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)
“I’m fine. And I was planning to call you. Just not until a decent hour.”
Once he’s confident I am without injury, he mutters, “You should have come home. No one should be alone after an ordeal like that.”
“I wasn’t alone,” I blurt out before my tired brain can caution me against it. After another hearty swallow, I murmur, “My neighbor stayed with me.”
“The one cited on the witness form? What was her name?” Even though he’s asking a question, he also answers it. “Octavia?”
“Yep…” Now I understand why Caleb pauses when he lies. Even knowing a white lie will save my father a heap of pain doesn’t make it any easier to deliver. “That was her.”
“Where is she?” The whisks of dark hair curled around his ear bounce when he attempts to step deeper into my apartment.
I say attempt as I block his path before he can leave the foyer. An empty condom wrapper is on my kitchen counter, and half of my house smells of sex, so it is the last place I want my father to inspect.
“She’s at a café, getting breakfast.” My heart rate picks up when a brilliant idea pops into my head. “Perhaps we should join her?”
Not giving him the chance to deny my suggestion, I grab my coat off the coat rack, place it over my satin slip as if it is a dress, then slip my feet into the flipflops I leave by the door for when I visit the laundry room.
A grimace crosses my face when I peer at my reflection in the mirror of the entryway table. My hair is flat and sitting on the top of my head, my eyes look tired, and not an ounce of the makeup I slapped on yesterday survived the deluge of tears that flooded my cheeks.
I look like a wreck, but my dad stares at me as if I am the most unblemished apple on the tree. “You cut your hair. I like it.”
“Thank you,” I reply to his praise before lopping my arm through his and guiding him to the café Caleb should have left by now. “I still can’t believe you’re here. Who is running today’s sermon?”
He mutters something about family coming first, but I can’t hear a word he says. My pulse is too pounding from Caleb emerging onto the cracked sidewalk in front of us to hear a damn thing.
“Jess…” He looks as unsure as I feel.
“Hey, Caleb.” I cough to clear my throat of nerves before angling my torso to my father, standing proudly at the side. “This is my father, Santiago. Daddy, this is my…. neighbor, Caleb.” When they shake hands, I awkwardly stammer out, “He is Octavia’s cousin.”
My dad shakes his hand more firmly at the end of my introduction. “It is a pleasure to meet you, young man. I’ve heard a lot of good things about you.”
I stomp on my father’s foot when Caleb says with a grin, “I hope at least thirty percent of it was true.”
My father laughs to hide his grimace, but it only stops the situation from plummeting into rigid awkwardness for approximately ten seconds.
“Well, we better get a wiggle on. We don’t want to keep Octavia waiting.”
Mercifully, Caleb clicks on remarkably quick to my ruse. “Oh… ahh… Octavia forgot about a thing she had to do. She wanted me to let you know she won’t be able to make it this morning.”
“Well, that’s a shame,” my dad murmurs, buying Caleb’s lie before forcing him to issue another. “Why don’t you take her place?”
“Daddy, he… ah…”
Caleb saves me from myself for the second time in the past twenty-four hours. “I would, but I rarely drink two ventis in one sitting. No one’s bladder can handle that much liquid at once.”
The hue on my father’s cheeks is super cute. “Oh, please excuse my rudeness. I didn’t realize you were purchasing for two.” He steps to the side to give Caleb full access to the sidewalk. “Don’t let us keep you from your date. I’m sure she is famished.”
With shock his most notable expression, Caleb mumbles out a goodbye before weaving between the gap my father placed between us. I won’t lie. I grin like an idiot when the quickest whiff of his scent wafts into my nose. He smells like my body wash, and it makes me giddy and frustrated at the same time.
He wouldn’t smell solely of my body wash if my father weren’t watching his slow trek away from us with a curious crinkle popped between his brows.
“He seems like a nice boy,” Dad murmurs more to himself than me when Caleb disappears around the corner.
“He is.” When my father’s eyes snap to mine, as stunned by the pride in my tone as me, I stammer out, “I think. I only have Octavia’s word to go off, and she’s biased. All family members are.” Needing the focus off me, I reloop my arm around his elbow then continue our walk while asking, “So exactly how much did Maurice tell you about last night?”