Series: Like Us Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 241
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
Life giveth and life taketh.
I’ve got experience with death of relatives, but not necessarily death of loved ones. I can’t say how everyone will react, but I know it’ll matter to a lot of people in the families.
I breathe out an odd heaviness on my chest and enter the Hale House. Nudging the door shut with my foot, I slip farther into the foyer.
It’s still quiet.
I can’t hear any creatures stirring except the big burly canines below me. They pull me into the living room, and I barely need to crouch to unleash the two towering Newfies.
Freed, they trot through a cracked door, on course for the kitchen. That’s where their doggie bowls are, and I’m sure they’ve got food on the brain. Before I move, that same kitchen door opens wider, but Orion hasn’t backtracked for extra pets.
Loren Hale graces the living room, winter coat gone from when he checked up on the progress of the Christmas lights outside. He’s wearing a long-sleeved black tee, arrowhead necklace, and jeans. Cell phone to his ear, his brows are all knotted up, his lips drawn in a serious line.
He’s staring right at me.
I freeze.
Should I go back outside? Feels like I’m in an old spaghetti Western with Luna’s dad, and his sharp gaze is a warning that he’ll pull a pistol if I so much as breathe wrong.
Except he’s not verbally kicking me out. He’s not waving me to go.
So for better or worse, I stay put.
“Yeah…yeah,” Lo says to someone over the line. His voice is strained, almost somber. “I know that.” He hasn’t stopped looking at me.
I wind the leashes in a loop, gauging the temperature of the room. Tense. Prickly? Maybe that’s just the hairs rising on the back of my neck.
Death.
Dead.
Someone has died, and it’d be easier for me if I enjoyed sitting in discomfort and morbidity—but I don’t. Never have. Probably never will.
“I’m not putting out a statement, Daniel,” Lo snaps. “Seriously. Okay, great…conversation over.” He hangs up, then pockets his phone, still staring me down.
I bet he thinks I’m a bigger intruder hanging around during a family death. I nod to him. “I’m sorry for your loss,” I say. “I know he must’ve meant something to you.”
Lo’s face contorts, perplexed. “What the hell are you talking about?”
What am I talking about?
His confusion mounts.
Fuck…
Me.
Shouldn’t he know?
I’m more frozen. “You don’t know?”
“Know what, Paul?” He shifts his weight.
I scrape a hand through my hair. Fuck, fuck. How could he not know? “Are you fucking with me?” I ask him. Say yes. I almost make the sign of the cross. I feel Catholic in my heart sometimes, even if the church didn’t want me.
“No,” Lo says, verging on anger. “I’m not fucking with you.” His eyes are knives.
I assumed he’d been talking to his publicists. Wouldn’t they want him to send out a press release about the deceased family member? I ask hurriedly, “What was that phone call then? The statement you’re not putting out—”
“None of your business,” he snaps. Then he expels a sharp breath, rethinking and glaring at the ceiling. “Daniel—a longtime board member of Hale Co.—wants me to say that my daughter didn’t write any of her leaked stories.” He emphasizes daughter as if I don’t know he has one.
Pretty certain she’s the girl I’m in love with.
I nod a couple times. “‘Cause you sell strollers and diapers, not smut. Which doesn’t make much sense since sex is what produces babies…” I trail off. He’s glaring, and I’m trying my best not to crack a shadow of a smile.
“I’m not in the mood, Paul.”
“I could get you in it.”
“Or I could get you out of it.”
Neither of us are smiling. “That, too,” I mutter, not wanting him to revert to the original topic. I’m stalling. “Maybe this Daniel guy should read Luna’s fics. He might like ‘em.”
Lo wheezes out a brittle laugh. “Yeah, the only thing Daniel Perth likes is when I say yes.”
“Her fics are pro-baby,” I defend. “The warrior princess on Demos has like five of them.” I cock my head in thought. “He may not like that they have horns though.”
Lo’s brows scrunch. “He couldn’t give a shit what she’s written. He just cares about numbers, and he’s correlating the blowback from her stories with our profit margin—and it’s a dumb correlation. There’s about a thousand other fucking things that could point to the profit loss.” He’s heated, but he sighs out. “It’s been an ongoing thing, not that you needed to know any of this.” He claws his fingers through his light brown hair. “Don’t tell Luna about it.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.” It’d just hurt her to know there’s discord at Hale Co. from the fallout of her writing. At least…I think it’d hurt her. But she’s been handling the leaked fics a lot better than she did before her memory loss.