Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 91438 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91438 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“This place is nice,” I said, sitting down across from where Bristol sat Danni’s car seat.
Bristol took her own seat, and we both looked the menu.
It was the, “What can I get for you ladies?” That had me looking up.
It was the man.
The same one from the other day that’d stopped to make sure I was okay.
The older one.
I licked my lips.
“Dr. Pepper,” I said roughly.
My voice sounded scratchy, as if I’d been gargling Jack Daniel’s and chain smoking.
The old man smiled, and I was taken by his appearance once again.
I’d never seen an older man as hot as him.
He was just as fit as any other man in the room, if not even more so.
“I want a water with lemon,” Bristol said, smiling at the man.
I felt an irrational surge of jealousy when the man turned his attention to her. “You got it, babe.”
Bristol smiled as the man turned and left, and I was left wondering how well they knew each other.
“You know him?” I asked softly.
Bristol nodded.
“Everyone knows him. He’s the owner,” she whispered back.
My eyes widened. “Really? How old is he?”
She shrugged. “We always get mixed numbers. His son, who I’m sure you’ll see around, says he’s in his fifties. But the man doesn’t look a day over forty. He’s seriously beautiful, and I can only hope that Dallas ages that well.”
“His hair looks like that man’s on the commercial… you know the one for ‘Touch of Gray?’ The one that you said looked fake?” I whispered back.
She nodded. “He shaved off his long beard a few months ago. He looked a little bit older then. Now he looks like a fuckin’ cover model for Harley Davidson. They could seriously use him on all their ads and women would go buy Harleys just in hopes that their husbands might look that cool.”
I rolled my eyes.
“He looks good now, though. I like his beard that size.”
His beard was trimmed close to his face and outlined his jaw, upper lip, and midway up his cheeks perfectly.
It was the type that would feel great against the inside of your thighs… you know…if I had to guess.
I’d only had one lover in my lifetime, and that was when I was seventeen.
And he was as baby faced as they came.
It was incredibly disheartening and had been the only experience I would have… probably ever.
Which was the saddest part.
“What are you getting to eat?” She asked.
I looked down at my menu, noticing that they didn’t have anything that wasn’t fried.
My mouth watered at the plethora of foods.
“Chicken fried steak, fried okra, French fries, and fried pickles.”
Silence.
I looked up to see Bristol staring at me with wide eyes.
“You’re going to give yourself a heart attack,” she mumbled, going back to her menu.
I shrugged.
“Maybe.”
What did it matter?
I had no life.
And my family had already proved that they could live without me.
There was nothing keeping me here.
“She doesn’t look much different,” the whispered voice had me tensing.
I didn’t look up from my menu as I listened to the two ladies across the aisle from me discussing me.
“Do you think she had to become a dominant in prison to get her jollies off?” Another voice whispered.
“No. She’s too small. She’s probably the one that was on the bottom. Isn’t prison a good way to get AIDS and stuff like that?” The other one countered.
My eyes closed and my cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
Yes, it was a good way to get AIDS.
AIDS was high in the male population.
It wasn’t as easy for women to spread it to other women.
That wasn’t to say that women didn’t do things to each other in prison.
Women got just as desperate as men.
I didn’t, though.
I was too busy hiding from guards to worry about the other prisoners. Thank God for Ruthie, or I’d be just another person on a list of women that the guards tried to, and did, hurt.
And the other prisoners liked it that way.
More attention on another inmate meant less on them.
Ruthie and I had been the ‘beautiful ones’ according to the other inmates.
We’d had to become quick, smart and imaginative to protect ourselves against the guards.
I’d like to say they were all perfect gentlemen, but they weren’t.
Far from it.
“I’ll bet she sold her vagina out to the police officers that worked there to get more privileges,” the nasty woman continued.
I was done.
I scooted out of my seat and started to run.
I didn’t realize I was running away from the bathroom, not toward it, until I came to a hallway that led nowhere.
Fuck!
It came to a line of doors off the back hallway.
One was marked as a supply closet.
Another as an office.
The last was unmarked.
Then there was the emergency exit.
Although I didn’t push out of it since it said that an alarm sounded when the door was opened.
Tears welling up my throat, I went to the very end of the darkened hallway and turned my back to the wall before sinking down to my butt, using the wall at my back as leverage so as not to fall over.
Wrapping my hands around my knees, I buried my face into my legs and tried to will myself not to cry.
But it didn’t work.
Tears soaked through my clenched eyelids and my breath started to come out in pants.
I felt, more than heard him.
He dropped down in front of me and placed both hands on my arms.
“I kicked them out,” that deep, sexy voice said to me.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I mumbled into my knees.
“Yeah, I fuckin’ did. I don’t want bitches like that in my restaurant. Fuck that,” the man said eloquently.
I laughed through my tears, sniffling delicately as I raised my head from my knees.
Jesus, the man was really close to me.
“We should stop meeting like this,” I told him, wiping my tears with the back of my sweatshirt.
He grinned, showing off a smile that was brilliant.
The left side tilted up more than the right, making it more of a grin rather than a smile.
But he totally worked it.
“Your friend’s concerned,” he told me.