Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 90448 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 452(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90448 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 452(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
“Yes.” I trailed behind her and held in my irritation over Chase’s control issues.
“Good. Always keep your passport, ID, credit cards, and a pair of clothes with you. Sometimes you’ll have to hop on a plane with only ten minutes’ notice.” Lucy guided me down another pink passageway. “Sign all the documents I gave you. Especially the thirty page non-disclosure agreement. You can’t discuss anything about your job with anyone.”
“Okay.”
Apparently, you can’t style yourself either!
Lucy had scanned the area and leaned toward me. “You’ll be monitored and watched.”
Again, I waited for a punch line that never came. “O-kay.”
She headed to a black door. “Fantino will wax you to Mr. Stone’s requirements.”
“Um . . . excuse me?” My heart banged at an increased rate. “I thought I was just getting my hair done. What will be waxed?”
Lucy chuckled. “Almost everything.”
And Fantino had waxed everything. My skin ached. The person who invented waxing must’ve been beaten as a child, to the point that only a monstrous mental state remained. My eyebrows stung.
And I’m sure the tiny hairs between my buttocks were there for health reasons. They had to serve some sort of biological function.
I’d argued that point to him.
But he’d just cackled like an evil sorcerer and yanked the hairs away.
I opened my front door. Marijuana smoke hit me first, then darkness. My roommate’s boyfriend, Noc, claimed he was a spoken word artist, but he was actually just a skinny Puerto Rican guy who sold drugs and wrote lyrical rhymes that would cause Dr. Seuss to rise from his grave and slap him.
Noc was probably visiting her since the place reeked of weed. I loved Vivian like my own sister, but I hated many of her life choices. Her drug usage was one of the big ones. Second was her choice in men.
I just hope they’re not getting freaky on the couch again.
“Hello?” I entered the hallway. “Vivian, are you home?”
Giggling sounded from the living room. Huge hands grabbed my waist and lifted me high in the air. The lights rushed on.
My twin brother Troy hugged me to him. “Sis! I’m out!”
That’s why Mom was calling me.
“Hey.” I hugged him back. He gripped me hard with bulging muscles that almost squeezed the breath out of me.
“Good god. Did you do anything else besides work out in jail?” I asked.
“He’s huge, right?” Vivian giggled and walked by us on bare feet. Her long blonde curls ended at her waist. “Dude, whose shopping bags are these?”
“Mine.” I took in my bald-headed brother as he stood, smirking, in front of me.
We both had the same hazel eyes and pointed nose, but that was where our resemblance ended. When we were kids I’d joked that he not only took up the whole womb with his huge frame, but he’d sucked up the entire gorgeous gene. When he smiled his cheeks lifted with perfection, full lips bloomed, and every woman within a ten foot radius drooled.
“I’m glad to see your face wasn’t ruined,” I said.
“Our brothers run one-fourth of Polemont Island. No one touched me the whole time I was in jail.” He flashed flawless teeth and crossed tattooed arms over his bare chest. “You look good too, Sis.”
“Well. I’m trying.” I combed my fingers through the new silky strands Fantino had attached to my head.
He’d permed, weaved, and curled me into some high-end woman I didn’t recognize in the mirror. Almond-brown hair with honey-blonde highlights swung to my butt, announcing to the world there was no way I naturally grew this perfect hairdo.
Somewhere in India a poor bald-headed girl is missing her locks.
Even worse, the weave weighed my head down like a heavy helmet.
“Jazz, you look like a model chick.” Troy beamed.
“Yeah.” Vivian peeked into one of the bags still in the hallway. “When you left the house you had curls, an old black pantsuit, and the ugliest pocketbook created on earth. Oh wait, you’re still holding that coconut contraption.”
“My purse never did anything to you. Leave it alone.” I clutched it to my chest. “Anyway. I got the job!”
“What?” Vivian’s blue eyes brightened as she jumped up and down. “Stone freaking Industries?”
“Yes!” I screamed back and swayed, doing a victory dance we’d created back in high school when we were on the debate team. “Tell your father thanks.”
Benny, Vivian’s father, was out of town now, somewhere in Europe. When he returned, I would thank him face-to-face. I hadn’t even known he’d recommended me for a job. One morning, a woman called and told me that Mr. Benny Nix referred me for the executive assistant position and to start the application process.
“In fact, I’ll have to send him a bottle of scotch,” I said. “Something really expensive.”
“Dad will love that.” Vivian did the dance with me and added some extra skips and steps.
I laughed and copied her.