Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 69993 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69993 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Ro snorts. “Defeats the purpose of getting high, but it’s not like I’m gonna spring for an Uber if they’ll even come to this part of town.”
“We’ll walk slow and enjoy the high, yeah?”
She nods, and after five minutes of goodbyes, we hit the sidewalk and start the walk home. “That is the filthiest fucking couch ever,” she growls and swipes cat hair, cigarette ash, and who knows what else from the back of her skirt, her shirt, and even her legs. “Why do we come here?”
“No parents. Free booze. Drugs.”
She shrugs. “Worth it then, I guess.” We both fall silent, and then Ro stops. “What if you work at one of those hacker collectives or robot farms?”
I laugh. “What the hell is a robot farm?”
“You know, those places that put out false information or work together to steal money from rich people. You can do that, can’t you?”
I nod. “I have the skills,” I muse. “But I’m not cut out for jail, Ro. I’m too pretty, and my mouth is too fucking smart.” Something my mom tells me every chance she gets. And every teacher I’ve ever had. Every boyfriend, too, both mine and my mom’s. “I told you, I’m working on it.”
“Promise?”
“Pinky promise.” Ever since we were little girls, we’ve been making pinky promises to each other about everything from wearing the same color—purple, on Fridays—to promises we would move out of Angel Harbor and become bigshots, or at least bigger than was possible in this town. We even pinky swore on losing our virginity on the same night, and technically, that’s what happened.
We walk another block in silence and then she asked, “Are you gonna sleep with Jase?”
I gave her a look. “Where’d that come from?” Jase wasn’t the answer to getting a place of our own. “Probably not. He’s too thirsty and not really my type.”
“What’s wrong with Jase?”
“Nothing,” I shrug. He’s a nice guy, but he gives off desperate vibes that don’t do anything to make me want to get naked with him. “I’m looking for a man who knows what it means to be a man, who wants to take care of me in his way and let me take care of him in my way. That guy isn’t Jase.”
Hell, I’m not even sure that guy exists in the real world. He’s just some fucking Jax Teller dream girls like me pretend are possible because how else do I keep hope alive?
Ro groans and grips my bicep. “Please don’t tell me this is about you becoming an old lady again, Gia? You’re more than that, and you deserve more than that.”
“Of course I do, but I’m tired of struggling, of barely scraping by. I want someone to take care of me for a change. It doesn’t make me less to admit that. It makes me smart.”
“True. My mom always says you’re too smart for your own good.”
“My mom too. And my grandma.” And pretty much anyone else who has ever met me. “Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
“Probably not,” she agrees. “You always seem to land on your feet.”
“Yeah. I guess,” I say around a heavy sigh as I think of the one time recently I didn’t land on my feet.
Ro stops and turns to face me. “Promise me you won’t try that shit again, Gia. I can’t lose you, not now and not ever. No more trying to off yourself, or I’ll kill you myself.”
I snort and nod. “Okay. I promise. It was a lapse in judgment. A poor combination of too much intoxication and feeling sorry for myself. It’s over now, I swear.”
Ro accepts my words at face value, and we turn the corner onto our block of tract houses, side by side and in every color of the rainbow. “No more of that. Pinky promise.” I hold up my pinky, and Ro hooks hers into mine.
“I’m going to hold you to that, Gia. I swear to fuck I am.”
I fling an arm around her shoulder as we make our way to the middle of the block where our houses sat, close enough we could almost touch hands through our bedroom windows. “I’m not going anywhere,” I tell her. “Unless of course, I meet my knight on shining chrome and leather.”
“So you want to be a biker slut?”
“For the right man? Hell yeah, I do.”
Ro laughs. “Well, don’t look now, but there’s a leather-clad biker right in front of your house.”
The excitement I feel fades quickly as my flight or fight instincts kick in. The guy is a biker, without a doubt. He’s wearing a kutte and a helmet is resting on top of his bike. Other than that, I can’t see any details from this distance, just enough to know that this guy is trouble.
“I don’t think this is the guy I’ve been waiting for, Ro. Slow down.”