Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 90564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
To hell with her for being hot, and to hell with my dick for wanting her.
I adjusted myself while watching her take a box of tampons and shove them up her shirt. Amateur. An Oompa-Loompa could have shoved a giraffe up its ass and hidden it better.
“Any idiot knows you take it out of the box. Tell Jacobs I said fuck you when he arrests your ass for shoplifting.” I flipped her off, then rounded the display of his and hers lube with my heavy dick, nearly slamming into Wolf.
His brows pinched together as he glanced around the corner. “Was that Lo—”
I socked him in the gut before he could finish her name. “It’s against the rules to mention her name, fuckface.” The guys all knew this. It’s why they hadn’t brought her up over the past two years.
He doubled over on a cough. “Jesus Christ, Hendrix. She’s not Voldemort. Saying her name won’t summon the Death Eaters.”
“The hell it doesn’t.” It summoned shit-ass pain, which, as far as I was concerned, surpassed whatever the hell Death Eaters were.
And the one thing that might temporarily fix that would be me going over to Barrington and picking a fight with one of those rich assholes like Max Harford or Ethan Taylor.
There was no better cure for emotional bullshit than taking a good punch to the face right before tearing into one of those entitled dicks.
Chapter 2
LOLA
I fought the awful ache in my chest as I practically sprinted out of Bullseye. It had been two years since I’d seen Hendrix Hunt. Two years of missing him and hating myself for what I’d had to do to him. Twelve years of loving him—I shut down the thought fast.
There was zero point in dwelling on things I couldn’t change.
I crossed the brightly lit Bullseye parking lot and threw myself into the passenger seat of Kyle’s waiting Honda. As soon as the door slammed shut, he pulled away, tires screeching like the hounds of hell were chasing us.
He glanced in the rear-view mirror before the little four-cylinder launched over a speed bump with a whine.
“He’s not chasing you, Kyle.”
“They’re coming out of the store.” He sped toward the exit, and instead of stopping at the red light, he swerved onto the busy highway.
If there was one person who avoided my ex-boyfriend even more than me, it was Kyle. Though our reasons were very different. I didn’t want to be confronted with a barrage of emotions. Kyle didn’t want his ass beat.
The seatbelt cut into my shoulder when he nearly rear-ended a rusted pickup. “Jesus Christ, Kyle.”
The puff of his fake inhaler sounded. Then sounded again and again. The only reason I didn’t snatch it away was that his mom had told me it was nothing but air and it helped his anxiety.
“Will you calm down and drive like a normal person?” I turned on the overhead light, then pulled the stolen tampons from my shirt and shoved them into my backpack.
We were a couple of miles down the highway before Kyle’s shoulders relaxed. “Mom’s off work tonight,” he said.
Guilt knotted my stomach. Sandra, Kyle’s mom, said she didn’t care how long I stayed on their couch, but I hated inconveniencing her. It had already been three weeks since I’d aged out of foster care, and I still hadn’t found a place I could afford to rent on the crappy tips I made at work.
The click of Kyle’s blinker sounded before he turned into his neighborhood. “Want to watch Netflix in my room?”
“You should watch a movie with your mom, Kyle. Can you drop me off at the park by Old Man’s house?”
“Why?” He stopped at a four-way and frowned at me. “Where are you going?”
“I’ll stay at a friends.”
His brows furrowed. “Whose?”
“You aren’t my only friend, Kyle.” He was.
I’d burned every bridge I’d ever had in this town. I went from having a makeshift family with my little sister, Hendrix, and Zepp, to having nothing and no one. Kyle was all I had now.
The car behind us honked, and Kyle pulled off, looping around the block to drop me off.
I stared through the dirty window at the condemned house on the corner. In the dark, it reminded me of something I’d expect to see in a horror movie. Peeling paint. Collapsed roof. Waist-high weeds.
Growing up, Old Man used to let us play in the woods behind the house. It was condemned long before he died, but now it was as though Mother Nature was trying to reclaim it.
“I’ll be fine, Kyle.” I kissed his cheek, shouldered my backpack, and left the semi-air-conditioned car.
The miserable summer heat wrapped around me like a thick, wet blanket as I started through the weeds.
I made it halfway through the yard before I turned around and glared at Kyle, his car still idling at the curb. Sighing, I pulled my phone from my pocket and sent him a text.