Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 77422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
So I’d immediately requested bids from the installer when I’d purchased the new house.
It had been my plan to get it done quickly, but I now knew it wasn’t going to happen.
Not anytime soon, anyway.
My budget had already been tight, which was why I was planning on tearing the shingles off the roof myself to save on labor costs.
Now, though, there was no way in hell I could get up there and yank all those off. I’d tear my wound open.
Meaning I had to call and cancel the roofers a couple days ago, putting my entire project on hold in order for me to heal before they could install it.
“Yeah, looks good,” he agreed, accelerating into traffic.
I stared at the glowing dashboard with all the fancy electronics and satellite radio.
My truck got two stations and that was on a good day.
It also ran like shit, and it was strongly recommended to me by every man who saw it that it was time for me to upgrade. Yeah, I got it, it was a piece of shit.
“Good,” I agreed.
“Yours gets on tomorrow, correct?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“No,” I changed the subject in hopes that I wouldn’t hear ‘I told you so’ out of him “What time do you have to be at work today?”
I knew the hope in my voice was apparent, but I just couldn’t muster up the energy to conceal it.
I hated being at his house with him. It felt too good. Felt too right.
I didn’t need to become comfortable with Dean. Not again. Not after he’d ripped my heart out when he tossed me aside.
“I’m not going back into work until next week,” he explained as he pulled into the Waffle Shop and shut the truck off. I stiffened when he got out and rounded the front of the truck, stopping at my door to hold it open for me. “Able took my shift for today, meaning you have me all to yourself.”
I gritted my teeth and glared at him.
He smiled and leaned over me to unbuckle my seatbelt, his muscled chest pushing into my thighs as he did.
I had to fist my hands to keep myself from reaching forward and running my fingers through his hair, still damp from the shower even now, an hour after he’d taken one.
Then I was up and out of the truck as he set me on my feet.
“Come on, let’s go inside,” he pushed slightly on the small of my back to get me moving.
He shut the door and locked it with his key fob, following close behind me as I reluctantly walked inside the very familiar restaurant.
This had been our regular breakfast place. When we were together, we met up here at least once a week.
The place I’d tried to return to only a week after we’d broken up just to find him and Alexa in our usual booth.
I vowed that day to never come back here, and I hadn’t, not once in this entire long, awful year.
Not only had I lost Dean, but I lost my favorite restaurant and favorite meal to boot!
Painful memories assaulted me the moment I walked inside, the sound of a table full of old men having a heated discussion about the state of the economy washing over me, and I made a dash for the bathroom.
Thankful that Dean hadn’t followed me, I slammed the door shut and leaned my back up against it.
I couldn’t do this.
I really couldn’t. Not here, and sure as hell, not now. Not after spending the last three days with him, having him wait on me hand and foot. He was literally breaking my heart over and over again, and the kicker was that he probably didn’t even know it.
He would never purposefully rub it in my face like this.
In fact, he’d said a few times that he never wanted to hurt me, and I knew that it was true.
However, inadvertently or not, the pain I felt each morning I woke up beside him, compounded with the fact that he was taking me to the places that we used to go when we were together, was really hurting me.
Deeply.
So no, I couldn’t fucking do this anymore.
I needed to get the fuck out of this place, out of Dean’s life, before this went so far that I couldn’t recover from it.
Pulling out my phone, I dialed my brother’s number, knowing for sure that he would be able to help me. That he would be here to extract me from this mess I found myself in.
“July, honey, I can’t talk right now. I’m so fucking busy, and this goddamned psychopath is fucking taunting me. Do you have any idea how shitty it is to be woken up at four in the morning with a call about a body I needed to look at?” he asked absently, speaking to me as if I was aware what he was talking about. “This motherfucker is dedicating his kills to me. Three of them. In three days.”