Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 70444 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70444 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
“Sorry,” I apologized, falling into step.
The table we received was all the way across the entire room from her, but I did have an unencumbered view of her as I took my seat.
I snorted when I and the other two men sat with our backs to the inner walls. Luckily, we were in a corner, so we didn’t have to fight for a space like we would’ve had we been seated at the next table over.
As I took my seat, I allowed my eyes to trail back over to June, and Reagan started to laugh.
“You should go say hi.”
“You shouldn’t,” Janie countered.
Reagan snorted. “I told you that I was blissfully happy being single. I’ve done the whole go-to-school and try to have a boyfriend thing. It’s not something that really works. But, if the time ever comes that I am in a position to pursue someone, it’s not going to be Johnny.” She looked over at me. “No offense.”
I winked. “None taken.”
“Now that that is settled, let’s order an appetizer. I’m fucking starving,” Parker mumbled.
I agreed. I’d had a long day, and an even longer night due to nightmares making it impossible to sleep. If there was one place I didn’t want to be right now, it was in this place, trying to mingle when I wanted nothing more than to take a nap.
But, since I was trying to act like I wasn’t as fucked up as I actually was, I was playing the part.
Very well, in fact.
We were in a little restaurant in Jefferson, Texas—which happened to be the next town over from Hostel. The restaurant itself wasn’t all that busy, but the longer we sat, the more people that started to arrive. There was no arguing that this was one of the best places to eat in the surrounding area.
Something that the server told me a few moments later as she arrived at our table to take our drink orders.
“What’s good here?” I asked casually.
Someone snorted from beside me, and I looked up and over my shoulder to see June winding her way to the hallway that likely led to the bathrooms.
“Everything’s good here,” she murmured, then continued on her way.
I swallowed and watched her go, turning back only when I heard the mutters coming from the table beside ours.
“I can’t believe they still come here. Trash is trash, no matter how you dress it up,” some older lady said, sounding about as hoity-toity as anyone I’d ever heard before.
My eyes went to the older woman, and then to the younger woman, who had to be a daughter due to the resemblance that the two shared.
The daughter was attractive…until she opened her mouth.
“I still can’t believe that Coke hired her. Doesn’t he know the type of girl that she is?”
“Coke hired her?” the older lady said, then a sneer came over her face. “I’ll just have to talk to him about that.”
“Mom, don’t,” the middle-aged woman replied, confirming my suspicions that they were related. “I don’t want to deal with it. He’s an adult, and if he wants to hire the likes of her, who am I to stop him?”
“He may not be married to you any longer, but there is still a sense of decorum that he has to uphold. Think of your daughter.” The older woman gestured with her hand to a girl that was sitting quietly across the table from them. She looked like she’d rather be anywhere but there. I didn’t blame her, not one bit. “Francesca is an impressionable sixteen-year-old. You can’t flaunt that whore in front of her and expect her not to pick up on whore tendencies.”
That was the biggest bunch of bullshit I’d ever heard in my life, and just as I opened my mouth to retort, June came back down the hallway heading directly past the girl’s chair.
“Hello, Francesca. How is your science project coming along?”
I frowned.
“It’s good. Thank you for offering to help me with the political science aspect of it. If it wasn’t for you, I’d be really far behind.” Francesca’s face lit up as she replied to June.
My belly clenched for an altogether different reason. Happiness that the girl wasn’t a robot like her mother and grandmother.
Often times a child was an exact replica of their parent, and whether good or bad, those things rubbed off.
Like me and my father.
We were alike in so many ways it was eerie sometimes.
“Francesca,” the older woman snapped.
June winked at Francesca and kept walking. “Hello, Beatrice. Amadea.”
What the fuck kind of names did this woman dream up?
The moment June was back at her table, both women turned to the young girl, identical pairs of expressions on their face. Disapproval.
Extreme disapproval.
I frowned right along with them, but for a completely different reason than disapproval.
I didn’t like how they were treating June. Not one goddamn bit.