Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 143382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 717(@200wpm)___ 574(@250wpm)___ 478(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 143382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 717(@200wpm)___ 574(@250wpm)___ 478(@300wpm)
Oasis Square was a primo apartment complex just north of downtown Phoenix (primo in the sense it was cool AF, not because it was luxury or anything—no way I could afford luxury, not now, nor, I expected, ever). I’d only recently moved in, but since Raye had been living there for years, I’d hung out with her a lot, and the tenants had rabidly formed a close-knit community, I wasn’t exactly a newbie.
So I figured this was some neighbor who’d sniffed out I was alone on a holiday and came to rescue me.
Thus, it was highly likely I was about to be abducted and forced to sit at a table with another person’s happy family and gaggle of friends, pretending I was enjoying myself, when all shit like that did was remind me how unhappy my own family was.
Hence, if Jeff wasn’t in the picture, me hibernating every Thanksgiving (and Christmas) after weeks of dancing an intricate but practiced dance to avoid getting invited to anyone else’s house during a holiday.
I thought about ignoring them, but on the next knock, I was reminded how rabid the Oasis community was, and I didn’t want to dis anybody this early in my tenure.
Normally, this friendliness was kickass. It meant parties in the courtyard, and there was always someone who could lend a hand when you ran out of tequila.
Now, I wasn’t feeling it.
Even so, I got up, went to the door, and then went solid as I stared out my peephole at Eric Turner.
“What the fuck?” I breathed.
Did I manifest the guy?
Second question, how did he bypass the security gate?
“I can hear you,” he called.
Really?
He must have super good hearing or the doors weren’t up to snuff.
“Open up, Jessie,” he ordered.
Ugh.
I couldn’t dis a member of the Hot Bunch either.
I opened the door, stating, “I think I had just about enough of you last night.”
Yeah.
I couldn’t dis, but I was me, so I could always throw attitude.
I stated that, but I did it shambling back because he was shouldering in, laden with grocery bags from AJ’s.
Okay…
What?
I stood, hand still on the door handle, watching him go direct to my kitchen.
He was on this trajectory as he replied, “Tough.”
He dumped the bags on my counter.
I closed the door and walked in.
“Turner—”
I stopped speaking when he started sniffing.
He then asked me, “You don’t have the bird in the oven yet?”
“The YouTube video said it only takes an hour,” I informed him.
“An hour to cook a turkey?” he asked, like I said it took an hour for Beyoncé to prepare to hit the stage.
“Yes,” I answered.
“It takes longer than that to roast a chicken.”
“Sorry, my man, you missed the turnoff to the Barefoot Contessa’s house on your way here. Just go east for about thirty-five hours and veer north somewhere along the line. Eventually, you should hit Long Island. Be sure to tell Ina and Jeffrey I said, ‘hey.’”
He smirked.
It was as hot as everything he did, so I felt that smirk in very private parts of me.
What did I do to deserve this?
Really, tell me.
“The Barefoot Contessa?” he asked.
What could I say?
I was into cooking shows, and hers was the best (according to me).
I just didn’t cook.
“Turner, what are you doing here?” I demanded to know.
“You’re alone on Thanksgiving, I’m alone on Thanksgiving. So we’re having Thanksgiving together.”
We were?
Hold on.
Rewind.
“How did you know I was alone on Thanksgiving?”
He stopped pulling stuff out of the bags to lock eyes with me. “You’re not at Scott and Louise’s with Luna and Raye and that crowd. You’re not with Harlow and her family. And your family is a disaster.”
Hold on part two.
I barely knew him.
Yes, my family was a disaster. One might even say we were a disaster of epic proportions.
But he didn’t get to call them that.
“You don’t know anything about my family,” I said sharply.
He went back to pulling stuff out of the bags, saying, “Clue in, Wylde.”
I moved to the counter opposite him (my pad was one bedroom, it started with a living room that fed into an open kitchen, the two spaces delineated by a bar, then there was a short hall with a laundry closet to one side, a bathroom to the other, and it ended in the bedroom).
I put my hands on the counter and asked, “Clue in to what?”
“What do I do for a living?” he asked in return.
As I suspected…
But worse.
“You investigated me?”
He started folding the paper bags he’d emptied, and there were vegetables and other food-style detritus all over my kitchen bar.
It was a new look for my kitchen, and I would have liked the time to peruse it, but I only had eyes for Eric, and not the usual only-having-eyes-for-him kind.
“We investigated all of you.”
Although this confirmed my suspicions about why he was there last night, such was the drama of being confronted by this confirmation, I took a step back and put my hand to my forehead, crying, “Oh my God! I don’t know what to do with this. It’s so invasive, I can’t even process it.”