Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 98992 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98992 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
And neither is indulging in one of Gloria’s Grande Burgers, which are too big for the average mouth and too hard on the average person’s health.
But fuck my health.
I work out regularly, take my supplements – when I’m not too busy to remember –, and even eat shit like fucking Brussel sprouts to help boost my iron intake.
I deserve a big, juicy, lick the grease off your finger burger, that has one of the best sesame seed buns in the entire universe.
An incoming call is announced unexpectedly over my Bluetooth prompting me to swallow the bite in my mouth faster in order to answer it. “Hello.”
Katherine quickly snaps, “Presley fucking Morrison, where the hell are you?”
“You know our policy on cursing in the building. Little ears, gentle words.”
“Good thing I’m in my goddamn car.”
Touché.
“Now, where are you, darling?”
Continuing to evade the question is instantly done. “Why are you on campus early?”
“I decided to play the good mother card and pick up Angel early for some quality time together before I meet with you this evening-”
“Oh, yeah, can we cancel that, by the way? I um…I don’t feel well.”
“Is that why you’re not at work?”
One reason.
“Yes.”
“Is that why you’re stuffing your face full of bread?”
She can’t see me to prove that.
“Probably a hamburger?”
Can she see me?
“Darling…”
“I’m just…hungry.”
“You’re just eating your emotions instead of talking about them.”
“I-”
“Finish your burger, which I’m hoping is a single and not a triple, go home, and I’ll meet you there in about an hour to do that.”
“I don’t wanna talk.”
“Sometimes we just have to do what we need to do, darling, and not what we want to do.”
Sucking meat out of my teeth is followed by my reluctant submission. “Fine.”
“I’ll drop Angel off with my mother. She’ll be excited to keep her since it gives her a reason to parade around like she’s better than everyone because she’s an actual grandmother and most of the old bitties she rubs elbows with are still just wishing for it.”
Against my own volition I smirk.
“I’ll see you in one. Hour.”
And exactly sixty minutes later when Katherine arrives at my apartment, she doesn’t knock.
She simply lets herself in.
Uses the key she has and barges into my living room where I’ve got a cranberry and orange Chelsea bun from the corner bakery shoved halfway into my mouth.
Her head tilts disapprovingly to one side, which makes her simply look more like the cartoon character I don’t think she knows exists. “Put it down.”
Swinging my legs onto the light gray cloth couch is done at the same time I decline. “No, thank you.”
Katherine scoffs, tosses her handbag on one of the nearby matching chairs I hate, and snatches the stick treat away before I can finish stuffing down what remains.
“Hey!”
She carelessly discards it into the nearby trashcan like it’s a piece of paper instead of a tasty pastry. “I did it for your own good, darling.”
“Did you?” I unhappily snap, head dramatically hitting the gray throw pillow behind me. “Because I feel like if you were doing things for my own good, you would’ve let me eat that instead of preparing yourself to ask me questions about my past and my feelings and my fucking inability to process them and my uncertainty of my entire existence that just continues to completely unravel faster and faster in spite my best attempts to keep it together!”
Katherine parks herself in the chair closest to me while delivering a stern look. “Presley.”
“Noah Collins walked into my fucking office today.”
Her expression remains unchanged.
“Noah Collins walked into my. Fucking. Office. Today. Just walked in and sat in the chair and got interviewed like it was no big fucking deal.”
“You keep saying Noah Collins like the name should mean something to me.”
“Noah Collins is Ry’s older brother.”
Finally, concern shifts as does her body towards mine. “The Ry that we’ve been discussing for my case study?”
“That’d be the one.” My eyes slam shut on an exasperated sigh. “And I didn’t know whether to be relieved or enraged when Noah didn’t initially remember me, but then he did. And then on top of fucking remembering, he had the balls to say that me and his brother had been perfect for each other.” New waves of tension pulse through my veins. “Did you know that in all the years I’ve been with Xander, not fucking once has anyone ever said we were ‘perfect’ for each other. Hell, most people don’t even realize we’re a fucking couple until one of us says something!” More anger surges causing my voice to rise. “And that person who says something is usually me! Because I’m the only one in this goddamn relationship who has ever looked at it for something other than what it clearly is which is, an arrangement of convenience!”
Her silence is almost as unexpected as my outburst.