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)
I did, and at first, everything was fine.
Great, really.
Then the fight broke out.
I wasn’t too sure what had caused it to start, but then I saw the two men who had been fighting for my attention all night shoving each other.
I frowned and walked to the baseball bat that Amanda’s dad kept behind the counter, tightening my hold around the smooth, old wood.
Unfortunately, Tiny was a convicted felon and couldn’t have firearms in his place of work since he owned it. Hence there was no shotgun that I, personally, would’ve liked to have had my hand on at that moment in time instead of a baseball bat.
Because the two men that were fighting weren’t small men. Both of them were big, burly, bearded and assholes.
Each time I came in, they were there. They were loud, angry drunks that I was sure only came to Tiny’s because this was the only place that allowed them in anymore.
One guy’s name was Buster, and the smaller of the two was named Cable. They were also the main reason that I feared coming here. It was inevitable with these two. One of them would try to touch me, and I’d lose it.
However, they both weren’t normally here at the same time. Usually, it was just one or the other. Today, I wasn’t so lucky.
I was fucking boned.
Especially when the fighting had one man taking a right hook to his cheek, and his back slamming so hard against the bar that I heard the bottles and glasses rattle.
“Shit,” Amanda said, handing me the phone. “Call the cops. I don’t need them ruining the place while Dad’s gone.”
Moments later I had the bat off the hook and in my hand, with my other hand wrapped around the cordless phone while I gave the dispatcher details on what was going on.
After hearing that a squad was on the way, I hung up and backed myself in the corner.
Which turned out to be the wrong thing to do when Cable knocked Buster in the chin with an uppercut that sent him sailing over the bar and sliding right to my feet.
Buster rolled and used my cowboy boot-clad leg to help him stand, and I started to hyperventilate.
When he crowded me, his hand going to my bare arm, the bat fell to the concrete at my feet.
I blacked out moments later—unaware that my breathing had gotten too shallow and fast.
All I could see was the last guy who touched me, the one my father had sat and laughed with while he did. It hadn’t been so bad until the stranger had rolled himself on top of me and dry humped my tiny body. He came in his pants moments later and then collapsed on top of me for longer than my young mind had been able to count. My father had eventually forced him off of me, but by then, the damage had been done.
I relived that horrid experience every single time some man had the audacity—or misfortune—of touching me.
And when I woke again, it was to find Officer Mackenzie staring at me with so much concern that it made my breath hitch.
“Hey,” he said. “You’re back.”
I swallowed, looking at him with wild eyes.
“Yeah.”
“My name is Johnny. Can you tell me what happened?”
I blinked. “There was a fight.”
He nodded. “Do you know where you are?”
I nodded. “Tiny’s.”
He grinned then, and let my face go.
“Can you tell me what happened after that?”
I knew what he was referring to. My freak out.
Something that I most assuredly did not want to talk about.
“Uhhh,” I hesitated. “I guess.”
He snorted and turned his body so that he was partially blocking my view of the room.
The move, while not threatening, made me feel safer.
I swallowed and looked down to my hands. They were still shaking.
“Sorry,” I muttered, my heart still pounding. “It’s just…I can’t…their touch. I can’t stand people touching me.”
I looked up at him when I heard him huff out a breath.
He frowned. “Why?”
For some reason, I felt almost compelled to tell him about it. Why I was the way I was, and that kind of scared the snot out of me. Sadly, knowing that I was going to freak the fuck out and being over it were two completely different things.
I’d probably never be over it.
But what would it hurt for him to know what made me so scared?
I shrugged and decided to go for it. What did I have to lose?
Apparently, it wasn’t what I could lose that should’ve scared me. It was Johnny’s reaction to hearing the news that I shared.
“Well,” I paused, trying to find the right words to share with him about what had happened to me to make me the way I was. “When I was younger, my parents had a revolving door to anyone bad. Drug addicts. Sexual predators. You name it, they let them in our house. It got so bad that my grandfather, Tennessee Common, took me away. Only when I was ‘old’ enough, did he let me go back. But, by that time his health had greatly deteriorated, and he really needed someone there for him twenty-four seven, and a young girl still needing school wasn’t it. So, he allowed me to go back, but I only ended up looking a little more appealing to the people that came around the house.”