the thermostat attached to the brick wall. Near my dresser.
I sink down on the bed. With my right arm imprisoned to my chest, I use my left to scoot back against the headboard. Gauze is taped to my right collarbone, and I haven’t peeled it back to check the stitches yet.
I’m about to ask about my cousins and my siblings, but I hear the old stairs creaking. People are coming up here.
Farrow nears the bed. “I’m going to get a fan and an ice pack. Need anything else, wolf scout?”
He’s the only one who really ever asks me that. But I can’t forget how he was in the crash too. How he had to talk to a porn star at the auction, how he apparently sold his motorcycle for me, how he’s given me so damn much—and he deserves every good thing.
“I’m alright,” I say. “You need anything?”
Farrow smiles at me like I stole his line, but he rubs his bottom lip with his thumb and tells me, “For right now, I’m good. No one’s crying, no one’s dying.”
Life moves on.
I nod, and he walks backwards and taps the doorframe like he’d rather stay longer. But he turns and leaves. From the stairwell, I hear Farrow say, “Walrus, you little bastard.”
Not long after, a calico cat darts into the attic and leaps onto my bed. Walrus nudges my foot with his furry head, but I can’t reach out to scratch him—I look up at a noise.
Charlie raps the doorframe with his crutch. Music still booms downstairs, so I’m assuming more family must be hanging out at my townhouse.
“Hey,” I say, surprised to see him. But the Charlie Cobalt Disappearing Act has been dying down since the FanCon. “How’s the leg?”
Charlie supports his weight on both crutches and comes closer. His entire right leg is bound in a white cast, and he rolled his sweats to his thigh.
I seriously can’t remember the last time I’ve seen Charlie in sweatpants.
“I don’t know,” Charlie answers and lowers on my bed. Sitting near me, he leans his crutches on my end table. “I’m too high to feel anything.” He scans my black and blue abs, sweat beaded up on my skin.
“I’m okay,” I tell him.
“Swallow a Vicodin, Moffy. There is a list of weak people in our families who’d drown in a craving, and you’re not one of them.”
I tense at that backhanded compliment. He just called my parents weak and whoever else he’s pinpointed as vulnerable to addiction. I shake my head on instinct.
Charlie arches a mocking brow. “The world will still see you as noble and gallant if you take a painkiller.”
I let out a laugh. “Christ, Charlie. This isn’t me being performative. I’m not trying to gain sympathy or kudos. You have no fucking clue how afraid I am…” I trail off and sit up a bit more, grimacing. Hating that my right hand is restricted.
Charlie said that I’m not on his list of weak people. But I don’t know if I am strong enough to beat a craving. And I don’t want to find out. My dad and my uncle have made the same decision as me with painkillers.
Alcoholism runs in the Hale and Meadows families. You know that.
Everyone knows that.
My dad has lectured me about addiction my entire goddamn life, and I’m terrified to awaken that monster inside of me. It’s been dormant for twenty-two years.