Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 129460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
It wasn’t anything she did.
It was something I should have done a long time ago.
I needed to face my demons head-on.
“Um… yeah, that’s cool.” She sounds uneased, and I realize why when she confesses, “It will have to be late, though. I have a date.”
“All right.” I won’t lie, my ego is as hurt as my heart, but I play it cool. “Buzz me when you’re done. I’ll most likely still be awake. It’s not like I sleep.”
“Okay.” Her voice is softer now, more reserved. “Bye, Caleb.”
“Bye.” When she doesn’t immediately hang up, I say, “Jessie?”
Her quick reply exposes she wasn’t close to pulling her phone down from her ear either. “Yeah?”
“Before going home with him, maybe run a background search. Learn all his secrets first. It’ll save you from getting hurt again.”
Her reply isn’t what I’m anticipating. “It could… but where’s the fun in that? We learn from our mistakes as much as we grow from them. That was what our entire relationship was about, wasn’t it, Caleb?”
She steals my chance to reply by disconnecting our call.
My call with Jess is still at the forefront of my mind when Jake dupes me out of almost one hundred dollars. “I said I’d crack a hundred, not only have minimal change from one. Damn, Jakey boy, you’re sending me broke.”
“Wego is expensive.” Jake has a bad speech impediment, but I have no trouble understanding him.
“It is expensive... but you earned it, so it’s okay.”
The Lego box digs into my groin when he wraps his arm around my thigh in thanks. He should have issues with affection as much as he does using the bathroom, but he stepped over the obstacle relatively soon after being placed in our care. His first house helped him a lot. Now Octavia, the team, and I will finalize the process of his recovery.
“Now cap we hab ice dream?”
I smile while ruffling his hair. “If you can find one for the two dollars I have left out of my hundred, sure.”
When Jake bolts for the exit, I thank the toy shop owner with a bob of my chin before following him outside. I’m anticipating for him to be at a local fish and chip shop around the corner, so you can picture my shock when I spot him standing in front of an old church.
It isn’t his church, but it is a church, nonetheless.
“Can we bo in?”
I shake my head. “No, sorry, bud, we can’t. We don’t have time.”
“Pwease. Priest Antiago might still be there.”
Before I can deny his request for the second time, he races into the church, leaving me no choice but to follow him. He is in my care. He is my responsibility, so I can’t leave him defenseless to the monsters who use churches as their shields.
“Jake?” I call out, my voice shuddering. “Where are you?” I move further into the horrid-smelling space, shaking more the deeper I encroach. “We need to go, Jake. Tivy will be worried if we don’t get back in time for supper.”
The fear I’m ashamed of but can’t help shudders from my head to my feet when I round the corner of the altar. His office was at the back of his church, and although he never abused me in there, I still recall him hanging from the rafters weeks after his arrest.
“Jake…”
I swallow the panic in my words when a voice replies, “He’s back here.”
When my eyes stray in the direction the voice came, I stammer out, “C-can you bring him out?”
It came from a bathroom.
A male bathroom.
“In a minute—”
“No. Now,” I demand, my voice surprisingly strong considering how hard I am shaking.
“He’s using the facilities.”
“I don’t care if he is doing a number two, bring him out now.”
Before my head can rationalize a response, I storm into the bathroom, balking when the voice in my head that’s registering as familiar is familiar. Jess’s dad’s backside is balancing against the sink in the far corner of the lemon-scented space. He is facing the only restroom door.
“What are you doing here?”
He keeps his voice smooth and unthreatening while replying, “Jake needed to use the bathroom.” I’m shocked he knows Jake’s name, not to mention what he says next, “He has a disassociation with bathroom habits, but his concerns are less notable if someone he trusts is close by.”
Everything he is saying is true, but it won’t stop me from saying, “He only went before we left.”
Santiago dips his chin in understanding before asking, “How long ago was that?”
I check my watch like my shaky hands won’t expose how scared I am. “Around two hours ago.” I curse my stupidity to hell. I could hold for hours when I was a child, but my mother didn’t pump me full of juice to encourage a familiarization with bathroom habits like I do with Jake.