Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68481 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68481 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Malachi looked over at me with bright hazel eyes and I tilted my head slightly to stare at him. “Is this your grandmother?”
Malachi winced slightly. “She told me about an asshole cop giving her a ticket.” He paused. “There was no mention of her speeding on her end. Or… what she tried to get you to do.”
I snickered.
“She’s honestly a really sweet old lady,” Malachi promised. “She’s just… bored. With my parents living in Florida, she doesn’t have much to do during the day.”
“I’ll see if I can drop the ticket,” I offered.
Malachi shrugged. “Give it to her. It’ll give her something to do. Defensive driving at the Back Porch will get her out of the house. She’ll get to see faces. Interact. And, of course, she’s going to want to fight the ticket. So, just FYI.”
I shrugged. “Bring her on.”
“Bring who on?” Amelia asked.
I looked up to find her standing directly in front of me with only the bar between us.
She’d pulled all of her hair back into a low ponytail at the base of her neck, and her ballcap was still on backward.
My ballcap, to be specific.
“I like your cap,” I teased.
She smiled blindingly at me. “I couldn’t really go stealing one of those KPD hoodies that I keep seeing. It’s too damn hot. Hence the hat.”
I liked it. I liked it a lot.
“Looks better on you, anyway,” Saint remarked before taking a sip of his drink.
He emptied it and placed it on the counter.
Amelia gestured toward it. “Can I get you a refill before I go?”
Saint shook his head. “Nah. I’m about to head out. Need to ask for her keys?”
I turned to my girl. “Sammy’s gonna take your car home.”
She nodded and reached into her pocket, producing her keys.
Sammy picked them up, downed the rest of his tea, and then placed it on the counter next to Saint’s.
“Thank you for the exciting night,” he said. “I’ll drop the keys off through your mail slot.”
Amelia grinned at him. “Thanks, man.”
Sammy winked and took off, Malachi following closely behind him with a wave.
Saint was soon to follow, not bothering to offer a goodbye.
Finally it was Nathan and me, and he was staring at Amelia in a way that was making me stare back at him in warning.
“You know Reggie?” he finally asked.
Amelia raised her eyebrows at him. “Yeah.”
“What did you mean the other day?” he asked, standing up and fishing his wallet out of his pocket.
“When I said ‘Reggie messed up when she let you go?’” she confirmed.
Nathan nodded.
“Exactly what I meant. She let you go,” Amelia said. “And she shouldn’t have.”
Nathan narrowed his eyes. “We were never together. Hell, half the time she couldn’t stand the sight of me. I was never hers to let go.”
“Weren’t you?” Amelia asked.
Nathan frowned and looked away.
He shoved his hand in his pocket as he did, slid a couple of bills out of his wallet with a twenty folded on top, and left without another word.
Amelia picked up the money and looked at it, twisting her fingers to fan out the money.
It was then you could see the five hundred-dollar bills underneath the twenty.
“Do you think he realizes he just gave me a five-hundred-dollar tip?” she asked curiously, watching Nathan walk out the door of the strip club.
“I think he knows exactly how much he gave you,” I confirmed. “And I’m not too sure he liked what he heard.”
She shrugged. “I don’t imagine that he would. It’s never easy to learn that you were responsible for breaking someone’s heart.”
I turned to survey her. “I’ll never break your heart, Amelia.”
She leaned over the bar as far as she could. “Take me home, Adam.”
Chapter 18
Boom-chicka-bow-wow.
-Text from Sammy to Adam
Adam
The moment we hit the threshold of my house, I slammed the door closed, accidentally kicked the keys that Sammy had dropped through the mail slot across the floor, and dropped to my knees right there in the entryway.
All the while, I held onto Amelia’s small form and took her down to the floor right along with me.
She gasped as we went down, her fingers clutching at my shoulders as if I would drop her.
She was allowed, I supposed, to not have that kind of faith in me yet. We were new. She didn’t know me all that well.
But I would never, ever, drop her. Just like I would never, ever, let her go.
I’d come to a conclusion in the bar tonight.
I may have known her for a very short period of time, but I knew in that instant that she was going to be it for me.
She was going to be my one and only for the rest of our lives.
She moaned and tugged on my hair, momentarily making me forget all about making her mine forever, and instead making me focus on the here and now.